2007

CBC Radio
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2006/11/30/trapper-dig.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2006/11/29/mad-trapper.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/08/13/nwt-trapper.html
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/070504/n050439A.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/05/04/nwt-madtrapper.http http://www.cbc.ca/wildrosecountry/ (see August 14)
http://www.idiotvox.com/Public_Radio/PodCast_Review_CBC_Radios_Editors_Choice__17479.html
(see August 10)

Globe and Mail - May 2007
By KATHERINE HARDING

Hunt for Mad Trapper is back on.
More than 75 years after his death, filmmakers set to solve the case of Canada's most famous outlaw.

EDMONTON — Ole Getz hopes a clump of hair from his mother's hairbrush helps solve a 75-year-old mystery and reveal that his great uncle was the Mad Trapper of Rat River, one of Canada's most notorious outlaws.

But the Alberta man is not alone in his quest to make a genetic connection to Albert Johnson, a gun-toting trapper who led the RCMP on the mother-of-all police chases across the Arctic during the depths of the Great Depression. At least a half-dozen families are lining up to hand over DNA samples to an Alberta film company that has been given approval by a tiny Northwest Territories community to dig up Mr. Johnson's corpse this summer and conduct scientific tests to determine his true identity.
"I know what he did. But he still was tough. He's my hero," said Mr. Getz, a 61-year-old logger from High Prairie.

On Feb. 17, 1932, Mr. Johnson was finally tracked down by the Mounties after being on the run for almost 50 days. A gunfight erupted and the lanky, blue-eyed trapper was killed on the frozen Eagle River in Yukon.
During the epic manhunt, which began at Mr. Johnson's log cabin on the banks of the Rat River in the Mackenzie Delta region and spanned 300 kilometres, blizzards and -50 weather, he never said one word. Not even when police used dynamite to blow up his tiny cabin with him still inside.

Mr. Johnson had few provisions with him, but still managed to elude a small army of officers, aboriginal guides and special constables and dogs, and even scale a 7,000-foot mountain without climbing equipment. The manhunt, which still counts as the Mounties' longest police chase, made history because it was the first time in Canada an aircraft and two-way radios were used to catch a wanted person.
Before he was gunned down, Mr. Johnson had killed one Mountie and wounded two more, and had become an infamous figure around North America after newspaper and radio reporters dubbed him the Mad Trapper of Rat River and breathlessly detailed his seemingly superhuman exploits.

The story has inspired countless books and even a Hollywood film, Death Hunt, starring Charles Bronson. A lot of the intrigue has centred on the fact that no one knows who Albert Johnson was or what led him to fire at officers when they travelled to his isolated cabin in the final weeks of 1931 to investigate complaints about damaged trap-lines in the area. Police always assumed Mr. Johnson's name was an alias.

"This story captures the imagination. ... What was this white guy doing alone in the High Arctic in the 1930s? Where did he come from?" said Carrie Gour, a producer with Myth Merchant Films. The film company won approval this year from Aklavik, a community of 700 Gwich'in and Inuvialuit people 60 kilometres west of Inuvik, to exhume Mr. Johnson's body from the hamlet's cemetery and take a DNA sample, likely a tooth.

The community's approval was surprising, because it has long resisted requests to disturb the outlaw's unconsecrated grave. In the 1980s, Yukon-based author Dick North tried but failed to exhume Mr. Johnson's body after several Aklavik elders complained the dead should be left alone. Mr. North, who has researched the Mad Trapper story for more than 40 years and written extensively on the topic, is convinced Albert Johnson is actually Johnny Johnson, a bank robber and horse thief from North Dakota who was born in Norway in 1898.

The 77-year-old author approached Johnny Johnson's family, which includes Mr. Getz, with his findings and they've been determined ever since to prove the connection. Ms. Gour said while the one-hour documentary, which is scheduled to air on Discovery Channel Canada next year, is primarily about the scientific quest to identify Mr. Johnson, the film will also chronicle the long-ignored contributions that aboriginal guides and special constables made during the manhunt. "Without their help, Albert Johnson would have never been caught. I'm sure of that," Ms. Gour said.

Aklavik Mayor Knute Hansen said the majority of the community is ready to "have this mystery settled once and for all. ... We would like to know who this guy is." He said that giving permission to exhume Mr. Johnson's body was difficult, but locals are impressed with the film company's efforts to alleviate their concerns. He said people are pleased there is plan to tell the aboriginal side of the story, as well as the film company's decision to pay for a community gift that will commemorate the project. Locals still haven't decided how the money will be spent, but ideas range from a scholarship to setting up a Mad Trapper museum.

Mr. Getz and his family are also hopeful this mystery may finally be solved. He said until Mr. North's research uncovered the possible family connection, his mother Barbro and other relatives had believed their uncle had simply disappeared, and likely died of natural causes.
As a child, Mr. Getz recalls being told grand stories about his great uncle and how he had travelled Canada's North and made a small fortune prospecting for gold and trapping.
As an adult, Mr. Getz also travelled and worked in Canada's Arctic, and even climbed the same mountain range, the Richardson Mountains, that Mr. Johnson scaled during his run from the law.
"He's been in my mind since I was 10, that guy," Mr. Getz said.
"I've dreamed about what he did. I've read about it. ... He's with me, always."

Origins of the mystery
Albert Johnson (likely an alias) built a cabin along the Rat River in late 1931.
After complaints from local trappers about someone tampering with their traps, police paid a series of visits to the cabin, on one occasion blowing it up with dynamite. Mr. Johnson returned fire from a foxhole. Weeks later, a lengthy chase through extreme terrain and weather ended with a gunfight along a river. When his bullet-riddled body was searched by police, there were reports they found $2,400 in Canadian and American bills, pearls, some pieces of gold dental work, a pocket compass, a razor, nails, a knife, fish hooks and a dead squirrel and small bird, but no identification. No one ever claimed his body and his fingerprints were lost.

2006

Playback Ad - Jan 2006
Emmy® Award winning producer Michael Jorgensen of Myth Merchant Films and Carrie Gour of Punctum Pictures are pleased to announce the merging of their companies under the Myth Merchant Films banner.

2005

AMPIA - Dec 2005
Myth Merchant Films Inc. announces new partnership between Jorgensen, Gour