43Shooter;
Good evening to you sir, I trust this finds you well.
It's been an awfully long time since I watched Death Hunt and even longer since I looked at the firearms taken from the Rat River Trapper which were on display at the RCMP Museum in Regina back in the day.
Going off of foggy memory the rifle was a .30-30 in a Savage 99, a sawed off single shot shotgun - Iver Johnson type - maybe 16 guage??? and a .22 rifle I think. The movie got those details close to correct anyway.
The RCMP would have had full wood Mk III SMLE's most likely at that time - not the "sporterized" ones shown in the movie, but at least they did have some SMLE's in the movie.
My late father was born in 1920 and clearly recalled hearing about the progress of the hunt on the radio when he was a boy on the Saskatchewan prairie.
Then too another interesting connection was that the plane that Wop May used to spot him was found and purchased in the late '60's or early '70's by the son-in-law of my elementary school principal. He was an interesting chap in and of himself as he'd flown a whole lot of missions with the RCAF over Europe. I have no clue where or if the plane still exists anymore.
Lastly, when we bought a house in a small BC town in '87, I casually knew an old retired RCMP officer who lived down the street - just enough to say hello and exchange pleasantries really.
Anyway after he passed I found out that he was the last remaining RCMP officer who'd been in on the hunt for the mysterious fellow.
Oh, really and truly lastly - they dug the Mad Trapper up a few years back and did some tests on him to see if he was related to a family on Vancouver Island who thought it might be a great uncle who'd vanished about that time.
As it turned out, the man in question grew up in the mid west of the US - something about how much corn he'd eaten while growing up?
Thanks kindly for twigging the memories tonight sir, all the best to you and good luck on your remaining hunts this fall.
Dwayne