Angikuni / Anjikuni Lake Inuit Village Disappearance

[Ali_Strachan]

Did an entire Canadian village disappear in 1930?

Did an entire Canadian village disappear in 1930?

I wonder if anyone can verify whether the population of an Eskimo village by Lake Anjikuma disappeared without trace in November 1930? I orginally came
across the story in one of those cheap mysteries books which tend to sensationalise such mysteries. However, some research on the Internet did reveal a few sites with information on the supposed event. A trapper
called Joe Labelle stumbled upon the village & could not find a living soul. It has all the trappings of a classic "Marie Celeste"-type mystery with everything
left as if everyone had suddenly walked off, e.g. cooking pots burnt black. Even the dead were supposedly ripped from their burial ground. And to round it off a cigar-shaped UFO was seen beforehand & an eerie glowing light (not the Northern Lights) was seen by Mounties searching for the villagers. I have
grave doubts about this story as it does not appear to be more well-known.

Mike Palmer

 

[Anonymous]

I can remember reading a story somewhere about a whole village disappearing.

I am pretty sure it was an eskimo/inuit (not sure what to call them) village in the north of Canada.

If I remember correctly a hunter/tracker dude had seen something strange in the sky in the general direction of the village a few days before he arrived there.

When he got there everyone was gone, some hundreds of people I think.

I also think the graveyard had been emptied, apparantly everyone was dug up even though the ground was frozen and this would be an obviously hard thing to do.

Anyone heard of this tall tale ?

 

[MercuryCrest]

http://www.ufoarea.com/aas_villagecanada.html

A whole town that disapeared...some of the signs are eerily similar to the mystery ships where crew has vanished and meals are left on a table, supplies still intact, etc.....

 

[wembley8]

A whole town that disapeared...some of the signs are eerily similar to the mystery ships where crew has vanished and meals are left on a table, supplies still intact, etc.....

I thought this looked a bit suspect, and one google later -

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

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 Science. 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 (62 degrees north and 100 degrees west, about 100 km west of Eskimo Point). Furthermore, the Mounted Police who patrolled the area recorded no untoward events of any kind and neither did local trappers or missionaries.

 

[Topruno]

I can remember reading a story somewhere about a whole village disappearing.

I am pretty sure it was an eskimo/inuit (not sure what to call them) village in the north of Canada.

If I remember correctly a hunter/tracker dude had seen something strange in the sky in the general direction of the village a few days before he arrived there.

When he got there everyone was gone, some hundreds of people I think.

I also think the graveyard had been emptied, apparantly everyone was dug up even though the ground was frozen and this would be an obviously hard thing to do.

Anyone heard of this tall tale ?

This story refers to a supposed settlement on the shores of Lake Angikuni or Anjikuni. It dates to 1930 but was popularised by Frank Edwards in Stranger Than Science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angikuni_Lake

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has debunked the tale, and pointed out how unlikely such it is such a large settlement would exist so far to the north.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/anjikuni-eng.htm

 

[amarok2005]

The "Eskimo Village" story was also featured in Carroll B. Colby's Strangely Enough, which came out in 1959, and was a collection of essays taken from the author's syndicated newspaper column, "Adventure Today." Was that before or after Frank Edwards?

 

[gerhard1]

This story refers to a supposed settlement on the shores of Lake Angikuni or Anjikuni. It dates to 1930 but was popularised by Frank Edwards in Stranger Than Science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angikuni_Lake

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has debunked the tale, and pointed out how unlikely such it is such a large settlement would exist so far to the north.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/anjikuni-eng.htm

I have had this on my mind for some odd reason and decixded to check here to see if this particular item had been covered here.

A C&P of a post I did a while back on another website

Here is a classic example of failing to check things out by believers in the occult and the paranormal: the story goes that in November of 1931, a fur trapper in Canada's Northwest Territories, was near an Eskimo village of about 2000 souls, and since he knew the inhabitants, he decided to stop and visit. He found the entire village deserted and indications were that they had left quite suddenly. Meals were left half-eaten, and the men's rifles (their most valued possessions) were left behind as well. The trapper contacted the RCMP and they came to investigate but could find no cause for the disappearance. The story dominated the world press for weeks at the time, and then was displaced by other news. The disappearances were never solved.

This story is repeated as the Gospel truth on various occult and paranormal websites and speculation abounds as to what caused the disappearances.

The only problem is that the story was a complete fabrication. I checked with the RCMP, and their historian was kind enough to tell me that the RCMP had no record of any such occurrence. Others I have written to have said that they were acquainted with bush pilots in the region and the pilots have no information or any camp-fire tales on any such thing. Likewise, a search of newspapers for the time-frame failed to turn up anything on the story in spite of the alleged attention that it received from the world press. Google searches fail utterly to turn up any references to the story except for paranormal and similar websites.

Yet the story gets repeated on occult and paranormal websites in spite of there being no supporting evidence, much like alleged government wrong-doing does on preparation and patriot websites, and for the same basic reason: some people just want to believe this stuff.

My point here should be obvious: check things out.