TETLIT'ZHEH/FORT MCPHERSON - Esau George travelled with the doomed RCMP officers for one day during their traditional dogsled trip to deliver mail from Fort McPherson to Dawson City, Yukon. Three RCMP officers - Insp. Francis Joseph Fitzgerald, Const. Richard O'Hara Taylor and Const. George Francis Kinney - along with their fairly incompetent special constable guide, Sam Carter, set out from the Mackenzie Delta hamlet on Dec. 21, 1910.

They hired George to show them the way, and after the first day he offered to stay on without pay to take them all the way to Forrest Creek, which they could then follow to Dawson.

But the officers insisted Carter knew the way, so George turned back. However, Carter had only made the trip from Dawson to McPherson once before and had never travelled the route the other way. George was the last person to see them alive. A search party found them dead three months later.

"They told him that they did not need him from there. They figured that they knew the trail where he left them, but because of weather and whatever else during those days, they lost their trail the next day," said Georgie Blake, George's grandson.

On Dec. 21, Blake stood up wearing his Canadian Rangers uniform to remember the Lost Patrol on the 100th anniversary of their tragic trip in Fort McPherson's St. Matthew's Anglican Church, next to where they are buried. He thought about George and about his paternal grandfather, former RCMP officer Arthur N. Blake, who had been scheduled to join the ill-fated patrol. A few days before they set off, Inspector Fitzgerald had changed his mind and decided Arthur should stay back to man the post.

"If that didn't happen, I would not have been here today," Georgie Blake said.

"To me, it's just another thing that happened way back. It's too bad they didn't listen to the local people back then like the members do today."

About 150 residents, RCMP officers and visitors - including Blake's brother Frederick Blake Sr. of Tsiigehtchic, who participated in a re-enactment of the trip with Yukon RCMP in 1995 - packed the church last Tuesday for the memorial service and wreath-laying in honour of the fallen members, followed by a community feast that featured a moose donated by the Rangers.

Sgt. Chad Orr, detachment commander with the Fort McPherson RCMP, said the Lost Patrol is part of NWT's "storied history" and he was glad residents like Blake were able to participate.

"To be able to hear stories like that, it really puts into perspective something that happened 100 years ago," Orr said. "This was a big event for the town and, really, for the whole territory. It's evolved into something that's really Canadian folklore and part of our national heritage."

The RCMP continued annual dogsled trips until 1921, but after the Lost Patrol they made sure to hire a knowledgeable aboriginal guide and set up cabins with food caches along the route.

"I'll tell you one thing - we've got it a lot easier than they did, said Orr, who has been stationed in Fort McPherson since last August.

"The community just embraces us and it's a fantastic place to work."

In March 2011, the detachment has scheduled a re-enactment of the Lost Patrol's funeral and a community snowmobile trip down the Peel River to the location where the deceased members were finally found.

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