Anjikuni Lake is located alongside the river Kazan, in Nunavut region – Canada! The lake was a rich source of fishes like Lake Trout, Northern Pike and Arctic Grayling. This region was also a territory of Barren-Ground Caribou. This rich fauna and availability of fresh water made the banks of Anjikuni a good place for human settlements. Before the nineteenth century, there were human settlements around this area. The inhabitants belonged to an indigenous tribe named inuit, a kind of semi nomadic group composed of hunters and farmers. They also did some kinds of businesses by collecting fur and selling it to fur trappers (men who trades fur for living). They lead a very successful life till the early twentieth century.

Mystery begins when a fur trapper named Joe Labelle visited the village in the early week of November 1930. His intention was to collect fur from the tribe, like the way he did before. From the long past, the trade between the tribe and fur trappers were peaceful, and the people were eager and happy to welcome them for trade. But this time, there were nobody in the village to welcome Joe Labelle. He was surprised when nobody replied to his welcome call. With a great curiosity, he started searching the village and what he found was astonishing.

The village seemed abandoned. There were nobody around. No sounds, no pets, nothing. Labelle noticed a fire at a distance, which indicated someone started preparing a meal but left without finishing the task. Ruined food materials were found inside. He thoroughly checked every hut for possible signs that can answer this strange disappearance. He failed to find any proof but what he found was strange. In a hut he saw an incomplete fur coat, seems like someone was stitching it but stopped the work suddenly. In another hut, he found a pretty good stock of food and weapons, and this made him confused. Strangest thing he noticed was that most/ all dogs the tribe raised were starved to death. The animals didn’t left the site even though they felt hunger. There were no visible footprints on the snow other than his, which indicated nobody accessed the village recently.

Without even a guess what might have happened there, Joe Labelle managed to get to the nearest telegraph office, which was several miles away from the site. From the office he informed the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) about the incident. The Police started their investigation immediately. On their way to the village, they found an isolated hut of a fur trapper named Armand Laurent who lived there with his 2 sons. According to their testimony, few days ago they saw a huge cylindrical object flying in the sky moving towards the Anjikuni lake.

When the Police reached the village they found more creepy things. Food, weapons and even the cloths used by the inhabitants were left in their huts. Some reports say the police found that all graves in their burial ground has been opened and emptied.

The investigation team failed to found a solid evidence to justify the disappearance. Many assumptions has been put forward. The inuit tribe are semi nomads. They does not have a permanent settlement. They move from one place to another when the resources of their current settlement runs out.

Many people believes that the inuit tribe might have migrated to a better location, far from the Anjikuni. But experts oppose this theory. According to them, there was no sign of a planned migration, and those villagers vanished all in a sudden. Something forced them to abandon their village. Food, weapons and cloths were found everywhere. If the tribe did a planned migration, they should have taken these valuable items with them for their survival in the wild. Whatsoever, if that was planned, they would never let their dogs behind. Some says, there was no reason for the inuits to left Anjikuni. Resources of that area hasn’t decreased. The tribe could survive 1000 more years using those resources. So this might not be a reason for this mysterious disappearance.

Some others believe that an extra terrestrial force took them away,  and the cylindrical object seen in the sky (seen by the local fur trapper) might be behind this. They took the villegers and they cleared up the grave to get the bodies to perform some kind of experiments. This theory explains almost everything: the half cooked food, half stitched coat, dead dogs, lack of struggle signs, abandoned cloths and abandoned weapons. But there are no solid proofs to support this.

The RCMP claimed that the disappearance might have happened at least 8 weeks before Joe Labelle’s visit. The fire he saw might have started by any hunters or trappers who entered the village recently. However, the RCMP are not certain about the real cause!

Report of the disappearance in the news paper

 

What could have happened to those people? If they were dead, their bodies must be found somewhere. That is obvious. But till this date no bodies are found! If they were alive, they might be living somewhere near the Nunavut. If so, somehow we will get the proof of their new settlement. It wasn’t much difficult to find the trace of the missing tribe in the 1930’s, if they were alive. This has been an exclusive news of that time, and if any of the inuits were alive, they might have heard the news of their disappearance. No members of the tribe will keep the truth as a secret for a long time. Someday someone should have confessed. But it never happened, which means “The Anjikuni Lake Incident” will remain as a mystery forever.