WEBVTT - Season 06 Episode 23 Extra: Out There Alone 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:16.040 Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClean smith, where 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.520 for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.560 and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:26.279 it into the previous show. In last week's episode, How 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.480 the Wind Does Scream, we ventured into the mysterious wilds 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:35.320 of the Nahanni Valley in Canada's Northwest Territories, which in 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.400 the early twentieth century was the scene of a number 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:43.760 of strange and unsettling deaths. Roughly twenty years after the 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.159 death of the McCloud Brothers, whose story we explored in 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.920 the episode, news broke again from out of the Northwest 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:55.480 Territories of yet another beguiling mystery that was striking fear 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.280 into the hearts of any who had reason to find 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:02.120 themselves in the area at the time. It is known 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.360 today as the story of the Mad Trapper of Rat River. 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.759 The man was first said to have been sighted sometime 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:20.880 in the afternoon of August twenty first, nineteen twenty seven, 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.960 at the Ross River Trading Post, located at the junction 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:29.840 of the Ross and Peley Rivers in southern Yukon, appearing 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:35.000 as if from nowhere, wearing the standard coarsely material trappers garb, 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.039 and carrying only a backpack and a hunting rifle. He 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:43.200 promptly set up camp on the outskirts of the rudimentary settlement. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.000 The following day, having not said a word to anyone, 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.360 the man, who was five ft ten with thick brown 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:57.440 hair and piercing icy green eyes, stepped into the posts. 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:03.560 Taylor and Drury Trading store in sight trapper Otto Poulson 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.840 and store clerk Roy Buttle had been deep in conversation 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.600 when the sudden appearance of the man caught them off guard. 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:17.040 The man, they later said, had an undeniable presence, hard 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.720 and resolute, and those eyes when they looked at you, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.400 as Poulson later said, made you feel as though ice 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:31.120 water had just been poured down your back. Saying nothing, 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.440 the man walked up to the counter and handed a 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.200 note to Buttle, on which was written a short list 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.720 of items, including tea and bacon, and six boxes of 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:48.480 kidney pills, amongst other things. Unable to stand the awkward 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.800 silence any more, Buttle asked the man cheerily where he 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:59.760 was from, to which he replied simply nowhere. After bagging 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.919 up the items as quickly as he could. Buttle then 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.440 asked the man for forty nine dollars, at which he 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.920 then pulled out two enormous wads of cash from his 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:14.880 pockets somewhere in the region of six thousand dollars, pulled 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.320 out a fifty dollar note and placed it on the counter. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.400 Just then, two seven year old First Nation boys ran 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.480 into the store, brandishing a nickel, which they'd likely found 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.920 in the dirt outside. The stranger watched as they dashed 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:37.560 excitedly over to the sweet counter. Buttle called out for 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:42.280 him to take his change. The man slowly turned back, 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.240 pointed a finger at the coins on the counter, and 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.240 then pointed to the two young boys, and with that 0:03:51.000 --> 0:04:01.480 he took his things and left. In a community as 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:06.640 small as Ross Rivers, word inevitably spread about the unsettling 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.560 Lona who'd set up camp in their mists with piles 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:15.560 of cash in his pockets. A few days later, local 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:20.960 Royal Canadian Mounted Police corporal Clawed Tid, who'd been away 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:25.520 on patrol duty, arrived back to find his community deeply 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.039 troubled by the man's arrival, and vowed to speak to 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.039 him to find out what he was doing there and 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.159 just how he'd come into so much money that afternoon 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.720 he headed out to the man's camp to do just that, 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:48.360 only to find it was deserted. Over the next few years, 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.360 there was only one recorded sighting of the man, from 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.039 when he stayed a few days in fras Of Falls, 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.320 about a hundred and thirty miles northwest of Ross River. 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.680 He gave his name to the owner of the cabin 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.320 he rented as Albert Johnson, and is said to have 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.920 spent most of his time there lying alone in his bunk, 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:16.120 staring up at the ceiling. In his absence, people began 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:20.200 to talk. Any One who lived or trapped in Yukon 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.520 or Northwest territories, where the man was mostly thought to rome, 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.960 was worn to stay clear of him, while some claimed 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.400 that he had a nasty habit of stealing gold teeth 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:39.160 from the mouths of men dead or alive. In spring 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.760 nineteen thirty, the so called Johnson was alleged to have 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.320 shown up in fought Reliance, close by to the camp 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:52.720 of two trappers, Emile Bode and yan Olsen. A few 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.160 months later, three miles south of the Thelon River, he 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.120 is said to have arrived at a cabin belonging to 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.960 one Steve Bradley, a man he knew to be a 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:09.560 friend of Bode and Olsen's. According to Bradley, Johnson claimed 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.720 to have some important business to settle with the two 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:17.040 trappers and asked Bradley if he knew where they were. 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.479 Thinking nothing of it at the time, Bradley informed him 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:26.640 that they were camping out in Granite Falls, about sixty 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:31.680 five miles away. Johnson thanked him for the information and 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:42.040 then disappeared once again. Now a word from our sponsor 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.040 Better Help. It can be tough to train your brain 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.880 to stay in problem solving mode when faced with a 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.280 challenge in life, but when you learn how to find 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.040 your own solutions, there's no better feeling. A therapist can 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.080 help you become a better problem solver, making it easy 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.359 to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small. 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:05.040 Better Help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.640 they make it easy and free to change therapists if needed. 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:13.400 It's more affordable than traditional offline therapy, and financial aid 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:17.120 is available. 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Slash unexplained one zero during a brief 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.559 stop in Fort McPherson on the banks of the Peel 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.960 River in the Northwest Territories in July nineteen thirty one. 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.120 After once again unsettling the locals with his stern and 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.640 solitary manner, the man was warned by local mounte Edgar 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.640 Millan that he would need to buy a license if 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:13.600 he wanted to continue trapping in the area. Johnson moved 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.840 on at the end of the month, having likely ignored 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:24.080 Millan's request. A summer slipped inexorably from autumn then to winter, 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.440 with all about then covered in ice and snow. It 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:32.599 was sometime in December when four young gwitch in trappers 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.360 turned up at the Canadian Mounted Police post on the 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:40.559 Arctic Red River, about thirty five miles east of Fort 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.240 McPherson to complain about a strange white man who'd been 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:50.559 throwing away their baked and sabotaging their traps. They believed 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:57.040 the man's name was Albert Johnson. Two Mounties, Alfred King 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:01.440 and Joseph Bernard, were quickly dispatched from a Clavic, the 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.480 largest settlement in the region, about sixty miles to the north, 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:11.680 to investigate. The following morning, on December twenty eighth, about 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.400 fifteen miles up the Rat River, they came across a 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:20.240 strange looking cabin covered in snow and sunk a good 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.719 few feet into the ground. It appeared to be more 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.800 like the abode of some strange woodland creature rather than 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:33.240 that of a grown human. Nonetheless, smelling coffee and bacon 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:38.480 cooking from inside, it seemed reasonable to assume they'd found 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:43.000 who they were looking for. King approached the cabin on 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.960 his own and knocked on the door, but whoever was 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:52.640 inside simply ignored him. Realizing the man had no interest 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.240 in playing ball, the officers had no choice but to 0:09:56.320 --> 0:10:00.520 return to a Clavic to get a search warrant, and so, 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.000 after making the arduous one hundred and fifty mile round trip, 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.160 they returned a few days later, accompanied by another two 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:14.480 officers for back up. Once again, King knocked on the 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:18.000 door only this time he made it clear that if 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.760 the man didn't come out of his own accord, he 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.959 would be forced to break down his door and drag 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:29.160 him out. A short silence ensued as Officer Bernard and 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.920 his two colleagues watched on from about thirty yards away, 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.800 when all of a sudden, a shot rang out from 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:41.080 inside the cabin and King fell to the floor, clutching 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:46.199 his chest. Bernard and the two other officers immediately opened 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.600 fire on the cabin, but as shards of wood went 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.800 flying and the smoke eventually settled, all of it was 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.520 to no avail when another volley of bullets came straight 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:02.480 back at them from inside it. Realizing the cabin had 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:07.319 been expertly made with this exact scenario in mind, complete 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.040 with shooting holes dotted all around it, the Mountees were 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:16.560 forced to retreat. Having returned to a clavic constable, King 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.120 was treated for his wounds while the head of the 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:24.480 Mounted Police for the region, Inspector Alexander Eames, pondered over 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:29.000 the best course of action. In the end, he decided 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.959 to go himself to the cabin, accompanied by four officers, 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:39.000 three trappers, and twenty pounds of dynamite. On January the ninth, 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.480 nineteen thirty two. As Eames and its men approached the cabin, 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:49.520 its door was kicked open, suddenly, revealing Albert Johnson standing 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.800 in the doorway with two revolvers in his hands, and 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:59.520 then he opened fire. For the next few hours, Johnson 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.600 single handedly fought off the eight men until some time 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.880 after three am, when Eames instructed two of them to 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:13.840 blow his cabin to smithereens. A few minutes later, Eames 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.760 watched from the darkness as a huge explosion ripped off 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:22.560 the cabin roof, believing the man, if he'd survived at all, 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:27.120 would be seriously wounded. Eames and the others then advanced 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.280 on the cabin, only to be pegged back once more 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.320 by gunfire. By the time they were able to get 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:46.560 close to the cabin again, Johnson had disappeared. It was 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:51.160 sometime in January when a trapper named Clark Croft working 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:55.720 an area by the Thelon River, discovered two bodies frozen 0:12:55.760 --> 0:13:00.559 in the snow. The bodies were later identified as trappers 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:05.000 Emile Bode and Yan Olsen, the two men whom Albert 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:09.160 Johnson had been looking for back in July nineteen thirty 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:14.440 on account of having some unfinished business with them. By 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:18.839 this time, Johnson had vanished again, but now he was 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.640 a fugitive from the law, wanted for the attempted murder 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:27.439 of a Mountie. After weeks spent searching for him, a 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:32.160 four man team, which included Corporal Edgar Millan, who'd ordered 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.840 Johnson a few years before to buy a trapping license, 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.400 eventually tracked him down to the banks of a creek 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:44.520 close to the Northwest Territories and Yukon border. When they 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.720 heard a man coughing from just inside the tree line 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.520 next to the creek, Millan and his team shot blindly 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:56.160 into the trees for twenty minutes solid, until finally a 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.960 pained cry was followed by the sound of something heavy 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:05.040 crashing down into the bush. After waiting the best part 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.000 of an hour to make sure the man was fully incapacitated, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:13.760 Corporal Millan decided finally to head into the trees and 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.480 to pull him out. He had not made it five 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.320 meters when a gun shot suddenly rang out from the 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:24.640 trees in front of him. Then Millan spun around and 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.440 fell onto the snow as the others watched on in horror. 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.520 While two of the men returned fire. A third managed 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.920 to pull Millan to safety, only to find that he 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:41.960 was already dead. When the team then tried to find Johnson, 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:48.120 he was long gone. One night in early February, in 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.800 a cabin by a creek just twelve miles east of Yukon, 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.000 George Case, who'd crossed paths a few times with the 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:00.560 enigmatic Johnson, was just preparing a pot of tea when 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.800 there was a knock at the door. Kase opened it, 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:08.880 startled to find his old companion, Albert Johnson, standing in 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.080 the freezing cold outside, looking a little more tired and 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.120 thinner than he'd remembered. Having heard all the reports about 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.480 him on the news, Kase thought it perhaps best to 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:33.320 invite the man in, as George Case later recalled, according 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.280 to one colorful account of the story written by Thomas Kelly, 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.320 the night Johnson turned up at his door, the pair 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:45.400 of them shared some food, after which Kase played some 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:51.080 harmonica as Johnson sang a haunting, melancholic song with what 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.360 Kase described as one of the finest baritone voices he'd 0:15:55.400 --> 0:16:01.240 ever heard, and later he asked the impenetrable Johnson if 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.680 all the rumors about him were true. Did he really 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.840 kill men for their gold teeth, to which Johnson replied, 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.720 with a little sparkle in those icy green eyes of his, 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.720 that Case would have to work that one out for himself. 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.880 Then coughing heavily into a bandanna, perhaps aware that his 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:27.000 time on earth was steadily drawing to a close, the 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:32.600 man became unusually talkative. By way of explanation for all 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.480 that had happened. He told Case that when he was 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:40.000 twenty and his mother only thirty eight, she had been killed. 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.000 Johnson described her as a wealthy and beautiful woman whom 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:49.800 he'd loved dearly. Without going into too much detail, he 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.280 said he'd exacted revenge on the person who'd killed her. 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:58.800 After that with his mother gone, life had seemed completely pointless, 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.960 and that he'd grown to disdain virtually anyone who was alive, 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.800 since it wasn't fair to him that anyone else should 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.720 be allowed to live when she had had to die. 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:16.480 Then Johnson finished his tea and went to bed. The 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.040 next morning, he asked Case if he needed any money, 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:24.320 but Case claimed to have declined the offer. As Johnson 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:28.000 left his cabin, he felt compelled to ask if the 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.639 man would be okay alone out there, to which he 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.480 replied that he was never alone, since he always had 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.800 the spirit of his mother with him wherever he went. 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:50.719 On February sixteenth, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police search party, 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.720 aided by a search plane, managed to track Johnson down 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.560 near the banks of the Eagle River, about twelve miles 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.000 to the west of the Northwest Territories and Yukon border. 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:08.240 A heavy gunfight ensued, during which Johnson seriously injured another 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.760 two officers, but was eventually pushed back and cornered behind 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.639 a boulder on the banks of the frozen river. With 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:21.280 officers approaching on all sides and the search planes swooping 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:26.600 round overhead, the so called Albert Johnson had nowhere to go. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:33.240 He died moments later in a hail of bullets. When 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:37.000 police were finally able to examine his body, they found 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:41.360 he was carrying almost two thousand, five hundred dollars in cash, 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:46.480 a compass, some hunting equipment, a dead squirrel and a 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:50.520 dead bird, as well as a jar of pearls and 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:56.840 a jar of gold teeth. No identification was found or 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:01.320 papers of any kind, meaning his true entity has never 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:06.160 been established, with many suggesting that Albert Johnson had been 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:11.719 a name that he made up for himself. Tests conducted 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.439 on the gold teeth revealed that they were most likely 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:23.840 to have been his own. If you enjoy Unexplained and 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.280 would like to help supporters, you can now do so 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.280 via Patreon. To receive access to add three episodes. Just 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.840 go to patron dot com Forward Slash Unexplained Pod to 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:38.440 sign up. Unexplained, the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:40.840 that have never before been covered on the show, is 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.760 now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.240 Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.480 of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.159 Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.760 you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.960 touch with any thoughts ideas regarding the stories you've heard 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.639 on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.160 own you'd like to share. You can reach us online 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:12.160 at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:17.359 and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast