Short Stuff: The Mad Trapper of Rat River

Join us today to learn the story of The Mad Trapper of Rat River, Canada's largest and most intense manhunt. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 0:42Josh Clark?

  Hi, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, Jerry's here too, sitting in for Dave, and the three of us are on the run to the Canadian Arctic, recreating the story of the Mad Trapper. And it's not going very well for us.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  That's right, the Mad Trapper of Rat River, aka, perhaps, I don't even know about perhaps, almost certainly, Canada's most infamous, unknown

• 1:07Speaker 01

  person on the lam, and the largest manhunt in Canada's history, conducted to try and get this guy.

• 1:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this is, I saw it referred to as like an iconic Canadian story. This guy just tore us up in 1931, made international headlines, and died. It's still, to this day, no one knows who he is. And not one of those things where like, we're pretty sure it's this guy, we just can't prove it. They have no idea who this guy is. They're starting to kind of chew around the edges of it, but the fact that he is still unidentified just makes it that much more interesting. But even if you were identified, Chuck, his story is still just totally fascinating on its own.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not like Somerton Man, because that was the most interesting thing about that, was the mystery of who he was. It wouldn't care, it wouldn't matter if this guy was indeed Albert Johnson, who was his alias. It's a remarkable story that started in July 1931, when this guy, Albert Johnson, came and moved there. They think he may have come from Sweden, according to, you know, certain people who talked to him here and there, but he was a man of very few words, as we'll see, when he arrived in the vast, remote area of the Northwest Territories, near Fort McPherson, and built a little eight-by-ten-foot cabin near the Rat River.

• 2:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and we're talking like, the northernmost parts of Canada, like, basically along the Arctic Ocean.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Desolate. In the 30s.

• 2:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he was essentially living where the guys from the Terrer and the Erebus, that we talked about, were trying to get to, when they were like, on their march down toward Canada. Had they done this in 1931, they might have run into Albert Johnson. He was that far up, right? So this is a really, really rugged, wild, dangerous place to live. And like you said, he arrived in July, and a few months after that, I think, in November, December of 1931.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  December.

• 3:15Josh Clark?

  Okay, December 1931. A couple of trappers from the First Nations, who lived up there, got in touch with one of the local police, and said, "Hey, there's this guy, his name's Albert Johnson, and he's messing with our trap lines, and he's not supposed to do that. So can you go tell him to stop doing that?" And three days later, a couple of cops just knocked on Johnson's cabin door, assuming that they were just gonna talk to him and tell him to stop doing that, and that would be that, right?

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, these are the Mounties. So these guys are not messing around. The story's a little confusing, because everywhere you look, it's a little different, but from what I gathered, there were three total visits. One visit, when he basically said, "Get the heck out of here," and pointed a gun at them. A second visit, when two guys came back, and this time, he supposedly refused to talk at all, and when they went to look through his windows, he just covered his windows up and ignored them. And then...

• 4:11Josh Clark?

  He pulled down the blind and went, "Masher."

• 4:14Speaker 01

  I guess four total because the third one was when those two guys plus two more, I think it was Alfred King and Joe Bernard and two more guys, came back with warrants, forced the door over and he shot King and a brief firefight ensued. And then finally, the fourth visit, when they brought a bunch of guys with dynamite and camped out for three days outside his cabin.

• 4:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they threw dynamite on his roof to flush him out. And it certainly blew up the roof as expected. It also took down some of the walls of the cabin. And amazingly, Albert Johnson survived. And even more amazingly, he still refused to come out and engaged in a gunfight with this posse that the Mounties had assembled to go take this guy out. Because like, like, he shot at an officer who just wanted to tell him to stop messing with trap lines, like shot and tried to kill him, right? So this guy was already a big deal by this time. And he managed to hold off this posse from taking him alive. They actually had to get out of there because they were running low on food and the weather was terrible.

• 5:18Josh Clark?

  This is, this is December in the northernmost reaches of Canada along the Arctic. Not a time you want to be outside. Apparently, the temperature was at negative 45. And this guy's holding these guys down in a gunfight. And then they leave and four days later, they come back. And now they find that this destroyed cabin is now empty. He's fled and a blizzard has covered up his tracks.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw that it was like a 60 mile hike just to get to his place. So the fact that they came back four times, when this guy probably could have opened the door the first time and said, all right, I won't mess with their traps anymore. And that probably would have been the end of it. But yeah, he managed to evade them on this manhunt by stepping in caribou tracks and from these storms that would come through. And maybe that's a good time for a break?

• 6:09Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 6:24Speaker 01

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• 8:15Josh Clark?

  So I don't think we've said yet, this, this, now there's a manhunt underway. This guy who they want to take in for shooting at cops is on the run in the Canadian wilderness. And this manhunt lasted seven weeks.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:31Josh Clark?

  From December to mid-February. This guy kept evading them, they'd catch up to him, he'd, he'd shoot at them, they'd have a firefight. Uh, one time he killed a cop, Constable Millen, um, who, uh, was like a member of this posse that was hunting him down. And he would manage to fend them off every time they caught him in a firefight. And, um, one of the other interesting facts about this, Chuck, is this is the first time an aircraft was ever used in a manhunt, as far as anyone knows.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  That's right. Uh, they got a pretty legendary WW1 Canadian fighter pilot named, uh, named Wilfred, uh, Wilfred Wap May, uh, to come in. Uh, a little side note here, uh, Wap May was in the dogfight that ended the Red Baron's life. So a very sort of famous Canadian fighter pilot, flying above for the first time, seeing if they could, uh, seeing if he could just spot trails, uh, from above.

• 9:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw a photo, um, that he took from his aircraft, uh, of like this, like, he was really high up and there's a little tiny speck in the middle of a frozen river. And it's identified as Albert Johnson.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 9:41Josh Clark?

  And then there's like three more tiny specks coming out of the wood line, chasing after Johnson. And, um, Wap May got a picture of it and it's just, when you understand what you're looking at, it's just astounding what these guys were running through.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Oh, that's cool.

• 9:55Josh Clark?

  Over the course of seven weeks, it's nuts.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's amazing.

• 9:59Josh Clark?

  And so people heard about this, thanks to the radio, which was still a pretty new invention. But this story that was kind of playing out over the news in real time actually helped sell a bunch of new radios, because people didn't want to miss out.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, supposedly this is one of the really first big news stories to be broken via electronic media. So you've got your first search and rescue, or I guess not search and rescue, search and destroy.

• 10:23Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Mission featuring a plane. You've got the first big news stories breaking on radio for the first time. One of the weird parts of this case, I said he was a man of few words, is as the story goes, this guy didn't say a word the whole time. Like, there was never like, you know, it's my right to be here. You know, get away. I'm just trying to live. Like supposedly, this guy said nothing to any of them.

• 10:52Josh Clark?

  That is so unsettling.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  It is, totally.

• 10:55Josh Clark?

  It's another thing that just kind of adds to his legend, too.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 11:00Josh Clark?

  So, um, yeah, people by this time, this was during the depression, and a lot of the public that was following the story were actually rooting for him. Because remember, this was a time when the, the public rooted for like bank robbers and

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:15Josh Clark?

  and other criminals and outlaws because the, the establishment had basically screwed everything up and taken advantage of every, everybody. So there were people who were pulling for him. And even if you weren't pulling for him, it was just astounding what this guy was doing with just some, I think he had a rifle and a shotgun. He had his clothes and he was like out maneuvering and surviving against this posse that was on his trail. And I also saw, Chuck, that one of the unsung or overlooked groups that was part of this posse were some of the First Nation members who helped track him. That this, this posse probably would have lost his trail in the first few days had it not been for the trackers that came with them.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the Leecho people were the ones who initially filed the complaint. Didn't, did you see which tribes helped out in the search?

• 12:11Josh Clark?

  I didn't. I just saw that one of the members, last name was Rat. So I'm guessing he was named after the Rat River.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Of the Rat River?

• 12:19Josh Clark?

  His family was. Yeah, exactly.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  So another part of the, kind of a fun fact of this story is, or at least part of the lore, is that at one point, they had him pinned in a steep canyon, and he supposedly scaled a near-vertical wall of ice, basically, to get out of there.

• 12:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so at this point, they're like, this guy is not human.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:41Josh Clark?

  And again, another First Nations member comes through. I think somebody came back and mentioned that they heard a rifle shot in this, like, totally desolate area. And the Royal Canadian Mountie posse were like, well, there can only be Albert Johnson. And they headed that way, and they found his trail, and they started chasing him. They engaged in one last firefight with them. And this one, Albert Johnson, didn't come out of alive.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  That's right. They got him, finally, after this long, long manhunt, a very successful evasion for a long time. But yeah, they eventually got him. No one, I mean, part of the, you know, the second part of this is just the mystery, like, not only who was he literally, but like, who was this guy to move way out there to not, you know, they supposedly, back, you know, closer to town, even though I'm sure that was super small as well, it was like a very friendly place, and he was known as a loner and very unfriendly, which was not the norm. And like, who was this guy? He just moved out to the middle of nowhere and like, didn't speak a word this entire time?

• 13:48Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm, right, yeah.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Why would he do this?

• 13:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, which is, just deepens the mystery further. By the way, one other thing, it was Charlie Rat, who was the guy that helped the Mounties find-

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 14:01Josh Clark?

  -Albert Johnson.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  What a name.

• 14:03Josh Clark?

  So they had a picture of him, there's a very, well, I guess, famous if you're Canadian, picture of his dead body on like, a morgue slab.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Wouldn't mess with the guy.

• 14:14Josh Clark?

  No, he looks rough and tough, for sure.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  He does.

• 14:18Josh Clark?

  He, like, you could, you could not know his story and see that picture of his dead body and be like, I'll bet that guy could survive in the Canadian wilderness for seven weeks with the cops on his trail.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. I wouldn't, would want nothing to do with this guy.

• 14:32Josh Clark?

  So, um, they, they took this picture because they wanted to circulate. They, everybody wanted to know who this guy was. And it made it in all the papers in Canada and the United States, and no one came forward. The details of his life and demeanor didn't match anything that anybody, uh, knew of. I mean, like, people came forward with tips, but none of them were legitimate or panned out. And very quickly, this guy just became this anonymous weirdo who did some crazy stuff in the winter of 1931.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, like you said, they exhumed his body in 2007, uh, once, uh, DNA, um, sampling was, you know, a viable thing. And, uh, that has enabled some genetic comparisons to possible relatives. They obviously didn't, you know, no one has come forward with a, with a, like, a perfect match or anything. But they made comparisons with more than two dozen families. And, uh, they have some strong circumstantial evidence, uh, that what family he may have been from. And where they have landed now is that they're pretty sure that his background is Swedish. And, uh, he has been linked to multiple descendants of a gentleman named Gustav Magnuson,

• 15:46Speaker 01

  who died in 1853, and Britta Svendottir, uh, who passed away in 1846. And they, they are pretty sure that he's a descendant of them, but nobody from any of those bloodlines has come forward either.

• 16:00Josh Clark?

  No, and this company called, um, Othrum, a genome sequencing company, they have figured out a few other things about him. That he almost certainly grew up in the midwestern United States. His autopsy revealed that he had extensive and expensive dental work. And then he had scoliosis.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:22Josh Clark?

  This guy did this for seven weeks, scaled a near-vertical face cliff with scoliosis as well. He was just amazing in a really kind of specific way.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  I think one foot was bigger than the other one, too.

• 16:37Josh Clark?

  Good lord.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Which I thought was a very strange little add-on.

• 16:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So, but also, if he grew up in the Midwest, like, the stuff he was doing, there's not many places to learn that. I mean, I guess if you're from like, Upper Minnesota or something, but I'm guessing comparing an Upper Minnesota winter to an Upper Canada winter is like, night and day.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  So they contend he was never like, a Swedish resident?

• 17:01Josh Clark?

  They don't necessarily contend that. He could have been a transplant from Sweden who was just raised in like, a Swedish-speaking community.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:10Josh Clark?

  So he could have spoke Swedish.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  That's what I just wondered about, like, ice wall climbing and stuff. He could probably do that in Sweden.

• 17:15Josh Clark?

  Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah. Apparently, based on his teeth isotopes, that he was raised in, or grew up in the midwestern US.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  All right.

• 17:25Josh Clark?

  So maybe one day we'll know.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Maybe. I mean, we found out the Somerton man's identity, right?

• 17:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but I don't think we ever mentioned it on the episode, on the podcast, did we?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we read a listener mail, because we got like, 10,000 Australians writing us.

• 17:39Josh Clark?

  Great, great. Well, if it ever comes out who the Mad Trapper of Rat River was, everybody, we want to know so we can tell everybody else.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 17:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And in the meantime, Chuck, I think short stuff is out.