The deadly disappearance of the North West Mounted Police patrol

The search patrol leaving Fort McPherson/Glenbow Archives

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The journey from Dawson City, Yukon, to Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, was not easy. It went through 965 kilometres of wilderness, often in the freezing cold. Getting lost was easy.

The trip was vital as it allowed for the delivery of supplies and mail. The journey had been made several times over the years and in 1910, Francis Joseph Fitzgerald was the man to lead the next trip.

Born in Halifax in 1869, Fitzgerald was respected in the North West Mounted Police. He had been part of the force since 1888 and served all over the west, including on the small outpost of Herschel Island in the Arctic.

He was no stranger to the cold.

A legend in the force by 1910, he even attended the Coronation of King George V that year.

In a sad irony, he was removed from Hershel Island so he could serve somewhere safer, Fort McPherson, due to his prestige and growing fame.

For his first patrol, Fitzgerald was joined by Constables Richard O’Hara Taylor, George Francis Kinney, and their guide, Special Constable Sam Carter. There were also 15 dogs, three sleds, and enough food for a month. They also hauled 20 kilograms of parcels to be delivered to Dawson City.

Setting out on December 21, 1910, for the first four days of the patrol, the men travelled 105 kilometres, which was very good considering the days were getting colder.

On Christmas Day, the men travelled an excellent 26 kilometres.

On December 26, they covered 30 kilometres in only six hours, but they found out they had missed a turn the previous day after stumbling upon a First Nations camp, resulting in a need to go back and retrace their course.

For the second leg, they hired First Nations guide Esau George at a rate of three dollars a day.

When the second leg was completed, George was let go in what turned out to be a fateful mistake.

Fitzgerald trusted that Carter could lead them to the next section. Unfortunately, Carter had only done the trip once and in the other direction.

George was the last person to see the group alive.

Francis Fitzgerald. Photo courtesy Wikipedia Commons

Over the next week and a half, the group became lost in the wilderness. By January 12, 1911, they were struggling to find Forrest Creek and had travelled up various streams to find the right one. At this point, supplies were beginning to dwindle quickly.

With only a few days of rations left, Fitzgerald would make a note in his journal saying, “My last hope is gone. I should not have taken Carter’s word that he knew the way from Little Wind River.”

The next day, the patrol changed direction, going in reverse, to find the right trail to get back to Fort McPherson rather than go on to Dawson City.

This decision did not improve things, and they continued to struggle to find their bearings in the Yukon wilderness.

On January 17, Fitzgerald wrote, “Carter is completely lost and does not know one river from another. We have now only 10 bags of flour and eight pounds of bacon, and some dried fish. My last hope is gone, and the only thing I can do is return and kill some dogs to feed the others and myself unless we can meet some Indians.”

By the middle of January, the men were so weak they could only walk a few kilometres per day if they went anywhere at all. As supplies ran out, the dogs became a food source. From January 18 to February 5, 10 dogs were killed for food.

By the middle of February, officers in Dawson City were getting worried as the patrol was approaching one month late. The trip usually took 40 days, or in good years, 20 days, and they were long overdue now. Indigenous that arrived at the community stated the patrol had left on schedule from Fort MacPherson.

A relief patrol was sent out to find the men on February 28, led by Corporal William John Dempster, who had received a telegram the day before advising him to find the patrol.

As the rescue patrol moved towards Fort McPherson, they found clues to the original patrol’s location. This included cached toboggan, as well as dog bones, a dispatch bag, mail sack, and seven sets of harnesses.

By the middle of March and three months to the day that the patrol left Fort McPherson, the patrol was found by searchers.

Kinney and Taylor were both dead, side-by-side in the open camp. Kinney had died from starvation, while Taylor had shot himself. The men were around a burned-out campfire. In a large kettle on the fire was a partially cooked sled harness the men had been cooking for food. They also found Fitzgerald’s diary, which told the grim story.

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On March 22, the following day, Fitzgerald and Carter were found. Both men had died of cold and hunger, only 40 kilometres away from Fort McPherson. Fitzgerald had laid Carter’s body in the snow and covered his face with a handkerchief. Fitzgerald laid down in the snow a few hundred metres away and died soon after with two half blankets around him.

On the body of Fitzgerald was his will, scrawled with charcoal on paper. It read, “All money in dispatch bag and bank, clothes, etc. I leave to my dearly beloved mother, Mrs. John Fitzgerald, Halifax. God Bless All.”

When found, all four men weighed only 100 pounds each.

All four men were buried at Fort McPherson on March 28, 1911. Two decades later, all four were cemented into a large tomb, with four corners connected by a chain as a memorial.

Patrols continued for another 10 years, but due to the tragedy, future patrols always had an Indigenous guide, and cabins along with supply caches were established along the trail. In addition, the trail between the two communities was clearly marked to ensure no one ever got lost again.

Today, a bridge at the Halifax Public Gardens is named in honour of Fitzgerald, as is a community in Northern Alberta. The community, located 339 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, was originally called Smith Landing. In 1915, the name was changed to honour Fitzgerald.

Dempster, the man who led the relief patrol, became an Inspector and served in the Yukon for 37 years. He retired in 1934 and passed away in Vancouver in 1965. The Dempster Highway, which runs from the Klondike Highway to Fort McPherson, is named for him.