“The Mad Trapper”: Albert Johnson’s Murderous Spree Little is known about the "Mad Trapper of Rat River" - Albert Johnson - who was shot and killed by the RCMP after a massive manhunt through the Yukon over 48 grueling days, through 240 km if the roughest terrain in the country. It is a story of almost superhuman survival skills in pursuit of an individual who killed without any apparent motive. Do the Mounties always get their man? Back to Lecture Outline

PowerPoint Slides

Reading

Sergeant Major 'Nash' Neary, "A Northern Adventure," Canadian Army Journal 2/3 (1948) [LINK]

Further Reading:

Anderson, Frank W. Death of Albert Johnson. Surrey, BC: Frontier Books, 1968.

Bailey, Nancy. "Imaginative and historical truth in Wiebe's The Mad Trapper," Journal of Canadian Studies v. 20 (Summer 1985). 70-9.

Jennings, John. "The mad trapper in literature and film," Journal of Canadian Studies v. 20 (Summer 1985). 80-91.

Katz, Helena. The Mad Trapper: The Incredible Tale of a Famous Canadian Manhunt. Altitude Publishing, 2004.

Kelley, Thomas P. Red River Trapper: The Story of Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper. Paper Jacks, 1972.

Kroetsch, Robert. Stone Hammer Poems. Oolichan Books, 1976.

McCarthy, Leslie, “You Need to Tell That True Albert Johnson Story Like We Know it: Telling The Albert Johnson, The Mad Trapper of Rat River Narratives." M.A. thesis. Peterborough: Trent University, 2005.

Messent, Peter. “Rudy Wiebe, Albert Johnson and Canadian Regional Literature,” British Journal of Canadian Studies (1993).

North, Dick. The Mad Trapper of Rat River. Toronto: Macmillan, 1972.

---. Trackdown: The Search for the Mad Trapper. Toronto: MacMillan, 1989.

Weibe, Rudy. "The Death and Life of Albert Johnson: Collected Notes on a Possible Legend,"in D. Bessai and D. Jackel, eds. Figures in a Ground. Saskatoon: Prairie Books, 1978.

---. The Mad Trapper. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1980.

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