The Naming of Albert Johnson by Rudy Wiebe
"The Naming of Albert Johnson" by Rudy Wiebe explores the enigmatic figure known as the Mad Trapper of Rat River, a man who became notorious in the early 1930s for his mysterious life and a relentless chase after he shot a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This story delves into Johnson's character as a self-exiled, solitary trapper in the Northwest Territories, who avoids human interaction and survives solely through his trapping skills. The narrative recounts his extraordinary endurance during a challenging pursuit across the treacherous Richardson Mountains in winter, showcasing his remarkable survival instincts and cunning against a well-equipped posse of Mounties determined to capture him. Wiebe employs a unique storytelling technique, beginning with the end of the chase and unraveling the events in reverse, allowing readers to develop a complex understanding of Johnson as more than just a villain. This structure fosters sympathy for Johnson, emphasizing themes of isolation and the human condition. Ultimately, the work reflects on the blighted sense of belonging that can lead a person like Albert Johnson to become disconnected from society and resort to violence. The portrayal of Johnson invites contemplation on the depths of human experience and the struggles of those who live on the fringes of society.
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The Naming of Albert Johnson by Rudy Wiebe
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1974 (collected in Where Is the Voice Coming From?, 1974)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
“The Naming of Albert Johnson” is based on a mysterious, silent, and real person known to millions in the early 1930’s as the Mad Trapper of Rat River. (Wiebe published a novel in 1980, The Mad Trapper, that amplifies this story.) After he shoots a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the trapper becomes the object of a relentless chase. He becomes the first man in history to cross the forbidding Richardson Mountains in the dead of winter. No one ever discovered his real name, but he came to be known as Albert Johnson. Johnson is a self-exiled, wordless, solitary figure who shuns any human contact. He survives by his skills as a trapper in the Northwest Territories. When a Mountie, who is investigating thefts from Indian traplines, approaches him, the trapper shoots without hesitation. The pursuit is on.
Wiebe tells this first-rate adventure story from Johnson’s point of view, a clever strategy, for it increases the likelihood of reader sympathy with the lone villain, who might otherwise be without dimension as character. The villain turns out to be no ordinary mortal. Words do not define him, but an indomitable will and force do. He pits himself against a large posse of Mounties with more than forty dogs. They dynamite his cabin, but he escapes.
With superhuman courage and strength he outruns them through mountain passes where no human has ever ventured in winter. With animal cunning he outsmarts the dog teams, the radiomen, and even the tracking plane overhead. He keeps going with little sleep and food in spite of frozen toes and cheeks. His tenacity and brooding rage are wordless. Those who venture too close he picks off with his unerring rifle. For fifty days he makes fools of the well-fed, well-equipped group of Mounties, with the frozen landscape a mute witness to this unequal chase. A river looping back on itself betrays him. Suddenly the dogs and the men are upon him. Finally there remains only a small crumpled body on a bedroll, a bullet in its spine, and a face frozen into a permanent snarl. All around, there is the immensity of the blasted Yukon, an appropriate symbol for the lonely anonymity of the Mad Trapper.
The story itself does not follow chronological order. Wiebe begins with the end of the hunt, and then unwinds time in reverse. The effect is that the story does not move toward climax, but toward a growing sense of wonder about the antihero, this exile from the human community and from communication. The reader cannot help but feel admiration for the extraordinary survival skills of the nameless man. More importantly, Wiebe elicits the reader’s sympathy for the human condition that can produce an Albert Johnson, disconnected from all sense of human belonging, whose blighted sense of significance can only assert itself destructively.
Bibliography
Dueck, Allan. “Rudy Wiebe’s Approach to Historical Fiction.” In Canadian Novel. Vol. 1 in Here and Now, edited by John Moss. Toronto: NC Press, 1978.
Keith, W. J. Epic Fiction: The Art of Rudy Wiebe. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1981.
Keith, W. J., ed. A Voice in the Land: Essays by and About Rudy Wiebe. Edmonton, Alta.: NeWest Press, 1981.
Korkka, Jane. “Representation of Aboriginal Peoples in Rudy Wiebe’s Fiction: The Temptations of Big Bear and A Discovery of Strangers.” In Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and Their Representations, edited by Ute Lischke and David T. MacNab. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005.
Morley, Patricia. The Comedians: Hugh Hood and Rudy Wiebe. Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1976.
Nischik, Reingard M., ed. The Canadian Short Story: Interpretations. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2007.
Solecki, Sam. “Giant Fictions and Large Meanings: The Novels of Rudy Wiebe.” Canadian Forum 60 (March, 1981): 5-8, 13.
Whaley, Susan. Rudy Wiebe and His Works. Toronto: ECW Press, 1983.
Wylie, Herb. Speaking in the Past Tense: Canadian Novelists on Writing Historical Fiction. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007.