The first two bodies, those of Kinney and Taylor, were found some 35 miles from Macpherson, and those of Carter and Fitzgerald within a score of miles of that place. Only a short day's run from Macpherson. If those who were there had only known, how speedily they would have gone to the rescue! It appears clear from what Fitzgerald had written in his diary, the first date in which was December 21, 1910, and the last February 5, 1911, that not many days after Indian Esau had left, it became apparent that Carter had over-estimated his ability to remember the route which he had only passed over once a few years before, and that the reverse way. Many landmarks may have been removed by fire and otherwise since that time. Poor Carter! I sometimes feel he suffered more than any of them when he found that he could not find the way he thought he knew. How hard he tried day after day, leaving camp with one or other of his companions and going up one river after the other, only to find that they ended as "blind alleys," along which they could proceed no farther. And so Fitzgerald has to write on January 17: "Carter is hopelessly lost and does not know one river from another. We have only 10 lbs. of flour, 8 lbs. of bacon and some dried fish. My last hope is gone, and the only thing I can do is to return and kill some of the dogs to feed the others and ourselves. We have now been a week looking for a river to take us over the divide, but there are dozens of rivers and I am at a loss."
One asks why they had not turned back days before, and as soon as they found the route uncertain. The answer is that it was not the Police way to turn back when they were out on a definite errand. These men were of the same calibre as the young constable in the foothill country who was caught in a blizzard while out on duty, and on whose body, as already quoted, was found a paper with the words: "Lost. Horse dead. Am trying to push ahead. Have done my best."
But Fitzgerald was not alone, and had to save his men if he could. Kinney and Taylor, less strong than the others, suffered from cold and severe pains, the results perhaps of the dog meat and dog liver diet. The dogs would not eat this food, and so the men gave them the fish they had for their own use. So, in a last effort to save his men, Fitzgerald ordered the return, in the hope of making Fort Macpherson, from which they had travelled over 300 miles. He and Carter could have made it had they not been hampered by the other two, who were sick. But they would not leave them, as shown by the fact that Dempster found the camps each night were only a few miles apart. Finally, it appears that in the hope of reaching Macpherson and getting help Fitzgerald and Carter gave all the food, such as it was, and all the warm sleeping-bags to their comrades, and tried to reach Macpherson, which was only 35 miles away. They made 10 miles and then gave out and fell. Carter was evidently the first to go, for his body was laid out, his hands crossed, and a handkerchief put over his face. Then the gallant Fitzgerald succumbed, first having written with a charred stick on a paper found in his pocket his will in the fine words: "All money in dispatch bag and bank, clothes, etc., I leave to my dearly beloved Mother, Mrs. John Fitzgerald, of Halifax. God bless all. F. J. Fitzgerald, R.N.W.M.P." Many times have the initials of the old corps been written in important and honourable connections, but never with greater honour to the Force than when they were thus set down with the thought of his mother and a benediction for all by the numbed fingers of the heroic Inspector who was faithful unto death.
When Dempster and his men found the emaciated bodies and the mail which the dead men had carefully guarded they covered the bodies over reverently with brush, for their dogs were too far spent by the hard, swift trip to draw them, and went on to Fort Macpherson with the sad news. Those at Macpherson never dreamed but that the four strong, splendid men who had left them weeks before had long ere the date of Dempster's arrival reached Dawson City. The news that now came blanched all faces and cast a great gloom over that little company in the far North. Next morning, March 23, Corporal Somers and Constable Blake got together three fresh dog-teams with which, accompanied by two Indians, Somers started out at noon and returned on the 25th with the bodies of the men who had given up their lives in the line of their duty. A grave was prepared, the only one of its kind in the Northland, where the four bodies were buried side by side, in coffins made and covered with black by Somers and Dempster. The funeral was held in the Anglican Church, that devoted missionary, Rev. C. E. Whittaker, conducting the service in the presence of Mrs. Whittaker, nine white men and the native residents. Dempster says finely here: "Even though the funeral was held in the most northerly part of the Empire, away in the Arctic Circle, hundreds of miles from civilization, I am glad to be able to assure you that everything was done in connection with the last sad rites that could possibly be done under the circumstances, and I am sure that the relatives and friends of the deceased will be glad to know that it was possible to have Christian burial services read by an ordained minister of the Gospel over the bodies of their loved ones." The honours were duly paid also by their comrades, for there was a firing party of five, Somers, Blake, Dempster, Fyfe and Turner, to give the farewell salute at the graveside. In the solitude of the vast Northland the rattle of that musketry would not carry far in one sense, but it awaked echoes in hearts that understood in far places of the Empire.
When Commissioner Perry sent his final report on the matter he voiced the feelings of all when he wrote: "Their loss has been felt most keenly by every member of the Force, but we cannot but feel a thrill of pride at the endeavour they made to carry out their duty. I cannot express it better than in the following extract from a letter addressed to me by His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan: 'While the occurrence brings deepest sadness to all, we feel that such an event gives greater lustre and enduring remembrance to the splendid Force.'" And Inspector Sanders, then at Athabasca Landing, who knew the men well and had received a report from Corporal Somers, wrote a statement to the Commissioner, in which these fine sentences occur: "It would appear that Inspector Fitzgerald was the last to succumb, and that he and Carter would probably have made Fort Macpherson had they not heroically stood by their stricken and weary companions. The pathetic attention evidently paid by Inspector Fitzgerald to his dead companions was in keeping with his brave and manly character."
Memorial services were held in Dawson and other places, and at the service in Dawson Governor Alexander Henderson said: "They did not fall in the shock of battle, but, none the less, they all died nobly in the discharge of their duty and in the service of their country."
The members of the Mounted Police Force raised a large amount for the purpose of a memorial tablet, but perhaps the most eloquent, if humble, testimonies were in the wide North, where the men and their achievements were so well known for years. Corporal Somers, at Fort Macpherson, cut a copper camp kettle into strips and engraved upon them the names of the brave departed, while more recently the famous old name of Smith's Landing at the end of the Athabasca River navigation was changed to Fitzgerald as a tribute to the memory of the gallant Policeman whose name was a household word in all that country.
The fatal ending of the Fitzgerald patrol remains as the most tragic happening in the long and remarkable history of the Mounted Police. But, as already suggested, it startled our people into a fuller realization of what the men of the Force were and are doing so unobtrusively for the country at such constant risk to themselves. The passing of Fitzgerald and his companions on that frozen way will not have been in vain if our Canadian lads learn new lessons from the men whose silent tents are, at the end of the trail, pitched on the eternal camping ground of Fame. If these lessons of heroism and devotion to duty are learned and practised by the young men of to-day, then that lonely fourfold grave under the Arctic sky will prove to be one of the bulwarks of the nation.