Dawson, April 17 - From the weird wilds within the Arctic Circle comes a story of hardship, starvation and death seldom equaled and which reads like fiction but is only too true.

The bodies of four members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police which composed the winter patrol party which was to come to Dawson from Fort Macpherson, near the mouth of the Mackenzie river, where it empties into the Arctic ocean, and return, have been found, each member of the party embraced in the chill arms of relentless death and clothed in the pure white mantle of Arctic winter.

News of the gruesome discovery and of the taking the bodies to Fort Macpherson where they were buried, reached Dawson this morning on the return of the relief party which left here on February 18th to seek for the missing patrol, then fully six weeks overdue.

The story of the attempted journey which ended in death to every member of the party is as follows:

On December 22 Inspector Fitzgerald, in charge of the party, Constables Carter, Taylor and Kinney with an Indian guide left Fort Macpherson for Dawson, a distance of approximately 550 miles. They had three teams of five dogs each and expected to reach Dawson about the middle of January, having with them provisions sufficient to last from 23 to 25 days, the length of time it was supposed would be consumed in making the journey.

For some unknown reason the Indian guide was discharge and sent back before the range between the Peel and upper reaches of the Klondike river had been reached. Failing to find the pass through the Rocky mountains the party became lost and wandered around the head of Wind river until January 18 when, realizing that they had but ten pounds of flour and eight pounds of bacon left, they started on the back track to Fort Macpherson, a distance of 250 miles. Then, according to evidence found by the relief party, began a series of hardships unequaled in the annals of the North.

Fighting their way through snow several feet deep, slow progress was necessarily made. All their grub gone, the dogs were killed and eaten one by one until the last of the fifteen had gone to keep the life blood in circulation and when the last dog had been eaten the buckskin thongs of the dogs harness were eaten.

By the time the party had reached this terrible state they were within 35 miles of Fort Macpherson but Taylor and Kinney were in a dying condition, so they were left b Fitzgerald and Carter who pushed on, evidently hoping to reach the fort from which place relief would have been sent to their dying comrades. But ten miles nearer the Mecca of safety the two latter were overcome. Carter died first and his body showed that Fitzgerald had "laid out" his comrade in the snow, folded his hands peacefully across his breast and covered his face with a handkerchief.

Alone, the brave officer then attempted to continue the hopeless journey, but the death angel was dogging his footsteps and only a few hundred yards from where he had left the body of Carter, Inspector Fitzgerald gave up his life, having scratched on paper a crude will, leaving his earthly possessions to his aged mother who is living in Ireland. His body, like those of the others, was found on the trail covered with snow.

When the party failed to reach Dawson when expected, little worry was caused as it was confidently expected they would show up soon, the same trip between the two points having been made annually in midwinter for several previous years.

Not until the Indian guide who had started with the party and turned back, arrived in Dawson about the middle of February was it known for certain that the patrol had left Fort Macpherson for sure. The Indian had returned to the fort and several das later had left with other Indians, making the trip to Dawson in good time and was surprised to learn that the police had not arrived. It was then that the relief expedition was started out from Dawson, its members being Corporal Dempster, Constables Fife and Turner and Indian Charley Stewart.

The latter party made the trip on record time, being gone from Dawson but forty nine days, 53 days being the best time previously made on the round trip.

As the last record left by Inspector Fitzgerald was dated February 5th, the last survivor of the ill-fated party had been dead more than three weeks when the relief party left Dawson. The latter party found the mail with which the lost party had started. It consisted of a few letters from Hershel Island and from Fort Macpherson.

WOULDN'T TURN BACK

In later years speculation would be that Fitzgerald had simply missed the trail but, being a proud man, could not bring it upon himself to back track to Ft. McPherson. How would it look, he may have thought, an officer of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police having left on the annual Dawson City patrol, carrying the mail, suddenly arrives back at the starting point saying he can't find the trail?

Regardless, the amount of time lost looking for the trail and a misjudgment in the amount of food needed for the trip were a fatal combination. By the time Fitzgerald decided to turn back it was too late. After traveling nearly 1,000 km (620 miles) and spending 53 days on the trail fighting their way through several feet of snow during one of the coldest winters on record, they died within 56 km (35 miles) of Fort McPherson.

The route of the Dempster Highway (named after Corporal William Dempster) today follows approximately the route that the Fitzgerald patrol would have followed had they not missed the pass through the Richardson Mountains and become lost.

The Northwest Mounted Police, and later the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, continued patrols along the same route until 1921, without the loss of another life.