Oil Pastel, Chalk Pastel, Graphite and Acrylic on 200 lb. Rag Paper

41” x 65”

( 106cm x 167cm)

2010

In Private Collection

Hunters in Rat River Yukon had complained that their traps were being disrupted. The police in the area, the Mounties, all two of them, set out to talk to a man who the locals called Johnson. Once at his small cabin door, Johnson pretended not to be home, despite smoke coming from the chimney when the Mounties arrived. It was 40 below and the Mounties wisely returned to Aklavik to get reinforcements.


Two days later the Mounties returned with 2 more officers, bringing the total to 4, this time with a search warrant for the cabin. The Mounties knock at the cabin door was answered with a shot, which wounded two of the officers badly. Retreating back to Aklavik, a 20-hour sled ride away, only one injured Mountie survived the long road back to town. 


Returning 4 days later, this time pissed and with 9 men, 42 dogs and 40 pounds of dynamite, they intended to bring The Trapper in more dead than alive. Surrounding his cabin a torrid gun fight began. The Mounties lit and threw the dynamite at the cabin, blowing it to bits. It was night by the time the Mounties entered the destroyed cabin to remove what they thought would be a corpse, but the Trapper suddenly popped up alive, a shotgun in each hand, fired and killed two more Mounties. A 15-hour standoff between the Mounties and the single Trapper took place. With food running short, the Mounties again went back to Aklavik to contemplate their next move. As they retreated they claimed to hear an “evil laugh coming from the trapper”. The news hit the airwaves across the country in the first live broadcast of a man hunt.


A couple of days passed before the Mounties returned to the cabin. It was the middle of winter in torrid blizzard conditions but the Trapper had fled his ruined cabin fortress. For 2 weeks they chased him in 50 below temperatures yet he managed to evade capture. The Mounties by this point employed native guides to assist the almost 80 officers now hot on the trail of “The Mad Trapper”.


Fifteen days passed before the Mounties caught up to him and once more there was a shootout. Another Mountie lay dead, a shot through his heart, and miraculously the Trapper again made good his escape, this time by climbing a sheer cliff in the dead of night.


The Mounties said, “He seemed capable of great feats and was crafty beyond belief”. The guides employed to help capture him said “he is able to snowshoe 2 miles for every 1 mile a dog team could, he must travel in the wind”. They wondered if he was a really a man at all. These quotes and his actions were broadcast around the world, and by this time the public was enthralled with “The Mad Trapper”.


Evading capture for almost 4 weeks, traveling almost 30km a day, in terrible conditions, how and where did he eat? Did he hunt? How did he dry his wet clothes? He could not have made a fire as it would have given his position away and if he could not have made a fire, how did he survive all those freezing nights? It can’t really be explained, and is very difficult to even believe. But its all true.


He had backtracked in larger and larger circles for over a month, confusing the already not looking too good police officers. By this time, hundreds of men were now tracking him. He had guns, but couldn’t use them to hunt as they too would have given away his position. He must have built shelter somehow, perhaps in snow drifts, but that surely would have made his clothes wet from perspiration and the elements, and then would require a fire to dry them.


His route led him to traverse yet unconquered mountains high in the Northern Yukon. During the worst of the raging blizzard the Trapper had climbed a 7000 foot mountain with what could only have been a small amount of food and no climbing gear with visibility at near zero. The locals had told the Mounties that trying to climb the sheer cliffs of slippery ice in the mind numbing cold would have been impossible to do even with climbing gear and proper food. But the Trapper loved to surprise.


Finally after 6 weeks on the lamb, the famed Canadian pilot named “Wop” May was hired to fly a plane (the first equipped with ski’s rather than wheels) to aid in the search. The WWI Ace eventually did spot the Trapper and directed the Mounties to his location. A raging gun battle ensued. The heavily outnumbered Trapper finally succumbed and died in a hail of gunfire, 9 bullets in all, finally ending the long 7 week ordeal.


On the Trappers body the Mounties found $3000 of American and Canadian currency, which was a huge sum in 1932, enough to easily buy a house in a any city. He also had very expensive and extensive fine dental work done in a time when only the very rich would have access to such a thing.


When he died, in his possession were:

  1. •    $3000 Canadian/American currency

  2. •    some gold nuggets

  3. •    a broken pocket compass

  4. •    a razor

  5. •    a hunting knife

  6. •    fish hooks

  7. •    nails

  8. •    a dead squirrel

  9. •    Beecham’s pills (laxatives)

  10. •    Numerous human teeth with gold fillings that were of unknown origin


Where did this man come from? Who was he? We will likely never really know....His fingerprints had been worn off and no one ever came forward to claim the body. During the manhunt the Mounties never heard him speak a word. Strangely, he was clean-shaven. When did he find the time to shave? Its hard to wrap your head around!


                                                         So much mystery… some of Canada’s best.



                                                                 Birth Year Unknown - Died 1932

                                                                         (Approx 35 years old)