The Mad Trapper
Real Story
and
Pictography
On the 93rd Anniversary of the Hunt
For the First Time Online
The full William Carter Report from the Appendix of Edward Zealley's hidden manuscript,
revealing what really happened.
Death on Eagle River
The Mad Trapper lying dead on the Eagle River on Feb. 17, 1932. Aerial shot by bush pilot Wop May.
He is on the ice at center while his pursuers are on the bank near the trees on the right. Eleven men with air support.
(courtesy Glenbow Archives/NA-1258-117)
Update: The Carter Report appears to be a confidential document, and not
just lost in the RCMP Johnson File at the LAC (Library and Archives Canada).
​​
​
The "William Carter Report" dated as 1932 appears to actually be a second, rewritten Carter Report dated to c. 1981. and was put in the appendix of an obscure manuscript by Edward Zealley, and assembled from letters Carter wrote to Zealley and Dick North. It was to be published in the appendix of a book but the RCMP refused permission to publish and the appendix was buried in the Johnson File in the Archives of Canada for 44 years. Here are Zealley's letters to William Carter and RCMP Commissioner R H Simmonds with Carter's handwritten reply.
​
​
Dear Sir,
​
Surely you don't expect me to have kept such a letter for 30 years!
The request to the Commissioner was made (about the details on the Jonson case) on account of a Gentlemen Eastern magazine requiring my account of involvements which I did not give because of the magazine's outlandish requests on fictitious information for the purpose of supplying a good story.
But you or the publisher have my authority to inquire of the Commissioner for a copy of the letter. Otherwise
(cut off) Yours ? William Carter​