ARCTIC MAN-HUNT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 364, 4 March 1932, Page 4

ARCTIC MAN-HUNT.

Policeman Killed and Three Wounded. FIGHT BY MAD TRAPPER. (Special to the “ Star.”) VANCOUVER, February 18. A crazed fur-trapper and a mounted constable are dead, and three other constables are gravely wounded as the outcome of a series of desperate gun duels amid the lonely snow-clad wastes 300 miles south-west of Aklavik, in the frozen north of Canada. With the death of the trapper—Albert Johnson, aged fifty—there ended one of the most dramatic chapters in the romantic history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—the “ NorthWest Mounted ”. Johnson, a “ hermit of the snows ”, had carried out his lonely trapping expeditions within the Arctic circle for more than twenty years. Neighbours and police in the area around the mouth of the Mackenzie River regarded him as being eccentric, but harmThe first indication that something was wrong was received by the police early in January, when some Indians complained that Johnson had raided their traplincs and stolen beaver and marten furs worth hundreds of pounds. Through the ice and snow, with the temperature 15 degrees below zero, two members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police set out with dog teams to seek an explanation from Johnson concerning the Indians’*charges. Unsuspectingly they drove up to the trapper's cabin, but they were greeted by a burst of rifle fire. Constable King fell dangerously wounded, and it was only the heroic efforts of his colleague, Constable M’Donnel, that got the wounded man through a terrific blizzard to the police post at Aklavik. Desperate Resistance. At short intervals, four other expeditions were made to the cabin, when Johnson continued to put up a desperate resistance. Met by well-directed rifle fire, one expedition, comprising six constables, besieged the cabin for fifteen hours, and eventually bombed it. Then they rushed up, expecting to find the mad trapper dead. Instead, he appeared with an automatic pictol in each hand, and the police had to retreat. Johnson had been saved from death by an ice shelter he had hastily constructed. In the cover of the darkness Johnson crept from the ruined cabin that night. Eluding the police patrol, he escaped to the west. Swifter means of transport were then

sought by the police to continue their grim man-hunt —an aeroplane was rushed north from Vancouver. Trail Seen from Air. From the air Johnson’s trail was clearly discernible. The mad trapper, struggling on through the snows, was soon overtaken, but he put up another determined stand behind a log barricade. Constable Millen was killed, and another constable was wounded. , In the aeroplane the injured man was hurried back to the nearest post for treatment. A blizzard swept the area, the temperature dropped to 50 degrees below zero, and for a week it was impossible for the police to resume the chase. Eventually the ’plane was able to take off again, and Johnson was espied crossing an open plain, a few miles from the Alaskan border. Landing safely on a frozen lake, two constables continued the pursuit on foot. When they were still 500 yards away, the mad trapper opened fire. Fifteen rifle shots whined across the snow before Johnson was killed. In the meantime Constable Ilcrsey had been wounded twice. Once more the ’plane acted as an aerial ambulance. and Ilersey was taken to the hospital at Aklavik. The snowdrift where he fell is the mad trapper’s grave.