Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClean smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In last week's episode, How
Speaker 1: the Wind Does Scream, we ventured into the mysterious wilds
Speaker 1: of the Nahanni Valley in Canada's Northwest Territories, which in
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century was the scene of a number
Speaker 1: of strange and unsettling deaths. Roughly twenty years after the
Speaker 1: death of the McCloud Brothers, whose story we explored in
Speaker 1: the episode, news broke again from out of the Northwest
Speaker 1: Territories of yet another beguiling mystery that was striking fear
Speaker 1: into the hearts of any who had reason to find
Speaker 1: themselves in the area at the time. It is known
Speaker 1: today as the story of the Mad Trapper of Rat River.
Speaker 1: The man was first said to have been sighted sometime
Speaker 1: in the afternoon of August twenty first, nineteen twenty seven,
Speaker 1: at the Ross River Trading Post, located at the junction
Speaker 1: of the Ross and Peley Rivers in southern Yukon, appearing
Speaker 1: as if from nowhere, wearing the standard coarsely material trappers garb,
Speaker 1: and carrying only a backpack and a hunting rifle. He
Speaker 1: promptly set up camp on the outskirts of the rudimentary settlement.
Speaker 1: The following day, having not said a word to anyone,
Speaker 1: the man, who was five ft ten with thick brown
Speaker 1: hair and piercing icy green eyes, stepped into the posts.
Speaker 1: Taylor and Drury Trading store in sight trapper Otto Poulson
Speaker 1: and store clerk Roy Buttle had been deep in conversation
Speaker 1: when the sudden appearance of the man caught them off guard.
Speaker 1: The man, they later said, had an undeniable presence, hard
Speaker 1: and resolute, and those eyes when they looked at you,
Speaker 1: as Poulson later said, made you feel as though ice
Speaker 1: water had just been poured down your back. Saying nothing,
Speaker 1: the man walked up to the counter and handed a
Speaker 1: note to Buttle, on which was written a short list
Speaker 1: of items, including tea and bacon, and six boxes of
Speaker 1: kidney pills, amongst other things. Unable to stand the awkward
Speaker 1: silence any more, Buttle asked the man cheerily where he
Speaker 1: was from, to which he replied simply nowhere. After bagging
Speaker 1: up the items as quickly as he could. Buttle then
Speaker 1: asked the man for forty nine dollars, at which he
Speaker 1: then pulled out two enormous wads of cash from his
Speaker 1: pockets somewhere in the region of six thousand dollars, pulled
Speaker 1: out a fifty dollar note and placed it on the counter.
Speaker 1: Just then, two seven year old First Nation boys ran
Speaker 1: into the store, brandishing a nickel, which they'd likely found
Speaker 1: in the dirt outside. The stranger watched as they dashed
Speaker 1: excitedly over to the sweet counter. Buttle called out for
Speaker 1: him to take his change. The man slowly turned back,
Speaker 1: pointed a finger at the coins on the counter, and
Speaker 1: then pointed to the two young boys, and with that
Speaker 1: he took his things and left. In a community as
Speaker 1: small as Ross Rivers, word inevitably spread about the unsettling
Speaker 1: Lona who'd set up camp in their mists with piles
Speaker 1: of cash in his pockets. A few days later, local
Speaker 1: Royal Canadian Mounted Police corporal Clawed Tid, who'd been away
Speaker 1: on patrol duty, arrived back to find his community deeply
Speaker 1: troubled by the man's arrival, and vowed to speak to
Speaker 1: him to find out what he was doing there and
Speaker 1: just how he'd come into so much money that afternoon
Speaker 1: he headed out to the man's camp to do just that,
Speaker 1: only to find it was deserted. Over the next few years,
Speaker 1: there was only one recorded sighting of the man, from
Speaker 1: when he stayed a few days in fras Of Falls,
Speaker 1: about a hundred and thirty miles northwest of Ross River.
Speaker 1: He gave his name to the owner of the cabin
Speaker 1: he rented as Albert Johnson, and is said to have
Speaker 1: spent most of his time there lying alone in his bunk,
Speaker 1: staring up at the ceiling. In his absence, people began
Speaker 1: to talk. Any One who lived or trapped in Yukon
Speaker 1: or Northwest territories, where the man was mostly thought to rome,
Speaker 1: was worn to stay clear of him, while some claimed
Speaker 1: that he had a nasty habit of stealing gold teeth
Speaker 1: from the mouths of men dead or alive. In spring
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty, the so called Johnson was alleged to have
Speaker 1: shown up in fought Reliance, close by to the camp
Speaker 1: of two trappers, Emile Bode and yan Olsen. A few
Speaker 1: months later, three miles south of the Thelon River, he
Speaker 1: is said to have arrived at a cabin belonging to
Speaker 1: one Steve Bradley, a man he knew to be a
Speaker 1: friend of Bode and Olsen's. According to Bradley, Johnson claimed
Speaker 1: to have some important business to settle with the two
Speaker 1: trappers and asked Bradley if he knew where they were.
Speaker 1: Thinking nothing of it at the time, Bradley informed him
Speaker 1: that they were camping out in Granite Falls, about sixty
Speaker 1: five miles away. Johnson thanked him for the information and
Speaker 1: then disappeared once again. Now a word from our sponsor
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Speaker 1: stop in Fort McPherson on the banks of the Peel
Speaker 1: River in the Northwest Territories in July nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 1: After once again unsettling the locals with his stern and
Speaker 1: solitary manner, the man was warned by local mounte Edgar
Speaker 1: Millan that he would need to buy a license if
Speaker 1: he wanted to continue trapping in the area. Johnson moved
Speaker 1: on at the end of the month, having likely ignored
Speaker 1: Millan's request. A summer slipped inexorably from autumn then to winter,
Speaker 1: with all about then covered in ice and snow. It
Speaker 1: was sometime in December when four young gwitch in trappers
Speaker 1: turned up at the Canadian Mounted Police post on the
Speaker 1: Arctic Red River, about thirty five miles east of Fort
Speaker 1: McPherson to complain about a strange white man who'd been
Speaker 1: throwing away their baked and sabotaging their traps. They believed
Speaker 1: the man's name was Albert Johnson. Two Mounties, Alfred King
Speaker 1: and Joseph Bernard, were quickly dispatched from a Clavic, the
Speaker 1: largest settlement in the region, about sixty miles to the north,
Speaker 1: to investigate. The following morning, on December twenty eighth, about
Speaker 1: fifteen miles up the Rat River, they came across a
Speaker 1: strange looking cabin covered in snow and sunk a good
Speaker 1: few feet into the ground. It appeared to be more
Speaker 1: like the abode of some strange woodland creature rather than
Speaker 1: that of a grown human. Nonetheless, smelling coffee and bacon
Speaker 1: cooking from inside, it seemed reasonable to assume they'd found
Speaker 1: who they were looking for. King approached the cabin on
Speaker 1: his own and knocked on the door, but whoever was
Speaker 1: inside simply ignored him. Realizing the man had no interest
Speaker 1: in playing ball, the officers had no choice but to
Speaker 1: return to a Clavic to get a search warrant, and so,
Speaker 1: after making the arduous one hundred and fifty mile round trip,
Speaker 1: they returned a few days later, accompanied by another two
Speaker 1: officers for back up. Once again, King knocked on the
Speaker 1: door only this time he made it clear that if
Speaker 1: the man didn't come out of his own accord, he
Speaker 1: would be forced to break down his door and drag
Speaker 1: him out. A short silence ensued as Officer Bernard and
Speaker 1: his two colleagues watched on from about thirty yards away,
Speaker 1: when all of a sudden, a shot rang out from
Speaker 1: inside the cabin and King fell to the floor, clutching
Speaker 1: his chest. Bernard and the two other officers immediately opened
Speaker 1: fire on the cabin, but as shards of wood went
Speaker 1: flying and the smoke eventually settled, all of it was
Speaker 1: to no avail when another volley of bullets came straight
Speaker 1: back at them from inside it. Realizing the cabin had
Speaker 1: been expertly made with this exact scenario in mind, complete
Speaker 1: with shooting holes dotted all around it, the Mountees were
Speaker 1: forced to retreat. Having returned to a clavic constable, King
Speaker 1: was treated for his wounds while the head of the
Speaker 1: Mounted Police for the region, Inspector Alexander Eames, pondered over
Speaker 1: the best course of action. In the end, he decided
Speaker 1: to go himself to the cabin, accompanied by four officers,
Speaker 1: three trappers, and twenty pounds of dynamite. On January the ninth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two. As Eames and its men approached the cabin,
Speaker 1: its door was kicked open, suddenly, revealing Albert Johnson standing
Speaker 1: in the doorway with two revolvers in his hands, and
Speaker 1: then he opened fire. For the next few hours, Johnson
Speaker 1: single handedly fought off the eight men until some time
Speaker 1: after three am, when Eames instructed two of them to
Speaker 1: blow his cabin to smithereens. A few minutes later, Eames
Speaker 1: watched from the darkness as a huge explosion ripped off
Speaker 1: the cabin roof, believing the man, if he'd survived at all,
Speaker 1: would be seriously wounded. Eames and the others then advanced
Speaker 1: on the cabin, only to be pegged back once more
Speaker 1: by gunfire. By the time they were able to get
Speaker 1: close to the cabin again, Johnson had disappeared. It was
Speaker 1: sometime in January when a trapper named Clark Croft working
Speaker 1: an area by the Thelon River, discovered two bodies frozen
Speaker 1: in the snow. The bodies were later identified as trappers
Speaker 1: Emile Bode and Yan Olsen, the two men whom Albert
Speaker 1: Johnson had been looking for back in July nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: on account of having some unfinished business with them. By
Speaker 1: this time, Johnson had vanished again, but now he was
Speaker 1: a fugitive from the law, wanted for the attempted murder
Speaker 1: of a Mountie. After weeks spent searching for him, a
Speaker 1: four man team, which included Corporal Edgar Millan, who'd ordered
Speaker 1: Johnson a few years before to buy a trapping license,
Speaker 1: eventually tracked him down to the banks of a creek
Speaker 1: close to the Northwest Territories and Yukon border. When they
Speaker 1: heard a man coughing from just inside the tree line
Speaker 1: next to the creek, Millan and his team shot blindly
Speaker 1: into the trees for twenty minutes solid, until finally a
Speaker 1: pained cry was followed by the sound of something heavy
Speaker 1: crashing down into the bush. After waiting the best part
Speaker 1: of an hour to make sure the man was fully incapacitated,
Speaker 1: Corporal Millan decided finally to head into the trees and
Speaker 1: to pull him out. He had not made it five
Speaker 1: meters when a gun shot suddenly rang out from the
Speaker 1: trees in front of him. Then Millan spun around and
Speaker 1: fell onto the snow as the others watched on in horror.
Speaker 1: While two of the men returned fire. A third managed
Speaker 1: to pull Millan to safety, only to find that he
Speaker 1: was already dead. When the team then tried to find Johnson,
Speaker 1: he was long gone. One night in early February, in
Speaker 1: a cabin by a creek just twelve miles east of Yukon,
Speaker 1: George Case, who'd crossed paths a few times with the
Speaker 1: enigmatic Johnson, was just preparing a pot of tea when
Speaker 1: there was a knock at the door. Kase opened it,
Speaker 1: startled to find his old companion, Albert Johnson, standing in
Speaker 1: the freezing cold outside, looking a little more tired and
Speaker 1: thinner than he'd remembered. Having heard all the reports about
Speaker 1: him on the news, Kase thought it perhaps best to
Speaker 1: invite the man in, as George Case later recalled, according
Speaker 1: to one colorful account of the story written by Thomas Kelly,
Speaker 1: the night Johnson turned up at his door, the pair
Speaker 1: of them shared some food, after which Kase played some
Speaker 1: harmonica as Johnson sang a haunting, melancholic song with what
Speaker 1: Kase described as one of the finest baritone voices he'd
Speaker 1: ever heard, and later he asked the impenetrable Johnson if
Speaker 1: all the rumors about him were true. Did he really
Speaker 1: kill men for their gold teeth, to which Johnson replied,
Speaker 1: with a little sparkle in those icy green eyes of his,
Speaker 1: that Case would have to work that one out for himself.
Speaker 1: Then coughing heavily into a bandanna, perhaps aware that his
Speaker 1: time on earth was steadily drawing to a close, the
Speaker 1: man became unusually talkative. By way of explanation for all
Speaker 1: that had happened. He told Case that when he was
Speaker 1: twenty and his mother only thirty eight, she had been killed.
Speaker 1: Johnson described her as a wealthy and beautiful woman whom
Speaker 1: he'd loved dearly. Without going into too much detail, he
Speaker 1: said he'd exacted revenge on the person who'd killed her.
Speaker 1: After that with his mother gone, life had seemed completely pointless,
Speaker 1: and that he'd grown to disdain virtually anyone who was alive,
Speaker 1: since it wasn't fair to him that anyone else should
Speaker 1: be allowed to live when she had had to die.
Speaker 1: Then Johnson finished his tea and went to bed. The
Speaker 1: next morning, he asked Case if he needed any money,
Speaker 1: but Case claimed to have declined the offer. As Johnson
Speaker 1: left his cabin, he felt compelled to ask if the
Speaker 1: man would be okay alone out there, to which he
Speaker 1: replied that he was never alone, since he always had
Speaker 1: the spirit of his mother with him wherever he went.
Speaker 1: On February sixteenth, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police search party,
Speaker 1: aided by a search plane, managed to track Johnson down
Speaker 1: near the banks of the Eagle River, about twelve miles
Speaker 1: to the west of the Northwest Territories and Yukon border.
Speaker 1: A heavy gunfight ensued, during which Johnson seriously injured another
Speaker 1: two officers, but was eventually pushed back and cornered behind
Speaker 1: a boulder on the banks of the frozen river. With
Speaker 1: officers approaching on all sides and the search planes swooping
Speaker 1: round overhead, the so called Albert Johnson had nowhere to go.
Speaker 1: He died moments later in a hail of bullets. When
Speaker 1: police were finally able to examine his body, they found
Speaker 1: he was carrying almost two thousand, five hundred dollars in cash,
Speaker 1: a compass, some hunting equipment, a dead squirrel and a
Speaker 1: dead bird, as well as a jar of pearls and
Speaker 1: a jar of gold teeth. No identification was found or
Speaker 1: papers of any kind, meaning his true entity has never
Speaker 1: been established, with many suggesting that Albert Johnson had been
Speaker 1: a name that he made up for himself. Tests conducted
Speaker 1: on the gold teeth revealed that they were most likely
Speaker 1: to have been his own. If you enjoy Unexplained and
Speaker 1: would like to help supporters, you can now do so
Speaker 1: via Patreon. To receive access to add three episodes. Just
Speaker 1: go to patron dot com Forward Slash Unexplained Pod to
Speaker 1: sign up. Unexplained, the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories
Speaker 1: that have never before been covered on the show, is
Speaker 1: now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon,
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements
Speaker 1: of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts ideas regarding the stories you've heard
Speaker 1: on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your
Speaker 1: own you'd like to share. You can reach us online
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