Dick NorthCritiques

Mystery

The Mad Trapper is the true story of a mysterious and violent man who eluded the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the harsh wilderness of the Yukon and Northwest Territories during the winter of 1931-1932. It’s a mystery thriller with an historical account, making it an engaging read for those interested in true crime and Canadian history. While it may not provide a definitive answer to the mystery, it offers an immersive and suspenseful narrative with appeal to readers interested in the challenges of extreme survival and obviously true crime. It’s curious.

Great Canadian historical account of a sad tragedy.

The author chronicles a trail drive of some 3000 Reindeer from Naboktoolik, Alaska to the Mackenzie River Delta a trip that stretched from an anticipated several years to almost five years through some of the most unfriendly and harshest climate in the world.

The drive was underwritten by the Canadian Government in an effort to provide a continuous food source for the eskimos in the Eastern Arctic who had been many times on the verge of starvation.

An interesting tale of Arctic survival and the tenacious character of the men involved most of whom were Lapps or Eskimos.

The tale -284 pages- is well presented and is kept interesting throughout with the development of Men and Animal traits that made the drive as difficult as it turned out.

An interesting look at the man who led the "Lost Patrol" in the Arctic from Fort McPherson to Dawson City in the winter of 1910-1911. North traces each of the four members history with the Royal North-west Mounted Police before delving into the actual patrol itself and the reasons for the demise of the entire patrol from starvation. A very good look at the Arctic and the conditions that the men regularly put up with. Some period b&w photos. 138 pages. This is an earlier edition.

This is a follow up by North to his book "The Mad Trapper of Rat River." It deals - sometimes tediously - with his sleuthing throughout North America to come up with the real identity of the Mad Trapper. It has always been thought that "Albert Johnson" was a pseudonym. The author - at least to his satisfaction - tracks down the Mad Trappers true identity. A good read as a sequel to the actual crime story of the Mad Trapper.

This is a classic account of one of Canada's most fascinating unsolved mysteries that occurred in 1931. A lone trapper shot at RCMP officers who had come to his cabin to check a trapline complaint. The trapper shot and wounded one officer and fled into the wilderness of the frozen north. By the time the chase was over, he had killed one man and wounded two others before he was finally shot on the Eagle River near the Arctic Circle. To this day the identity of the man has been in question. Was he Albert Johnson or Arthur Nelson or who?

A very interesting true story of the manhunt across more than 150 miles along the Arctic Circle during which temperatures averaged -40 degrees.

Author followed this book up with a further book with the title Trackdown - the search for the identity of the Mad Trapper.

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I was sent this as a Christmas/birthday present from my brother and sister-in-law in Vancouver. They'd picked it up (assumedly) on their northern travels to Yukon that they'd done earlier in 2005. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical at first, but after the first few pages, I was hooked.

No one was sure where the mad trapper came from. He'd shown up in a town in the Northwest Territories in 1931 or so, and most knew him as one Albert Johnson. But they didn't know where he came from, and he wasn't fond of making friends. After a run-in with the RCMP which left one member dead, Johnson led the police on a 5-week chase through the backwoods and snow of the NWT and the Yukon.

The author, Dick North, is a northern journalist who has had a lifelong interest in the mystery of Albert Johnson. He details the manhunt as if he were there, and then he proceeds on a long exploration of who Johnson was. He goes through many possible suspects, and details why each one does or does not match up with what was known about Johnson. It ought to be boring, it ought to be tedious, but it is not. It is quite a remarkable story, and I recommend it to all you Canadiana junkies out there.½