With his pursuers making things in the Arctic Red River district uncomfortable for Johnson, the fugitive planned a trek across the Richardson Mountains an on into the Northern Yukon.

The RCMP saw whatJohnson was planning and closed off both of the two passes across the range. Johnson was up to  the  challenge to his freddom once more when in raging blizzards he scaled a 7000 foot peak at the dead of night with out any climbing equipment. Experienced mountaineers have since commented that such a feat was next to impossible, yet Johnson managed it out of site of the persuing posse.

In early February an Inuit tracker in the employ of the RCMP found fresh tracks on the Western slopes of the Richardson mountains and reported back tha the fugitive was most likely heading for the uppper reaches of the Eagle river.

The commandant of the RCMP detachment at Aklavik E.A.Eames now took control of the situation and enlisted the aid of a bush pilot in a ballanca biplane to scan the area.  On 5th February 1932, W.R. 'WOP' May the pilot in question was detailed to search the area. After 12 days of searching from early light to dusk,  On the morning of 17th February 1932 he found Johnson encamped on a U bend along the middle reaches of the  Eagle river River. The game was up.

Following a fierce gun battle in which another RCMP constable was seriously injured, Johnson was eventually shot dead with nine bullets in his chest and the Death Hunt was over.

On examination of the body the police found no evidence of who Johnson was, why he came to the Arctic or indeed where he came from. it was a complete mystery and it is reported that during the whole incident no one heard Johnson speak one word.

In his pockets there was found over 2410 dollars US and Canadian, a quantity of panned gold , a hunting knife, a razor, a pocket compass, a dead squirrel and a dead bird, 32 liver pills, a quantity of dental gold

The longest man hunt in RCMP history was over!!  Almost.

In early May 2007, permission was granted to exhume the remains of Johnsons corpse for DNA tests. Such a move was expressly granted at the behest of two brothers, the Fremmerlid brothers, of Scandinavian extraction.  They are from Coquitlam and they claim an irrefutable link between Johnson and an ancestor of theirs called Sigvald Haaskjold.

As evidence for the link they provide a background for their ancestor which puts him in Northern Canada between 1913 and 1927 when according to the RCMP Historian's office a man named Alexandra Nelson reported to the RCMP detachment at Fort Mcpherson. That man is believed to be Sigvald Haaskjold who came to Canada in 1913 looking for his father.

The RCMP historian records that Haaskjold may have been involved  in an argument with authorities who were looking for draft dodgers. Haaskjold was caught but got free by telling the authorities he had already joined the draft but needed to go home to get equipment. The ruse worked because Haaskjold managed to miss the draft by moving from one area to another and seems to have developed a fixation that the authorities were on the constant look out for him alone

His fetish became almost a paranoia and suggests a plausible reason  for  believing that Haaskjold was indeed Johnson amd a valid reason for Johnsons apparant behaviour towards the original investgating officers 

His father finally tracked him down in 1927 to Digby Island hiding in a fortress like cabin similar to that in which Albert Johnson lived.

It seem compelling evidence. That Albert Johnson and Sigvaldt Haaskjold were one and the same.

The manhunt for Johnson goes down in history as the last manhunt the Mounties were to conduct on foot over open territory. To that end it was a watershed in the history of the force.

It was the first time an aircraft had been used in the apprahension of a felon

and spectacularly confirmed the legend, That the |Mounties always get their man.

Oh!  by the way if you saw the 1983 film Deathhunt with Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin which was based on the mad trapper story, it was purely a fictitional version Hollywoood licence.