回复: 240公里北极荒野大追捕--真实故事
英文版：
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Johnson_(criminal)
Manhunt
Albert Johnson arrived in
Fort McPherson after coming down the
Peel River on July 9, 1931. He was questioned by RCMP constable Edgar Millen, but provided little information. Millen thought he had a Scandinavian accent, generally kept himself clean shaven, and seemed to have plenty of money for supplies. After venturing the waterways in a native-built raft to the
Mackenzie River delta, he built a small 8 × 10 ft (2.4 × 3.0 m) cabin on the banks of the Rat River. Johnson had not acquired a
trapping license which was considered odd for someone living in the bush. At that time many northern
native traditional trapping areas were invaded by outsiders fleeing the
Great Depression and some complaints may have been intended to remove him.
In December, one of the native trappers complained to the local RCMP detachment in
Aklavik that someone was tampering with his traps, tripping them and hanging them on the trees. He identified Johnson as the likely culprit. On December 26, Constable Alfred King and Special Constable Joe Bernard, each of whom had considerable northern experience, trekked the sixty miles to Johnson's cabin to ask him about the allegations. They noticed smoke coming from the chimney, and approached the hut to talk. Johnson refused to talk to them, seeming to not even notice them. King approached and looked in the window, at which point Johnson placed a sack over it. They eventually decided to return to Aklavik and get a
search warrant.
They returned five days later as a party of four. Johnson again refused to talk and eventually King decided to enforce the warrant and force the door. As soon as he started, Johnson shot him through the wooden door. A brief
firefight broke out, and the team managed to return the wounded King to Aklavik, where he eventually recovered.
Albert Johnson's cabin on Rat River after Royal Canadian Mounted Police besieged and destroyed it with dynamite. He kept fighting from the ruins.
A
posse was formed with nine men, 42
dogs and 20 lb (9.1 kg) of
dynamite which they intended to use to blast Johnson out of the cabin if necessary. After surrounding the cabin they thawed the dynamite inside their coats, eventually building a single charge and tossing it into the cabin. After the explosion collapsed the building, the men tried to rush in. Johnson opened fire from the five-foot
dugout beneath the ruins. No one was hit, and after a 15 hour (ending at 4:00 A.M.) standoff in the 40 °C (40 °F) weather, the posse retreated to Aklavik for further assistance.
By this point, the news had filtered out to the rest of the world via
radio. After being delayed because of
blizzard conditions, the reinforced posse returned on January 14 to find that Johnson had left the cabin and they struck out after him. Eventually, they caught up to Johnson on January 30, surrounding him in a
thicket. In the ensuing firefight, Johnson shot Constable Edgar Millen through the heart, killing him. Once again they fell into retreat. The posse continued to grow, enlisting local
Inuit and
Gwich’in who were better able to move in the back country. Johnson eventually decided to leave for the Yukon, but the RCMP had blocked the only two passes over the
Richardson Mountains. That did not stop Johnson, who climbed a 7,000 ft (2,100 m) peak and once again disappeared. This was only discovered when the airplane saw his tracks on the far side of the mountains.
Wop May loads his airplane at Aklavik
Wop May was hired by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to hunt Albert Johnson from the air
In desperation, the RCMP hired
Wop May to help in the hunt by scouting the area from the air. He arrived in his new
ski-equipped Bellanca monoplane on February 5. On February 14, he discovered the tactic Johnson had been using to elude his followers. He noticed a set of footprints leading off the center of the frozen surface of the Eagle River to the bank. Johnson had been following the
caribou tracks in the middle of the river, where they walked in order to give them better visibility of approaching predators. Walking in their tracks had hidden his footprints and allowed him to travel quickly on the compacted snow without having to use his
snowshoes. He left the trail only at night to make camp on the river bank, which is the track May had spotted. May radioed back his findings and the RCMP gave chase up the river, eventually being directed to Johnson by February 17.
The pursuit team rounded a bend in the river to find Johnson only a few hundred yards in front of them. Johnson attempted to run for the bank, but did not have his snowshoes on and could not make it. A firefight broke out in which one RCMP officer was seriously wounded and Johnson was eventually killed after being shot in the left side of the pelvis at an acute angle. It is believed that the bullet passed through important tissues, bowels, and main arteries, which caused his death. May landed, picked up the officer and flew him to help for which he was credited with saving his life.
After Johnson's death, RCMP officials realized that he had traveled over 85 miles away from his cabin in less than 3 days, burning approximately 10,000 calories a day. Seventy-five years later in 2007, forensics teams found that his tailbone was not actually symmetrical, causing his spine to curve left and right slightly. In addition, one foot was longer than other.[
citation needed]
An examination of Johnson's body yielded over $2,000 in both American and
Canadian currency as well as some
gold, a pocket
compass, a razor, a knife, fish hooks, nails, a dead
squirrel, a dead bird, a large quantity of
Beecham's Pills and teeth with gold fillings that were believed to be his. During the entire chase, the Mounties had never heard Johnson utter a single word. The only thing they heard was Johnson's laugh after he shot Constable Edgar Millen. To this day people debate who he was, why he moved to the
Arctic, or if he was actually responsible for interfering with the trap lines as alleged.
Identity
In the 1930s the initial investigation about the identity of Albert Johnson primarily focused on an obscure individual named Arthur Nelson. Details of Nelson's life are recorded by Yukon researcher and author Richard North. Nelson apparently travelled from
Dease Lake, British Columbia up into the Yukon in the 1927 to 1931 period. He had similar guns (a
Savage .30-30 and a
.22) as Albert Johnson. Nelson is also remembered by
Kaska elders Art John Sr. and others who knew him by the alias "Mickey Nelson" when he trapped and prospected in west central Yukon;
Ross River region. Yukon author Dick North published his theory that Albert Johnson, Arthur Nelson, and John Johnson from
North Dakota were one and the same person in his 1989 book "Trackdown". John Johnson did time in
San Quentin and
Folsom Prison and his physical description is well documented. North traced John Johnson's identity back to
Norway. "Johnny Johnson" was born Johan Konrad Jonsen (1898) in
Bardu,
Northern Norway, north of the
Arctic Circle. Recently
DNA tests have ruled out the Johnny Johnson theory.
[1]
The Johnston family of
Pictou,
Nova Scotia have long believed that Albert Johnson is actually Owen Albert Johnston, a relative who had left Pictou at the beginning of the depression to find work in the
United States. The family's last letter from Johnston was posted from
Revelstoke,
British Columbia early in 1931. They never heard from him again. According to the radio interview a relative was arranging for DNA tests.
[2]
Previous theories were challenged with the release of Mark Fremmerlid's "What Became of Sigvald Anyway" book. He proposed too many coincidences to ignore the possibility of Sigvald Pedersen Haaskjold from Norway emerging as Albert Johnson. Sigvald was last known as a highly self sufficient 32 year old in 1927, 4 years before the chase and death of Albert Johnson, who was estimated between 35 and 40 years. Sigvald had become obsessed with the notion that the authorities were still looking for him after evading
conscription during the
First World War. He had built a fortress like cabin on Digby Island on the north coast of B.C. before disappearing. This author points out circumstantial evidence for this case.
[3] This theory, along with the others tested, was 100 percent excluded through DNA testing.
In 2009 a televised
exhumation of Johnson's corpse was aired in which DNA comparisons were made to confirm Johnson's identity. A
forensic team sponsored by the
Discovery Channel exhumed Johnson's body on August 11, 2007 and conducted forensic tests on his remains before re-interring it in an attempt to confirm his true identity conclusively. All candidates tested against were eventually excluded with 100 percent certainty. By analyzing isotopes in Johnson's teeth, it was determined that Johnson was not Canadian but likely grew up in the
corn belt of midwest America or possibly Scandanavia.
[4] It was also reported that he was aged in his 30s when he died.
[5]
30年代潜规则，，，
