The Mad Trapper of Rat River

In the winter of 1932, a man calling himself Albert Johnson shot an RCMP constable through the door of a cabin on the Rat River and triggered the largest manhunt in Canadian Arctic history, a 48-day pursuit across 240 kilometers of frozen wilderness at temperatures reaching negative 40 degrees. Johnson had arrived at Fort McPherson in July 1931 with no identification, no history, and enough cash to buy a winter's worth of supplies. When the RCMP came to investigate a trapping complaint, he answered with a rifle. What followed was a six-week pursuit involving seventeen men, forty-two sled dogs, twenty pounds of dynamite, and the first aerial manhunt in RCMP history, flown by World War One flying ace Wop May. Johnson crossed the Richardson Mountains alone on foot during a blizzard, outran dog teams while suffering from undiagnosed scoliosis, and died on the Eagle River without ever speaking his name. His true identity remained unknown for nearly a century until forensic genealogy traced his ancestry to a family line in southern Sweden. The name on the grave at Aklavik is still wrong. 📚 FURTHER READING The Mad Trapper of Rat River: A True Story of Canada's Biggest Manhunt by Dick North — https://geni.us/wbpe Trackdown: The Search for the Mad Trapper by Dick North — https://geni.us/3ABUE The Death of Albert Johnson, Mad Trapper of Rat River by Frank W. Anderson —https://geni.us/JbWM 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for new true survival stories:    / @survivalinstinct   Survival Instinct explores history's most extraordinary true stories of human endurance, maritime disasters, and survival against impossible odds. 🎵 Music: Original soundtrack created for this documentary ⚠️ DISCLAIMER: Some links in this description are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the channel and allows me to continue creating free documentary content. Thank you! #arctic #survival #history #documentary Constable William Sharples Carter, the officer who replaced the dead Edgar Millen aboard Wop May's Bellanca, later wrote that the official RCMP report was a coordinated version agreed upon before it was sent south. The Yukon government's own interpretive sign on the Dempster Highway concedes that the trapping complaint which started the entire manhunt was never proven. Special Constable John Moses, the Gwich'in tracker credited with firing the fatal shot, threw away his rifle afterward and spent a year alone in the bush.