Philippe Morin
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 17, 2007

AKLAVIK - Dennis Allen remembers digging in Aklavik's graveyard at six in the morning and finding nothing but ice.

He was working alongside Aklavik's Philip Ross and Steve Moore, looking for the body of Albert Johnson.

Aklavik's Philip Ross was one of the men who unearthed the legendary Mad Trapper of Rat River. Workers had some trouble finding the body and consulted local elders for help. - photo courtesy of Carrie Gour/Myth Merchant Films

As the sun began to rise over the yard - and on a large tent, which had been installed over the gravesite - the men gathered around an empty pit. There was no coffin and no body.

This is a problem, Allen thought.

Had the records been wrong? Was the body buried elsewhere? Had the Mad Trapper, legendary fugitive, somehow escaped one last time?

"We had been digging all night and we were feeling defeated," Allen remembers.

"We just kept digging and digging and there was nothing there. We went down four and a half feet, deep into the permafrost. We spent all damn night digging and we couldn't find anything."

Waiting for the trapper's body were an expensive forensics team, hired by the producers of an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary.

The production crew had brought up to 16 people to Aklavik, interviewing elders and filming the hamlet.

But without a body - without a subject for DNA tests - the movie was in danger of losing its star attraction.

While the first attempt had failed, it wasn't for lack of equipment.

Allen recalled how the crew first used an expensive ground-penetrating radar to select a spot.

While the machine had sensed a solid mass where records indicated Johnson was buried, diggers later found this to be a bubble in permafrost.

Facing an empty trench - with forensic experts scheduled to arrive the next morning - Allen said the crew was feeling quite dejected.

And so, he turned to another source of knowledge.

He asked Aklavik's elders for help.

On the morning of Aug. 11 - still weary from a night of digging - Allen went to the Joe Greenland elders' home in Aklavik.

He spoke with Gwich'in elder Mary Kendie, who is among the centre's oldest and most respected residents.

"I went over to the elders home and started asking if anyone remembered where the grave was," Allen said.

Luckily, Kendie remembered seeing the burial of the Trapper firsthand, in 1932.

"Mary Kendie drew me a diagram and said it was beside the two trees. It was incredible," Allen said.

This spot, it turns out, had been exactly where Allen, Ross and Moore had been piling their dirt.

Trusting Kendie's word, they dug into the ground once again.

And covered by only a foot and a half of soil, they found the bones of Albert Johnson.

Allen recalls his first reaction upon seeing the coffin was surprise. He describes it as no more than 18 inches across, and made of cheap shiplap wood planks.

Since Johnson was a grown man at the time of his burial, it appeared he'd been violently stuffed in the small box. After all, the Mad Trapper had killed a police constable, shot at several pursuers and lead RCMP on a frozen 150-mile foot chase. He was likely not well-liked.

"When we opened the coffin, we found his legs were all broken. It looks like they stomped on his legs and feet to make him fit. The bones were all broken, " Allen said.

Despite the legs, Johnson's remains were otherwise well preserved.

While the clothing had rotted away to nothing, Allen could see wisps of hair on the skull and chin.

The skeleton also had fingernails and well-preserved teeth, which proved useful to scientists.

With the help of 1930s dental records, forensic scientists soon determined the body was genuinely that of the fugitive.

Johnson's bones were carefully lifted from the coffin and placed on a back-lit Plexiglas table within the tent in the cometary. ("We had to create some drama with the lighting," explains Allen.)

Experts there gathered tooth enamel, nail clippings and other samples for DNA analysis.

They carefully examined the body for several hours, as cameras rolled.

Eventually, the Trapper's bones were collected and placed inside a new plywood coffin built by Aklavik's Andrew Charlie.

A quiet religious ceremony was held by members of a local church, and the Trapper's body was once again buried.

Speaking over tea in Inuvik on Sept. 13, Allen explained the source of a mix-up had been two trees, which are beside the grave.

"There have always been two trees that marked his grave. Over the years, people came to say they were planted on top of his grave, but it turned out those trees were only markers," he said. "He was actually buried beside them."

While unearthing the Trapper might have been grisly work - and surely, the sight of Johnson's smiling skeleton and broken legs must have been unsettling to witnesses - Allen said he's proud to have played a small part in local history.

He wished to thank all the people of Aklavik who helped with the film's production and allowed the exhumation

"What's really exciting is that a lot of people from Aklavik came by, and a lot of people helped out," Allen said.

As is nearly everyone in the hamlet, he added he's looking forward to hearing the scientists' results, once the Discovery Channel film is released sometime in 2008.