US

FILM DIARY - JASON MERRTT & MICHEL GUITARD BRING THE STORY OF THE MAD TRAPPER TO LIFE

Jason Merrett

It’s been almost four years now since Film Co-op member filmmaker Michel Guitard came poking around my place asking questions. I ran him off, but his line of inquiry had stirred things within me which had laid dormant for some time. The night after we first met my mind swirled with visions and voices as I drifted off to sleep. Michel, undeterred by my initial rejection, continued to come and stir the pot, engaging me in further conversation on the topic at hand. During one particular night of deep conversation and heavy imbibing at his creative headquarters in the area formerly known as Greenwood Trailer Court, I achieved a brief moment of Carlos Castanedian hallucinatory clarity - I could see that this young sir was the one filmmaker in the world with the combination of brilliance, insanity and bravery to partner me on the Canadian scriptwriting mission of a lifetime. 

Over the last three years we’ve developed a shared artistic vision and a seamless method of creative collaboration while we undertook this continent spanning, gut wrenching, heart breaking, awe-inspiring quest to create a new Canadian dramatic feature film about Albert Johnson, the man infamously known as the Mad Trapper of Rat River. 

In the summer of 1931, a mysterious and powerful woodsman emerges out of the forest, frightening native villagers in an isolated Arctic community. When a pair of aggressive young Mounties operating under a frontier interpretation of the nation’s rule of law are tasked with investigating the strange newcomer, a legend is born and a country is forever changed. 

We’ve penetrated historical government records to expose new perspectives, we’ve explored the Arctic wilderness where the events took place, and we found the last living eyewitness to a drama which transpired 87 years ago - Gwich’in Elder Doris Etzi of Fort Macpherson, North West Territories, who was seven years old when Albert Johnson camped nearby her family home. Doris provided us with shocking and important new insights into the story before she sadly passed away just this summer.  

We’ve gained the support and assistance of retired RCMP officers and a growing team of friends, consultants and artists within various First Nations communities in the Yukon and North West Territories. 

Our most powerful ally of all in this investigation has a big announcement I’m going to leak here now - author Herb Curtis, New Brunswick’s Mark Twain of literary fiction and creative non-fiction alike, is as we speak writing a new book on the story and our investigation into it all. 

So we’re getting very excited to conjure this vision into existence - an entirely original,  culturally relevant, deeply thrilling story about a uniquely potent mythological figure in Canadian wilderness lore and his connection with the dark origins of the RCMP’s unofficial motto “They Always Get Their Man.” Get ready kids, because this story is going to punch the official narrative of this historical event in the face. 

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Michel Guitard

I first came across the Mad Trapper story at my friend Andrew Long’s place. If you’ve ever been there, you know that it is a treasure trove of artifacts and books covering an amazing spectrum of curiosities. 

We had inherited a discarded keg from an event the day before and had been pouring liberally for several hours. I was going through a pile of books dedicated to WW2 U-boats when I found a small book that looked out of place. A short 37 pager about the Mad Trapper of Rat River. I had never heard the story before, and Andrew was quick to question my patriotism for not knowing about this major Canadian badass. He let me borrow the book.

I was amazed by the story, I couldn’t stop thinking about how one man bested the entirety of the Canadian government on a seven-week long manhunt through one of the most unforgiving environments on the planet. I was hooked, I needed to make a film about it.

I talked about it non-stopped for several weeks, telling the tale to any filmmakers who would listen. Eventually, after a long drive home from a film shoot, Ian Miller told me about a friend of his who was crazy about the story, Jason Merrett.

While Jason was apprehensive to work with me at first, I won him over with the amount of thought I had been putting into my research, and how I was becoming sceptical of the official RCMP version of events. He also joined the Film Co-op.

We began feverishly working on an application for the upcoming Telefilm Talent To Watch Grant deadline and barely finished in time. To our surprise, we actually made it to the final round, but we were ultimately unsuccessful. That didn’t stop us.

I received some feedback about our application from Telefilm and was informed that, while they thought the idea was worthwhile, they didn’t believe that a micro-budget was going to effectively tell the story. We were encouraged to try through a more traditional avenue. 

I was living in Halifax at the time, and reached out to my friend Rob Cotterill who had produced Hobo With A Shotgun a few years prior. He agreed to take us on and apply for development financing at Telefilm. In just a few weeks, we had received funding to write our first draft.

For the next year, Jason travelled to my apartment on Chocolate Lake, which we turned into a full-on production office. Bristol boards and cue cards littered every square inch of the place as we tried to weave the most authentic re-telling we could. We called anthropologists, filmmakers, Gwich’in elders, ex-RCMP officers; anyone who might have information on the story.  

We went to Yukon, and drove the Dempster highway armed with a drone and cameras, capturing the actual land this epic tale took place on, and ultimately finding a woman who was actually there, Doris, who gave us information that researchers thought had been lost to time.

We took that information and wrote for another year.

We went back to Yukon and did it all over again.

We were now confident that we had a better understanding of this story than anyone ever had, and finally felt comfortable to approach the NB government for more development financing, which we received last month.

It has been an incredibly long journey to get to this point, but we are determined now, more than ever, to get this story on the screen.

I want to thank the NB Film Co-op, Telefilm and the Government of NB for helping us get this far. We’ll be sure to keep you all updated on the project moving forward.

NBFC PROJECT SUPPORT LINKS

UPCOMING - Telefilm Talent To Watch Program (For members in good standing only): February 2020 - http://nbfilmcoop.com/content/talent-watch-program

PAST - imagineNATIVE/NBFC Incubator Program (open to members and the public): March 1, 2019 - http://nbfilmcoop.com/programs/imaginenative-mentorship

ONGOING! - Member Production Support Programme (For members in good standing only): http://nbfilmcoop.com/programs/member-production-support-program

PAST - Bolex Film Scholarship (for members in good standing only): May 13, 2019 - http://nbfilmcoop.com/content/bolex-film-scholarship

PAST - Errol Williams Filmmaker Award (for members in good standing only): May 13, 2019 - http://nbfilmcoop.com/programs/errol-williams-filmmaker-award

UPCOMNG - CBC/NB Joy Award (open to members and the public): October 23, 2019: http://nbfilmcoop.com/programs/nb-joy-award

UPCOMING - Jane LeBlanc Filmmaker Award (open to members and the public) - October 23, 2019: http://nbfilmcoop.com/programs/jane-leblanc-filmmaker-award

(Photo of Fredericton based member actor/filmmaker Kaitlyn Adair (NEXUS) on the set of Cat LeBlanc's music video, Side of the Road based on her original song of the same name.) Check out the behind the scene photos: CLICK HERE