Norman Niddery
Norman Niddery was a long-time fur trapper with a trapline for martin, lynx, and fox in the Mount Ortel area of the Selwyn-Mackenzie Mountains. He and his First Nation wife Sanoa lived for forty years on a remote trapline over a hundred miles from their nearest neighbour. When Norman was 80 years old, he took a younger man, Klaus Djukastein, and flew to Emerald Lake on the south fork of the Stewart River to prospect for gold. They had planned to walk out, but Norman's leg was bothering him, so they built a skin boat to come out on the river.1) Niddery was still trapping and prospecting in the Hess region when his hip was infected with tuberculosis. Sanoa broke trail for fifty miles in front of a dog team to haul him from Rogue River to Lansing. They both lived into their eighties.2)
Niddery Lake is south of the Hess River.