|
|
||||
|
|
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN Without a sled to carry Constable Millen's body out of the narrow canyon, the three volunteers - Frank Riddell, Karl Gardlund and Noel Verville - were forced to abandon the corpse on a hastily-constructed platform just one hundred feet from Johnson's camp. Hungry, half-frozen and dismayed by their friend's death and their defeat, they retreated through the night back to their camp on the Rat River. They found Riddell's Signal Corps colleague, Earl Hersey, and a guide, Lazarus Sittichinli, waiting for them there with desperately-needed provisions. In a thin canvas tent, crowded around a small stove, it was decided that Riddell would carry the news of Millen's death to Inspector Eames in Aklavik. Despite two weeks spent in the open at 40 below zero with little food, his dog team was still the strongest. Sittichinli would go with him, as conditions were so bad due to heavy snowfall and the long series of blizzards that it wasn't safe for even a veteran Northern traveler such as Riddell to undertake the one hundred mile journey alone. Riddell and Sittichinli left immediately, intending to travel all night and all through the next day even though both men had been without sleep for twenty-four hours or more. Hersey, Gardlund and Verville stayed on the Rat to guard the canyon where Johnson was hiding. The Army sergeant and the two trappers had determined that they would not attempt to attack Johnson again without more men and at least one Mountie among them. It was hoped that Johnson's determination and apparent vigor would be weakened by a few more days of brutal cold with no shelter or supplies. Yet there was one task the three volunteers must accomplish while awaiting reinforcement: that of retrieving Millen's body before it could be destroyed by bears, wolves or wolverines. The next morning, January 31st, the three men crept up the canyon. When they reached the platform, they found Johnson's tracks in the snow all around it. During the night the fugitive had ventured out of his side-canyon hideout to examine and perhaps search the dead Mountie for food or ammunition. Meanwhile Sittichinli and Riddell forced their way north across the Delta to Aklavik. The trail Sittichinli had broken just the day before with Hersey and the supplies they carried had already been covered with heavy snow. The two men, already burdened by the news of Millen's death, had to stomp a new trail with their snowshoes for the dogs and the sled to follow. With an exhausting effort, they reached Aklavik in a single day. They reported the gunfight in the unnamed canyon to Inspector Eames. The Mounties had now lost three men - Millen killed, King still hospitalized with a bullet wound through the chest, and McDowell incapacitated by his twice-injured knee. Johnson's determination and endurance stunned the Northern community, and the report radioed to the outside world fed the growing media frenzy. The inspector, who had been toiling for days to equip a new and larger posse, now realized that an even-greater force than what he had previously imagined was going to be required, as well as something innovative and unprecedented. He radioed his commander in Edmonton, who telegraphed his request to Ottawa, the Canadian capitol. "EAMES REPORTS ALBERT JOHNSON LOCATED IN ENTRENCHED POSITION THIRTY MILES UP RAT RIVER WHEN ATTACKED HE SHOT AND KILLED CONSTABLE E. MILLEN STOP EAMES REQUESTS AIRPLANE BE REQUISITIONED TO CARRY SUPPLIES AND ATTACK POSITION STOP IMPOSSIBLE TO MAINTAIN PARTY IN POSITION WITH PRESENT EQUIPMENT STOP PLEASE AUTHORIZE BY WIRE" The Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Minister of Justice approved the use of a plane. In addition, they noted in their confirmation, "As supply gas bombs may be useful … endeavor to borrow from Alberta Provincial Police before plane leaves Edmonton." A ski-mounted plane was immediately leased from Western Canadian Airways, to be armed with tear gas bombs and piloted by W.R. "Wop" May. Thirty-five-year-old Captain May was already well-known throughout Canada. In the First World War he had flown the plane being chased by Baron von Richthofen, a.k.a. the "Red Baron," when that notorious German was finally shot down and killed. May had gone on to personally down thirteen enemy planes - a feat for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1918. He was famous in the North, as well, for having flown an antitoxin serum to northern Alberta during a diphtheria epidemic in early January 1929. He made the 600-mile trip in an open-cockpit aircraft despite the ground temperature being thirty degrees below zero and the wind-chill far exceeding that. Upon arrival in the desperate village, May was so numb he had to be carried from the plane. May had been following the manhunt in the newspapers and on the radio from his home in Fort McMurray, Alberta. He eagerly agreed to participate. A load of tear gas bombs were ferried to him from Edmonton. When they arrived on February 2nd, May was already in the enclosed cockpit of his black-and-orange Bellanca monoplane with the engine idling. With him were his mechanic, Jack Bowen, and an R.C.M.P. constable named William Carter. The three men immediately began the 1,500 mile flight north across all-but-unpopulated forests. Eames had sent out another message via the radio on January 31st, this one to the entire Mackenzie Delta district and the Yukon villages of Rampart House, Old Crow, and La Pierre House. It stated: "Quartermaster Sergeant Frank Riddell arrived here today after making a one-hundred mile trip and reports that Constable Millen was shot and killed by Albert Johnson, thirty miles up the Rat River. Constable Millen and party came on Johnson in dense brush. Inspector Eames requests that every available man, carrying rifle, ammunition, food and dog feed with dog team, proceed immediately to a point seven miles up the Rat River where he will meet them. Albert Johnson is described as follows: age … thirty-five to forty years; height … about five feet eight inches; build … medium, walks with a habitual stoop; hair … light-colored; eyes … pale blue; usually clean-shaven; speech … talks with a slight Scandinavian accent, is a good workman and good shot. Inspector Eames wants every available man as soon as possible from all districts fully equipped. Johnson is to be shot on sight." * * * Well-armed, trail-toughened men began driving their dog teams to the Rat River. From Aklavik, three men were sent to relieve Gardlund and Verville and to support Earl Hersey. Hersey, despite not being a policeman, was at least a Sergeant in the Canadian Signal Corps and was nominally in command on the Rat River. The three replacements were R.C.M.P. Special Constable Hatting, Ernest Sutherland, a trapper and veteran of the siege on the cabin, and Thomas Murray, an Anglican missionary. From the Yukon side of the mountains came twenty-six year-old Constable Sid May (no relation to Captain "Wop" May) and a native guide, Special Constable John Moses. They brought with them nearly five hundred pounds of frozen fish for dog food and four volunteers; two natives and two local white trappers. One of these trappers, Frank Jackson, had been a sharpshooter with the United States Army in the First World War. Inspector Eames had specifically requested his enlistment over the radio. Although basic survival required most men in the North to be a very good shot with a rifle, it was thought that Jackson's skills would be particularly useful in killing Albert Johnson. This Yukon party traveled over the mountains via McDougall Pass, at the headwaters of the Rat River and descended the eastern side of the mountains to the rendezvous. Other men, living and trapping in the bush, responded to Aklavik to place themselves at Eames' disposal. Arriving with them were families from all over the Delta, fearful of the supposed madman prowling about the wilderness. All the northern communities in the vicinity - Fort McPherson and Arctic Red River on the Delta, and Old Crow and La Pierre House in the Yukon - received a similar influx of refugees. Inspector Eames himself left Aklavik in the early darkness on February 2nd, still not having heard whether his request for a plane would be granted. With him this time were Frank Riddell and Lazarus Sittichinli (both having received only a single day's rest, food and time for thawing out), as well as Knut Lang, who had repeatedly demonstrated tremendous courage during the siege, and five of the hardiest of the new volunteers. On his sled Riddell carried the portable radio which he and Earl Hersey had earlier constructed. Just miles outside of Aklavik, they were hit by a blizzard, the most powerful yet that winter. It dropped four feet of snow on the ground, once again obliterating the trails broken by the previous parties. The storm turned Inspector Eames' return to the Rat River into a four-day nightmare. According to Eames, for the entire journey their field of vision was limited by the blowing snow to just ten or fifteen yards. He and his men had to laboriously feel their way the entire one hundred miles. Wop May, his mechanic Jack Bowen, and Special Constable Carter flew north into the same storm. Their 1,500 mile trip, navigating by sight and compass alone down the Mackenzie River, was expected to take two or three days, over-nighting and refueling in villages. But the blizzard turned it into a five-day epic, one that they, too, barely survived. May later wrote, "We bucked snowstorms and terrific north winds all the way down the river. Near Fort Norman, at four thousand feet, the wind had increased to hurricane force. Although, at times, I had my throttle wide open, we were being blown backward over the ground; and then a blizzard blotted out the earth and left us bumping up there, completely blind." On February 5th, Eames and his party of eight reached the rendezvous at Hersey's camp high on the Rat River. Hersey, Constable Hatting, Reverend Murray and trapper Ernest Sutherland had been guarding the canyon as best they could amid the storm, patrolling around it for any sign of fresh tracks. Despite being utterly exhausted, Eames immediately took advantage of a lull in the storm to surround the side canyon that was Johnson's last known camp - the place where Millen had been killed. Rifles at the ready, they cautiously approached, up the main canyon and from the ridges on either side. But Johnson was long gone. They only found his bullet-riddled pots and pans buried deep beneath the snow. They were able to observe the hole from which the fugitive had killed Millen - an impenetrable nest dug down among fallen logs. When they searched for his trail, they discovered it led straight up the nearly vertical ice-cliff at the rear end of the short side-canyon. They were astonished to discover that Johnson had cut hand- and foot-holds in the ice with a hatchet. Using these, and carrying his guns and remaining camping gear, he had somehow scaled the nearly eighty-foot wall. Once on top he'd shoved heaps of snow down the cliff to conceal his ascent and cover the holds. His tracks led ever-higher into the hills before disappearing on a wind-swept ridge. A base camp was set up at the edge of the Delta, at the confluence of the Rat and Husky Rivers. Eight miles upstream on the Rat, at the base of the canyon, the advance camp was enlarged and improved in the brush on the side of the river, where there was a bit of meager protection from the wind. Here the men set up several more canvas tents, floored them with spruce boughs, and layered them with caribou skins. Portable stoves fed with willow branches and what wood could be found were kept alight 24 hours a day to warm the men and dry their clothes. The next day, February 6th, the storm finally blew itself out. Wop May and his passengers, flying west from Arctic Red River, searched for Eames and his men on the Rat River. Unable to find them, as both camps were covered by so much new snow, the Bellanca continued to Aklavik for the night. The Signal Corps headquarters there radioed to Riddell that the plane had arrived, and Eames radioed back the positions of both camps. Captain May left the next day loaded with supplies. When he was again unable to find either of the posse's camps, May followed the Rat River upstream toward the mountains to where it met the Barrier River. Below him he saw four men crawling up a hillside toward a clump of bushes. It would turn out to be one of Johnson's abandoned camps. With the Bellanca's skis almost touching the snow, May traced tracks leading upriver on the Barrier. After five miles the tracks circled back. The tracks then cut away westward up into the mountains, where they disappeared altogether on the wind-scoured snow. Returning to lower elevations, May finally found the advance camp, where he made a difficult landing on the river to report what he'd seen. More particularly, he warned Eames about the way Johnson's tracks doubled back, the fugitive apparently hunting for his pursuers. On February 8th, with the temperature at 45 degrees below zero and a wicked wind stabbing out of the north, Constable Sid May and his party of six arrived after making it across McDougal Pass from the Yukon. Aside from the 500 pounds of dog food, the most valuable thing they carried was the information that they'd seen no sign of Johnson in the Yukon, on the pass, or all the way down the Rat River. It was clear that Johnson was still on the eastern side of the Richardson Mountains, somewhere south of McDougal Pass. Again using the innovative, sled-mounted radio built by Hersey and Riddell, Eames was able to request that patrols be sent out far to the south, from as far away as Dawson City and Fort Norman, in case Johnson should attempt to flee that way. That same day Captain Wop May flew in more supplies from Aklavik. After unloading them, Frank Riddell climbed aboard the Bellanca, and he and May went hunting from the air while the other men combed the foothills on snowshoes and by dog sled. In poor light and windy, snowy weather, May and Riddell saw no trace of Johnson's tracks despite circling some one hundred and fifty miles along the eastern breadth of the mountains. With the coming of the afternoon twilight, May dropped Riddell off at the advance camp. Then he and his mechanic wrestled Millen's frozen body aboard for the flight back to Aklavik. For the next two days it stormed, forbidding any search. The men on the Rat River were pinned in their canvas tents while May's plane was buried beneath the snow in Aklavik. When May was finally able to dig it out and fly again, the plane nearly sank into the deep snow upon landing on the river. To get back into the air, he had Eames' men tie a rope from the plane to a stout tree. Gunning the engine, he signaled for the men to cut the rope. Lunging suddenly forward, the Bellanca was just able to heave out of the snow and into sky. This was just one of the amazing feats May performed - nearly every flight would find him at some point blinded by snow, avoiding flying into the Richardson's walls by instinct and luck alone. Venturing high up in the mountains between storms, Special Constable Johnny Moses, the Gwich'n who had come over the pass from the Yukon with the 500 pounds of fish, found a trace of Johnson's tracks. The snowshoe prints showed shorter strides than what had been observed before, with a twist of one foot. It appeared that Johnson was finally weakening. Up to this point the man had seemed superhuman, having lived in the open for five weeks with the temperature averaging forty degrees below zero. And he had done so while constantly moving about, rarely able to fire his rifle at the little game to be found and unable to light a large, warming fire. It was an astounding feat of endurance, but it couldn't last forever. Yet the Mounties were no closer to catching and killing him, as they were beaten back by the ferocious winds and cold every time they went up into the mountains. The
media began to describe the events in the Richardson Mountains as the
Arctic Circle War. On one side was the closest thing to an army that
could be assembled in the far North - a force of Mounties, Signal Corp
men, Gwich'n natives and white trappers - and, on the other, a lone
man, his name and motives unknown.
GO
TO |
|||
|
...... Website
Updated June 2008 |
||||
