In 1930, a newsman in The Pas, Manitoba, reported on a small Inuit village right off of Lake Angikuni. The village had always welcomed the fur trappers who passed through occasionally. But in 1930 Joe Labelle, a fur trapper well known in the village, found that all the villagers had gone. He found unfinished shirts that still had needles in them and food hanging over fire pits and therefore concluded that the villagers had left suddenly. Even more disturbing, he found seven sled dogs dead from starvation and a grave that had been dug up. Labelle knew that an animal could not have been responsible because the stones circling the grave were undisturbed. He reported this to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who conducted a search for the missing people; no one was ever found.
One bitter night in November 1930, an exhausted Canadian fur trapper named Joe Labelle sought refuge from the cold and inadvertently stumbled across one of historys most remarkable mysteries. The once-industrious Inuit village on the shores of Lake Anjikuni that Labelle had seen throughout his travels had vanished without a trace.
Trudging through the fresh snow, Labelle cautiously approached the silent village in search of shelter. Still steaming, grey streaks emanated from a charred pot of stew and eerily wove themselves through the night sky. Clearly, Labelle mused, someone had to be around. Searching further, Labelle checked the huts and found clothing and food (two things you certainly wouldnt leave behind if abandoning a village), both in large enough amounts to last the Inuits through winter. And yet, Labelle didnt come across a single soul or sled dog; and whats more, no footprints lay in the snow.