The Mad Trapper of Rat River A True Story of Canada's Biggest Manhunt

They called it The Arctic Circle War. It was a manhunt the likes of which we will never see again. It was a forty-eight-day odyssey across the harshest terrain in the world. On Johnson's heels were a corps of Mounties and an irregular posse on dogsled, supplied by airplanes dropping food. Johnson, on snowshoes, seemed superhuman in his ability to evade capture. The chase stretched for hundreds of miles, and during a blizzard crossed the Richardson Mountains, the northernmost extension of the Rockies. It culminated in the historic shootout at Eagle River.

Dick North has worked as a seaman, a fisheries officer, and a newspaper editor in Alaska and Canada's Yukon. He is also the author of Trackdown, Arctic Exodus, and The Lost Patrol. He is currently the curator of the Jack London Exhibit and Interpretation Center in Dawson City, Yukon.