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This view shows the graves of the Lost Patrol at the cemetery adjacent to St. Andrews Anglican Church in Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories. On December 21, 1910, inspector Francis Fitzgerald and his three constables (Richard O'Hara Taylor, George Francis Kinney and Sam Carter) departed on an 800-kilometre dogsled journey from Fort McPherson to Dawson City, Yukon, though none of them had ever travelled the route in that direction.
It was the first of many ill-advised decisions. They shouldn’t have left on the winter solstice, when darkness is total and temperatures touch -50*C. They shouldn’t have dismissed their Dene guide, Esau George, once he’d led them across the Richardson Range. And when they realized they couldn’t find Forrest Creek – the path to Dawson – they should have stopped and turned around.
But they didn’t. When the patrol failed to show up in the Klondike, searchers were dispatched. That spring, their corpses were found – as were their diaries, which told a ghastly tale. By January 12, they’d known they were lost. By January 19, their food ran out and they began eating dogs. After weeks of desperate meandering, they tried to retreat to the Northwest Territories. But by February 5 it was all over. Three starved; one shot himself. They died just 40 kilometres shy of Fort McPherson.
Their tragedy well-known in the northern country & is easily accessible from the nearby Dempster Highway. Also a block away is the restored unmarked cabin of Albert Johnson, more infamously known as the Mad Trapper of Rat River.
From: https://spectacularnwt.com/story/rediscovering-lost-patrol
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