Canada.
The great white north.
While this vast country has several major population centers and thriving cities, its
northern territories are among the most sparsely populated areas in North America.
But the massive northern regions of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories were once anything
but quiet.
In 1931, a chain of events began that led to the largest manhunt in Canadian history.
And it all started over furs.
This is the story of the Mad Trapper of Rat River.
Fort McPherson wasn’t a hotbed of activity, a Northwest Territories hamlet in between
the larger towns of Inuvik and Whitehorse in the Yukon.
Primarily populated by First Nations Canadians, it was heavily involved in the fur trapping
and trading business in the 1930s and was a common stopping point for traveling trappers.
So it was no surprise when a raft carrying a newcomer came down the Peel River in July
1931.
A quiet, clean-shaven man with a vague Scandinavian accent, he called himself Albert Johnson and
seemed well-supplied with money.
He built himself a cabin along the Rat River and set out to work in the trapping trade.
There was only one problem.
Albert Johnson didn’t have a trapping license.
There was a growing tension in the north, as the Great Depression in America and more
urban areas had led many people to head up north for a more reliable income.
That meant that traditional Native trappers were seeing more and more competition in their
hunting grounds, and some local trappers weren’t happy to see another outsider coming in to
set up shop.
Still, at first Johnson seemed happy to keep to himself, and he became just another face
in the Canadian north, using the land to survive.
That is, until the sabotages began.
Native trappers started noticing that their traps weren’t set up the way they left them.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the primary law enforcement agency in the area, started
receiving complaints that someone was deliberately triggering traps and damaging them - likely
to eliminate the competition for the animals in the area.
When the local department received a complaint that identified Johnson as a possible suspect,
they decided to investigate the new arrival and headed to the cabin on Rat River.
But none of the officers were prepared for what awaited them.
Constable Alfred King and Special Constable Joe Bernard were detailed to make the trip
to Johnson’s cabin on December 26th, 1931.
This was the dead of winter in the Canadian north, which meant a sixty-mile journey in
freezing cold to the north.
They intended to question Johnson, but didn’t view the case as a serious threat yet - only
a minor trapping dispute.
When they finally made their way to the cabin, they saw smoke confirming Johnson was home.
However, as soon as they made contact with Johnson, he became belligerent.
He pretended not to see them, and covered up his windows when they looked inside.
The two officers decided to head to the local Aklavik station for a search warrant.
When they returned, things would massively escalate.
This time, King and Bernard didn’t come alone.
They brought two other officers with them, and were prepared to force the door open when
Johnson refused to open it.
They gave a warning, and King stepped up to enter - just as a shot rang out.
Johnson had shot the officer through the door, and King collapsed.
The officers returned fire, but they didn’t manage to kill Johnson.
The officers were forced to retreat to get King back to the base, where they were able
to save his life.
But the manhunt for the man who would be known as the Mad Trapper was just beginning.
This time, the officers would come prepared for war.
They gathered nine men, forty-two tracking dogs, and a pack of dynamite in case they
needed to blow the cabin up to force Johnson out.
But Johnson was prepared too.
When the officers arrived, there was no sign of Johnson.
They threw a single lit charge inside the cabin, which seemed to destroy the building,
and they moved to enter the rubble to find Johnson - or his body.
And that’s when the shooting began.
Johnson had been hiding in a dugout under the house, lying in wait for the attack, and
an extended shootout began.
The officers held out for fifteen hours, avoiding being shot but never managing to shoot Johnson.
They eventually retreated back to Aklavik, hoping to get more manpower.
But by the time they were able to return with reinforcements - after waiting out a blizzard
- they discovered that the cabin had been abandoned.
Albert Johnson was in the wild, and the manhunt was about to escalate.
The hunt for the Mad Trapper had now been broadcast across Canada and beyond by radio,
and the mounted police were seeking tips.
It would be several weeks before they would catch up with Johnson again, finding him in
a thicket of trees.
They cornered him, but Johnson returned fire - and this time, the officers would not be
as lucky as last time.
Constable Edward Millen was hit in the heart and died instantly.
The officers were forced to retreat, and Johnson disappeared into the wild again.
The hunt was no longer for a trapping fugitive.
The officers were now seeking a murderer.
It became clear that the Mounted Police would need an edge if they wanted to track the experienced
outdoorsman.
That edge came in the form of local Inuvialuit and Gwich’in natives who knew the region
inside and out.
Based on the direction Johnson was traveling, it seemed likely he was trying to escape the
Northwest Territories for the Yukon, and the police quickly ordered the two main passes
blocked, hoping to intercept him at official crossings.
But they had underestimated the Mad Trapper of Rat River once again.
The Richardson Mountains were dangerous terrain, so most travellers went through the now-blocked
passages.
But Johnson took the harder route, secretly climbing a seven thousand foot peak and disappearing
once again into the wild - crossing the border into the Yukon.
The Mounted Police had been embarrassed by the rogue trader once again, and they needed
specialized talent.
Fortunately, there was a war hero looking for a new gig.
Wilfred “Wop” May had received great acclaim for both his heroic airfights in the First
World War and for his work as a pilot for Canadian Airways.
He had even been involved in the final dogfight that claimed the life of the legendary Red
Baron.
Now his skills would be called on again, as the manhunt took on a new dimension - in the
air.
His monoplane was able to cover much more terrain than the Mounted Police could on foot,
and he spotted Johnson’s tracks on the Richardson Mountains.
Coming off the mountains, May was able to see Johnson’s trail following Caribou footprints.
The savvy trapper had used their footprints to disguise his own, but there was still evidence
of the times he made camp.
Finally, the police were back on the trail of Canada’s greatest fugitive.
It was February 17th when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and their posse finally caught
up to the suspect.
The final showdown was to be on the Eagle River in the Yukon territory.
With May’s eyes in the sky, the officers were able to locate Johnson less than a mile
in front of them.
The frozen landscape didn’t leave much room to hide if you weren’t in the woods.
Johnson made a run for it, but he had made a fatal error - he didn’t have his snowshoes
on.
Slowed down, he did the only thing he could.
He turned around and aimed at his pursuers - one last time.
Johnson fired on the officers, wounding one seriously.
But this time, the officers had better aim.
One bullet found its target, entering Albert Johnson’s pelvis and passing through his
vital organs and severing his main arteries.
He bled out quickly, and the reign of the Mad Trapper of Rat River came to a sudden
end.
But the officers’ attention was on their wounded colleague, with Wop May landing and
loading the man into his plane.
He flew him to safety, saving his life and ending Johnson’s reign of terror with only
one dead.
But the Mad Trapper had some surprises in him from beyond the grave.
An investigation after the shooting revealed some shocking facts.
Johnson had traveled over eighty-five miles in the Canadian winter over his month-long
time as a fugitive, far more than an average person would be capable of.
Doctors estimated he must have been burning ten thousand calories a day with very little
resources.
Additionally, he had never been heard to say a single word - only a single twisted laugh
as he shot the unfortunate Constable Millen.
The only thing more shocking was what they found on his body.
Most traveling trappers in the Canadian North were working to make a living and sold their
wares to powerful trading companies.
But Johnson wasn’t poor.
He had over two thousand dollars in both Canadian and American money on him, and his teeth had
expensive gold fillings.
He was carrying several weapons, pieces of gold, a dead bird and dead squirrel, and oddly,
some laxative pills.
He had been well-prepared, but what triggered this surprisingly wealthy man to launch his
reign of terror in the Canadian north?
Who was Albert Johnson?
Maybe the better question is - was there ever an Albert Johnson?
This notorious fugitive seemed to come out of nowhere, and there was never any record
of the man in any official documents.
This led most experts to assume that he was a pseudonym, someone taking on a new identity
and maybe trying to stay ahead of those looking for them from their old life.
Of course, Johnson had no problem making new trouble in his new identity.
Shortly after his death, the Mounted Police sent out pictures of him around the country
and its southern neighbor, hoping to identify him.
And that’s when the suspects began emerging.
Initially, many people thought a traveler by the name of Arthur Nelson could be their
mystery man.
He had visited British Columbia, had similar guns, and worked as a trapper before heading
to the Yukon.
Decades later, a Yukon author would propose that these two men were both aliases of the
North Dakota criminal John Johnson, a past resident of San Quentin and Folsom Prison.
While the two looked alike, it was deemed unlikely that John Johnson would have expensive
gold fillings, and decades later DNA testing would debunk this theory.
It seemed like the Mad Trapper would fade into history.
The story had been notorious in its time, but soon the only remnant in the area would
be on a tributary of the Rat River, now named for the late Constable Edgar Millen.
The story generated a good number of books speculating on the identity of Albert Johnson,
including a Nova Scotia claiming he might have been their relative Owen Johnson.
And of course, Hollywood eventually came calling.
A number of songs and three films based on the story were released - most controversially
the 1981 Charles Bronson film Death Hunt - which angered many Canadians who knew of the story
by changing Johnson to a sympathetic antihero, Millen to an aged drunk who wanted to hunt
him down at all costs, and Wop May to a renegade pilot who irresponsibly shot his own men.
But almost seventy years after the manhunt, the story of the Mad Trapper had one more
surprise.
It was 2009 when the mystery was dug up again - literally.
A television program had arranged for Albert Johnson’s body to be exhumed so DNA samples
could be taken.
The Discovery Channel exhumed the body in 2007 and compared his DNA with samples from
all the most popular suspects, including Norwegian draft-dodger Sigvald Pedersen Haaskjold, who
had emerged as a suspect decades later.
The program aired the reveals of the DNA tests one by one - and every single one showed the
same thing.
None of the DNA tests matched, proving that the true identity of Albert Johnson was none
of them.
In fact, he wasn’t Canadian at all, with the isotopes in his teeth showing that he
was either from the American midwest or Scandinavia.
More than seventy years after the manhunt, the Mad Trapper of Rat River was still doing
what he did best - leaving his pursuers puzzled and without answers.
For more on current manhunts, check out “Scariest Criminals on US Marshals’ Most Wanted List”
or check out this video instead.