The Mad Trapper of Rat River
by Dick North
They called it the "Artic Circle War." In a forty-eight-day manhunt across the harshest terrain in the world, Albert Johnson endured blizzards and temperatures of forty degrees below zero as he evaded the Canadian Mounties at every turn.
A loner working string of traps in the far reaches of Canada's Northwest Territories, Johnson lived a quiet life. But when he was approached by two Mounties inquiring about allegations against him, his quiet life was upended. No questions were asked. Johnson discharged the first shot through a hole in the wall of his log cabin. When the Mounties returned with reinforcements, he was gone, and the Arctic Circle War had begun.
On Johnson's heels were a corps of Mounties and an irregular posse on dogsled. Johnson, on snowshoes, seemed superhuman in his ability to evade capture. The chase stretched for hundreds of miles and, during a blizzard, crossed the Richardson Mountains, the northernmost extension of the Rockies. No one was sure if the Mad Trapper of Rat River would ever be caught.
PB
Canoe Trips
Canoe Trips