From the Vancouver Sun on Thursday, June 17, 2021.

Vancouver author Geoff Mynett’s new book Pinkerton’s and the Hunt for Simon Gunanoot tells the page-turning story of Simon Gunanoot a Hazelton area man who was suspected of a grisly double murder in 1906. A respected Gitxsan businessman and expert trapper Gunanoot managed to evade capture for 13 years before turning himself in 1919.

Postmedia asked Mynett a few questions about this great outlaw.

Q: How important was the Hazelton area to the province in the late 19th and early 20th century?

A: Until the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway arrived in 1913, Hazelton, although small, was the most important town in the northern interior. It was located at the highest point of navigation on the Skeena River. Supplies were brought up to Hazelton from the coast by paddle steamer. Then mule trains took them to telegraph operators in cabins on the line to the Yukon, as well as to the miners in the district and increasing numbers of settlers in the Bulkley Valley. As late as 1912, there were over 800 mules and 100 men working in the pack trains based in Hazelton.

Q: You say in the book “the police hunt for Simon Gunanoot and Peter Himadam (his brother-in-law) ranged from “the competent but unsuccessful to the ludicrously inept.” What was the most inept move you discovered during your research?

A: One of the police parties searching for Gunanoot was hopeless. The cook refused to cook. The men in the party refused to obey orders and complained to higher authorities. Some of the men couldn’t, or wouldn’t, walk across streams on log bridges so the officer in charge had to carry their packs across for them. Then, when they were fired and sent home to Vancouver, they grumbled at not being given first class cabins on the boat.

Q: Why did the province choose to enlist Seattle’s Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency to help?

A: In the years before the First World War, the B.C. provincial police did not have a detective branch. Where criminal detection was concerned, they frequently turned to Pinkerton’s for assistance. Superintendent Hussey, chief of the police in Victoria, had a good working relationship with Philip Ahern, head of Pinkerton’s in Seattle. They shared information about known criminals and policing procedures.

Pinkerton’s has acquired a bad and justified reputation for anti-union activities such as strikebreaking. But it also had the reputation for being one of the most respected and experienced private detective agencies in North America and Europe at that time. A criminal could easily move across borders from, say, New York, to Toronto, London or Paris. Police forces were confined to their jurisdictions. Pinkerton’s ability to operate internationally was one of its strengths. Scotland Yard, for example, used Pinkerton’s to pursue Adam Worth, an American master criminal operating in London, who had stolen a famous Gainsborough painting and hidden it under his bed for years. Moreover, Pinkerton’s was solid, efficient and organized. It maintained files on known criminals, their methods of operation and their identifying characteristics. It pioneered the use of mug shots and was an early advocate for the use of fingerprints. The term “private eye” for a private detective reportedly comes from the Pinkerton’s logo and motto “The Eye That Never Sleeps.”

Q: What was the most surprising thing you learned about the Pinkerton’s operation?

A: Many people believe the two Pinkerton’s operatives hunting for Gunanoot were incompetent and stupid to think they could catch him. In fact they were conscientious, resourceful and determined to do what they were being paid to do. I suspect it probably didn’t take them long to realize they were never going to catch him. But they had a job to do and were committed to doing their dogged best.

Q: Gunanoot and Himadam turned themselves in 13 years after the murders. How were they able to evade capture for so long?

A: Gunanoot and Himadam were intelligent, experienced backcountry trappers. Staying ahead of any pursuer was never going to be a problem for them. Even while an outlaw, Gunanoot trapped in the forests and, through middlemen, sold his furs at the Hudson’s Bay Company store in Hazelton. The truth was that many people, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, liked and respected Gunanoot and did not want to see him caught. They made sure he knew what law enforcement agents were up to.

Q: Was the verdict surprising at the time?

A: Not at all. By 1919 Gunanoot had become the subject of myth and legend. The public in Vancouver did not want him to be convicted. During the trial the public gallery in the Court was packed. The sheriff had a hard time controlling the uproar when the verdict was announced.

Q: Who do you think did it? 

A: In the book I deliberately refrain from saying who I think committed the murders. I merely lay out the evidence so readers can make up their own minds.

Q: What is your favourite part of this whole story?

A: The book is based on regular reports the two Pinkerton’s men sent back to their boss in Seattle, which were then passed on to Superintendent Hussey in Victoria. I found these reports of life in Hazelton in 1909 and people living there fascinating. I also enjoyed the nuance of the story. One never quite knows who is telling the truth and who was and who was on Gunanoot’s side. Did anyone suspect that these two men, disguised as prospectors, were actually police agents? There are still many unanswered questions.

Q: This fall you will release your third book — Murders on the Skeena: True Crime in the Old Canadian West — set in the Skeena River area. What is it about that part of the province that drew your interest?

A: Likely I am biased, but I have long been fascinated by Hazelton and its history. I first visited it in 1979. The Gitxsan people have lived there for millennia but as far as non-Indigenous history is concerned it is one of the most historic places in the province. A Hudson’s Bay Company trader first visited the confluence of the Skeena and Bulkley Rivers in 1833. There is even one report that non-Indigenous traders had come up from the coast before 1811. Hazelton itself was founded in 1871 and was the centre of sternwheeler river traffic, gold rushes, pack trains and a surprising number of murders.

This district is startlingly beautiful, with the confluence of the two rivers and the mountain Rocher de Boule—Stekyawden to give it its Gitxsan name. Four miles up the Bulkley River is the famous Hagwilget Canyon.

I also have a personal interest. My wife Alice is the granddaughter of Dr. Horace Wrinch (1866-1939), the medical pioneer and champion in the 1920s for state medical insurance. He was the subject of my first book, Service on the Skeena: Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician.