Trapper haunt to live again
Elder builds replica cabin for tourists

Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Jul 31/98) - Some stories are so compelling they are retold generation after generation.

And no story has better odds of remaining engrossing in future centuries than that of the Dec. 26, 1931 to Feb. 17, 1932 police chase for the Mad Trapper.

That is why an Inuvik bar bears his name. Aklavik lays claim to Albert Johnson's grave, and by the end of the summer, Fort McPherson will boast a replica of Johnson's cabin that police razed with dynamite.

"By September I should be finished," says Fort McPherson elder Neil Colin, who was in Inuvik last week to buy plywood paint and nails for an informative carne outside the structure.

Colin has been hauling logs from the mouth of the Peel river by boat, cutting them and then loading them into his truck to take to the construction site.

He uses no nails when building the cabin itself. He cuts logs and carefully fits them in place before adding moss in the cracks.

Next will come the flat roof which he will cover with mud.

"I talked to a local guide about eight years ago," the 65-year-old said of a Special Constable involved in the Mad Trapper chase.

"His name was Lazarus Sittichinli. I've got a tape of 60 minutes of him talking to me about it."

Sittichinli explained details of the search and of the now-destroyed cabin's structure.

To current Inuvik St. Sgt. Leon MacAllister, the Mad Trapper story involved a deep-seated significance.

"Maybe at the time it wasn't realized as such but it obviously stirred ideas and visions in other people for the North from our policing point of view," he said before explaining that the chase spurred the inception of the air wing of the Northern RCMP.

"I think another area was the communications aspect of it. There was an evolution of improving communications with the RCMP in the North."

People followed the chase world wide on radio and in newspapers. Many Northerners bought radios for the first time to keep up with the man-hunt.

"I'm interested in building (a cabin) instead of just showing a picture or putting a story in a book to show how the building was made," Colin said.

Once finished, Colin intends to put a change box at the entrance so anyone who comes to visit the historic site, about 50 km from the original site, can pay $2 to help fund local projects.