A delegation of Royal Canadian Mounted Police visited Wrangell last month in search of one of their colleagues, a constable killed in a boating accident near the island over a century ago.

Constable Spencer Heathcote was a member of RCMP's Yukon District, Stikine Detachment, and was on patrol with two other constables when he died on Dec. 26, 1901. On patrol, the constables' boat was swamped in a gale when crossing over to Wrangell Island, and Heathcote perished along with Constable Norman Campbell.

Though nearly succumbing to hypothermia, the third, Constable Michael Fitzgerald, survived t...