Mysterious Disappearance

[scoobyd1970]

What really happened at the eskimo village at Lake Anjikuni in northern Canada? In 1930 2000 men, women, and children disappeared without a trace. No foot prints were found, all of the villages sled dogs were found under a 12 foot snow drift (they were starved to death), all of the eskimos food and provisions were found undisturbed in thier homes, and most unnerving, thier ancestral graves were all emptied.

[tanstaafl]

According to the RCMP, nothing. They imply that the story is false, if not a hoax.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/history/anjikuni_e.htm

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

www.snopes.com does not carry a reference to this.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@scoobyd1970

What really happened at the eskimo village at Lake Anjikuni in northern Canada? In 1930 2000 men, women, and children disappeared without a trace.

Just the idea of an “eskimo village” that has a population of 2000 leads me to believe this is a hoax. And a pretty badly done one.

[samclem]

Here’s the Straight Dope–at least as I’ve been able to find.

The RCMP website says

The story about the disappearance in the 1930’s of an Inuit village near Lake Anjikuni is not true. An American author by the name of Frank Edwards is purported to have started this story in his book Stranger than Fiction. It has become a popular piece of journalism, repeatedly published and referred to in books and magazines. There is no evidence however to support such a story. A village with such a large population would not have existed in such a remote area of the Northwest Territories

I don’t see where they give a figure of the population in that quote. The figure of 2000 was given in the OP, and I am sure that “Frank Edwards” who was an Art Bell-type radio/print journalist in the late 1940’s-early 1950’s probably has that figure in his book. He, no doubt, is the person who invented the population of the village. He may have even been stretching the truth to compete with Robert Ripley.

B-U-T

Using Newspaperarchive, I found a news story from 1930 which describes this event. It was a small village of approximately 25 persons, it was found deserted by a trapper, two dogs were still alive, six were dead. There was one grave opened. The RCMP supposedly were investigating. Everything was left in the village, including rifles, and no trace of the people was ever found(that I could find in a search).

So—there probably was such an occurance(in 1930). It got blown out of proportion in the retelling 20 years later. And the RCMP doesn’t know what they’re talking about. (But I’m gonna tell 'em in an email).

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

The name of the book is “Stranger Than Science,” not “Stranger Than Fiction.” From this account:

The person who found the village deserted was a chap named “Joe Labelle,” who had visited the village for many years.

There were seven dogs, all dead from starvation. (According to his account, they had been tied to some scrubby trees.)

It does mention the opened grave.

The RCMP said that the village had been abandoned for about two months. (It was found deserted in November.) They came up with that based on the type of berries found in the cooking pots.

The village is described as having “about 30 inhabitants.”

In the igloo of the village doc, they found that he had opened up a downed satellite/probe that had landed off-course.

So, in an uncharacteristic moment of (more-or-less) journalistic accuracy, Edwards’ account is pretty dog-gone close to the contemporary newspaper account.

OK, I made up the part about the village doc and the satellite.

[aahala]

In surfing for a map of this mysterious Lake, my computer discovered a Lulu of a virus. So maybe that’s what happened to the village.

[samclem]

@Earl Snake-Hips Tucker

The name of the book is “Stranger Than Science,” not “Stranger Than Fiction.” From this account:

."

In the igloo of the village doc, they found that he had opened up a downed satellite/probe that had landed off-course.

So, in an uncharacteristic moment of (more-or-less) journalistic accuracy, Edwards’ account is pretty dog-gone close to the contemporary newspaper account.

OK, I made up the part about the village doc and the satellite.

Thanks, Earl, for that bit of info. Now I’m curious about when the story got embellished and who did it.

[vl_mungo]

Maybe they went to the same place as the people of Roanoke Island

[dtilque]

@Earl Snake-Hips Tucker

OK, I made up the part about the village doc and the satellite.

Or swiped it from Michael Crichton …

[Dog80]

@Earl Snake-Hips Tucker

In the igloo of the village doc, they found that he had opened up a downed satellite/probe that had landed off-course.

The Andromeda Strain?

[DocCathode]

Many accounts leave out the intriguing detail of a large number of green soapstone objects found in the village. These were carved (though some hold the view that they were natural objects) in the shape of rounded five point stars. They correspond to nothing in the area’s culture.

[FriarTed]

@DocCathode

Many accounts leave out the intriguing detail of a large number of green soapstone objects found in the village. These were carved (though some hold the view that they were natural objects) in the shape of rounded five point stars. They correspond to nothing in the area’s culture.

But were they found in cyclopean structures of non-Euclidean geometry?

I loved Frank Edwards books as a young’un, and I did wonder about the Eskimo village, Alas, even Fate Magazine (perhaps in a late-'70s issue when they actually did occasional debunking) eventually pronounced the story as at least unproved & improbable.