The cemetery at the Anglican church holds the remains of the "Lost Patrol", famous in Canadian history and legend. Just before Christmas in 1910 four men from the Northwest Mounted Police (mounties) left Fort McPherson on routine patrol to Dawson City, carrying mail and official communications. When they still had not arrived by late February a search expedition was sent out after them, headed by Corporal Dempster (for whom the highway has been named) and accompanied by a noted Indian tracker. The bodies were found just 26 miles away from Fort McPherson. They had been unable to locate the pass out of the delta over the Richardson Mountains, had run out of food, then inevitably they had frozen to death.