DISAPPEARED: Anjikuni Lake

In the 1930s, in Northern Canada, a fur trapper named Joe Labelle stumbled upon a small Inuit village that had been recently deserted. Many wondered what drove the villagers out so quickly, as weapons and clothing were left behind, dogs were left to starve, and a grave had been dug up, inexplicably. Some say that strange lights seen over the region during the time of the disappearance may be the biggest clue of all.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Fight or flight? It's a natural human instinct. When we find ourselves looking into the face of danger, we either defend ourselves and attack, or we run the other way, avoid, avoid, avoid at all costs. A lot of us don't even know which we'll choose until we find ourselves in those situations. Even then, every circumstance is different. Sometimes there's not even a time to think, only time to react. Which is why I am dying to know what kind of threat makes someone leave everything behind. Back in 1930, a fur trapper was roaming in a very remote part of northern Canada when he stumbled upon the unthinkable.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  A tiny Inuit village had become a ghost town. And not in a way where people packed up and moved. Whatever happened here happened quickly and in a moment of pure distress. Garments were left half-sewn, dogs were left behind to starve, an old grave had been dug up, and the villagers were nowhere to be found. To this day, no one knows for sure what happened. But the source of the threat seemed so menacing that it might have been rooted in the supernatural. I'm Ashley Flowers. Welcome back.

• 1:57Yvette Gentile?

  We've covered a lot of creepy topics on this show, but today's story about Anjikuni Lake might be one of the eeriest yet. I'm Yvette Gentile.

• 2:10Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecoraro. And today, we're talking about a truly mind-bending disappearance.

• 2:18Yvette Gentile?

  And while we don't cover a ton of disappearances on So Supernatural, Rasha and I had a show called Facing Evil, where we covered a ton of different cases. And it was really important for us to spotlight cases from marginalized communities.

• 2:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's right. And even though this is a completely different kind of story, researching this episode reminded us of one particular case we covered in July of 2022, about a beautiful Indigenous girl named Tina Fontaine. Tina was only 15 years old when she disappeared from Winnipeg, Canada.

• 2:54Yvette Gentile?

  With that in mind, we wanted to dedicate this episode to Tina Fontaine and to every other missing and murdered Indigenous person.

• 3:04Rasha Pecoraro?

  We say their names, we share their stories, and we refuse to let them be forgotten.

• 3:10Yvette Gentile?

  Exactly.

• 3:13Yvette Gentile?

  But for today's case, we're headed to one of the coldest, most remote parts of the world as we turn back the clock to November of 1930.

• 3:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  A fur trapper named Joe LaBelle is in a desolate part of northern Canada by a place called Anjikuni Lake. And that name is pretty deceptive, because even though the lake covers about 200 square miles, making it comparable to the size of Lake Tahoe, it's a really shallow lake. Plus, most of the year, it's frozen solid, making it less of a lake and more of a stretch of slippery ice buried under the snow. Almost no one lives this far north because it's so difficult to grow crops there, and there's very little game to hunt. Survival is hard, even in the best of times, which is why the Indigenous people in the area,

• 4:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  the Inuit, call this "the barren grounds." So understandably, Joe LaBelle's fur trapping expedition isn't going as well as he had hoped. He's alone and running low on supplies. He's tired, hungry, and in need of a warm place to spend the night.

• 4:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  The good news is that he's familiar with the area because he's been trapping here for years. And he knows there's a tiny little village of about 25 people not too far from where he's at. Right on the shores of Anjikuni Lake. Apparently, Joe has spent some time there before and he's familiar with the locals there. They've always been friendly and generous toward him. Given his past experience with them, Joe thinks maybe they'll give him something to eat and a tent to sleep in for the night. Then he can go back to his trapping work the next morning. So Joe heads for the village.

• 5:04Yvette Gentile?

  Except when Joe approaches the handful of caribou skin tents, he doesn't see anybody milling about. Nobody's gathered around the fires cooking food. There's no children playing in the snow or adults tending to the sled dogs. I mean, there is no sign of life. Joe even goes up to one of the tents, stands outside and calls out, like, hello, is anyone here? And when nobody answers, he just lets himself inside. And that's when he sees a pot sitting over a burned-out cooking fire. It's off and the pot is cold, but what's inside is burnt beyond all recognition.

• 5:47Yvette Gentile?

  It's like someone cooked something, left it on far too long, and then just left, and the fire finally burned out all on its own. Clearly, whoever lived here never came back to eat or clean up after themselves either. And Joe finds this really strange. But the more that he explores, the creepier things get. There are furs sitting in a tidy little stack at one side of the tent. The bedding, clothes, and boots are all put away where they belong, and there's a rifle lying beside a warm winter coat. So in other words, it looks like whoever lives here could come back at any moment for their stuff.

• 6:30Yvette Gentile?

  It's not like they packed up their things for a long journey and left. Except Joe can tell that none of this stuff has been touched in months. The gun is rusty, the bones are getting moldy, and there's just dust everywhere. Joe goes to the next tent over and it's exactly the same thing. Aside from one thing. The wind has seemingly ripped open one of the walls, so everything inside is wet and muddy. And he has no idea how long it could have been like that. But again, it looks like it's been abandoned for months. The tent is full of clothes, warm furs, food.

• 7:14Yvette Gentile?

  I mean, you name it, the list goes on. And that's true for the next tent and then the one after that. All are full of the important supplies that you'd need to survive a winter in northern Canada. But there are no living people, no dead bodies, no sign of what happened to the residents. It's like they all just vanish midway through an ordinary day. At one point, Joe even finds someone's half-finished sewing project. It's a seal skin garment, child size, and it still has a needle stuck in it. As if someone set it down for a second and then never came back to finish it.

• 7:56Rasha Pecoraro?

  So once Joe confirms that no one is in any of the dwellings, he walks around the village to look for more clues. And that's when he notices the dogs. It starts with two very skinny dogs who are actually still alive. They follow him around whimpering with hunger. Obviously, they haven't been fed in quite some time. But that's not all. Eventually, Joe sees a pole that has seven sled dogs tied to it. And all of them appear to have starved to death. As for the two surviving animals, Joe's assumption is that at some point, they may have gotten loose from that same pole that all the other dogs were on. Maybe they've been scavenging

• 8:40Rasha Pecoraro?

  to stay alive ever since then. By this point, Joe's mind is going to some very dark places. He wonders if all of the people from the village died in some horrible accident, or if a deadly contagious disease wiped them all out. Except if something like that did happen, you'd expect to find bodies. But as we mentioned, there aren't any human remains to be found anywhere.

• 9:07Yvette Gentile?

  Understandably, Joe is creeped out. He has this overwhelming sensation that he's not supposed to be here, and something terrible must have happened. And then, as he makes his way outside the village, his worst fears seem to come true. Because that's where he finds what looks to be like a freshly dug grave. And here's where things get really weird. Now, Joe has spent a lot of time up north. He thinks he's pretty familiar with Inuit burial practices, and he knows that they stack stones on top of the graves in a very particular way.

• 9:49Yvette Gentile?

  And they sometimes assemble them in a huge pile. But on this grave, only about half the stones are still there. The rest have been neatly moved to the side, like someone was trying to get into the grave beneath it. Which makes sense, because the grave is empty. And Joe knows that if a wild animal had dug this up, the stones would have been scattered all over the place, not stacked up neatly, side by side. So he can only conclude that a person or some intelligent species did this. Maybe they moved the rocks and stole the body that was beneath them.

• 10:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which is so incredibly bizarre and creepy. And that's exactly why, at this point, Joe is coming up with all kinds of theories, some of which are pretty out there. For example, he wonders if the whole village died in a mass suicide. Maybe everyone got up together and walked into the freezing lake. Except, there's no actual evidence to suggest that. So he tells himself he's just being paranoid. But also, he isn't going to solve this mystery on his own. It's time for him to get some help. Since Joe is in the middle of nowhere, it likely takes some time for him to get in touch with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,

• 11:17Rasha Pecoraro?

  better known as the Mounties. But when they finally catch wind of the story and make their way out to the scene, they uncover a key piece of information that could break the mystery wide open. Only, it doesn't come from the village. It comes from the sky.

• 11:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  In November of 1930, Canadian fur trapper Joe LaBelle discovered an abandoned Inuit village on the shores of Anjikuni Lake. It seemed like the 25 or so people living there had vanished without a trace, leaving behind their clothes, their supplies, and even their sled dogs. After the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hear about this, the officers launch a huge investigation. Which is pretty shocking, because in the 1930s, many government officials don't seem to value the Inuit people or their culture. A lot of indigenous communities tend to be neglected or ignored. So I don't know why the police are so invested in the mystery this time around.

• 12:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  I mean, maybe it's so strange and inexplicable that even they can't help but feel curious. But they go over the abandoned village with a fine-toothed comb. They don't find any new evidence outside of what Joe already spotted himself. When those officers filed their reports, a bunch of them mentioned something a little bit strange. They say the whole time they were at Anjikuni Lake, they kept seeing a weird flashing light in the sky, but they couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

• 13:03Yvette Gentile?

  Now, you might be thinking it is the Arctic Circle, right? Maybe they were seeing the aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights. Except, these investigators are very familiar with the aurora borealis. They know what it looks like and they can tell this is something else. They're not sure what exactly it is, but they also don't seem to think it's that important to their investigation. They only make a quick note of it in their reports and then they just move on, which now means questioning the people who live in other nearby Inuit villages. And to be clear, when I say nearby, I mean communities that are several hours away.

• 13:47Yvette Gentile?

  I don't know the exact distance in terms of miles, but just to say, they aren't next door neighbors. The officers asked these villagers if anyone's heard about what happened to the missing Anjikuni Lake people, if any refugees passed through lately, or if anyone has recently resettled in a new town. But everyone says they have no idea what the police are talking about. They haven't heard anything from the missing Anjikuni Lake residents. And from what I can tell, none of these villagers trade with the group or stay in regular contact with them. So it's not like they'd notice if the people there suddenly disappeared. In fact, some locals say they didn't even know there was a village there.

• 14:32Yvette Gentile?

  It was apparently just that small and remote. But they do share another key piece of information. Just like the Mounties, these villagers have noticed strange lights in the sky. And they're confident that these are not the northern lights. According to the Inuits in a nearby village, they're blue and they sort of pulsate, getting brighter, then dimming, just to get brighter again. Once again, the police think this is worth noting in their reports, but they don't try to investigate the lights. Maybe they don't see how there could be any connection between them and the missing villagers.

• 15:16Rasha Pecoraro?

  So the investigation goes on. Since the people in nearby villages don't seem to know anything, the police talk to Inuit communities who live farther and farther away. Eventually, they end up questioning some people who live about 150 miles from Anjikuni Lake. I don't know the name of this village, but I do know that these locals have an interesting story to share. They say, just a few months ago, a 10-year-old Inuit boy just wandered into their town. No one knew where he'd come from or why he was all alone. But obviously, a young child like this wasn't going to survive for long on his own. So of course, they took him in and found a family that was willing to feed, house,

• 16:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  and raise him until they could track down his actual relatives. Now, the little boy doesn't say much. At least, he doesn't offer up any valuable information. And if the locals have been able to figure out where he's from, they're reluctant to talk to outsiders. All they know is that no kids from the nearby villages are missing. But as soon as the police hear this, they think, "The timeline matches up. The boy could be the lone survivor from Anjikuni Lake." So they questioned him and the family that's been taking care of him. And let's just say everyone's a bit evasive. The investigators think the Inuit are all hiding some key information from them. But it's impossible to say what.

• 16:46Yvette Gentile?

  That said, it's very unlikely this little boy managed to walk 150 miles alone through the Canadian wasteland. I mean, whatever his background is, it probably has nothing to do with Anjikuni Lake. So eventually, the police stopped pursuing this lead. They leave the little boy and his adopted family alone, and they figure, whatever's going on, it's irrelevant to their current investigation. The problem is that after about two weeks, the Mounties still haven't learned anything new. They're running out of evidence and tips, and it's looking like they're not going to be able to solve this.

• 17:30Yvette Gentile?

  And eventually, they have no choice but to shrug their shoulders and write the disappearance off as an unsolved mystery. They turn their attention to other matters, and for the most part, everyone sort of forgets about Anjikuni Lake for the next three decades or so.

• 17:49Yvette Gentile?

  Until 1959.

• 17:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's when a man named Frank Edwards publishes a book called Stranger Than Science. It's a collection of short, true stories about things that are mysterious and unexplained. Honestly, it covers a lot of the same topics we've discussed here on So Supernatural. But the book also has a short chapter dedicated to Joe LaBelle and the missing town at Anjikuni Lake. Now, I don't know exactly where Frank is getting his information, if he interviewed Joe or the Mounties, or if he's just going by old newspaper accounts. Though I will say, Frank's version of the story includes some details that don't quite match Joe's original account. For example,

• 18:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  Stranger Than Science claims that Joe spotted at least three kayaks on the beach of the lake, but Joe never mentioned anything about seeing kayaks. Plus, it was November, and Anjikuni Lake would have been frozen solid. Not to mention, the Inuit who lived in this region probably didn't use kayaks. They require materials like willow branches that are all but impossible to find this far in northern Canada. So it's safe to say that this account may not be the most accurate. But it is important for one big reason. It introduces a whole new generation to the story of Anjikuni Lake. And before you know it, lots of people are putting their own spin on the mystery

• 19:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  and spreading even more misinformation. There are newspaper articles, books, and TV specials all about the disappearance, most of which are not very well researched or accurate. For example, some new accounts come out. They say the village was much bigger than the six-hut, 25-person settlement that Joe originally described. Some articles say hundreds, or even thousands, of Inuit people vanished from Anjikuni Lake without a trace. Rumors also say that when Joe found the village, there were fires that were still lit, with uneaten food sitting in pots over the flames.

• 20:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  Basically, these accounts make it sound like the villagers had only been gone for a few hours or days, not several months like what Joe originally concluded. So it's not great that the story is getting completely blown out of proportion, but one good thing comes out of all of this. Now that Anjikuni Lake is part of pop culture, lots of people are speculating on what might have actually happened to the villagers. And some of their ideas could point at a possible answer.

• 20:35Yvette Gentile?

  A lot of people think that it's notable that the Mounties and the neighboring Inuit villagers all saw strange lights in the sky. They wonder, what if the lights weren't a natural phenomenon like the aurora borealis? What if they were, I don't know, say it with me, y'all, alien spaceships?

• 20:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  I knew you were gonna say that.

• 20:58Yvette Gentile?

  Of course you knew that. The theory is that maybe visitors from outer space abducted the residents of Anjikuni Lake. To them, that would explain why the people were gone, but somehow their dogs and supplies were left behind. Maybe the aliens even lifted whoever was buried in that grave straight out of the ground. The problem with this theory is that there was no real evidence of a UFO, just a few reports with brief comments about the lights in the sky. At least until April of 1977. Around that time, a publication called Fate Magazine does a write-up on the Anjikuni Lake mystery.

• 21:43Yvette Gentile?

  After the article runs, a woman writes a letter to the editor, which gets published in the next issue. She says she's confident that the Inuit were abducted by aliens. And she'd know because this woman's name is Betty Hill.

• 22:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  So if you're a longtime listener, that name probably rings a bell. She is one of the most famous alien abductees in modern history. Betty was on a road trip with her husband Barney on September 19, 1961. As they were driving down a remote New Hampshire highway, they both ended up blacking out. Hours later, they found themselves back home with no memory of what had happened during the night. Three years later, they both underwent hypnotherapy to try and recover their memories of those lost hours. They ended up recalling a horrifying incident where aliens brought them onto their ship, performed strange experiments on them,

• 22:47Rasha Pecoraro?

  and then ended up letting them go again.

• 22:50Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, so it's safe to say that Betty knows a lot about alien abductions. And get this, in her letter to Fate Magazine, she says she knows someone named Captain Larson. He used to work as a mountie, and he was supposedly part of the team that looked into the Anjikuni Lake disappearance. Even after the initial investigation ended, he kept gathering clues and talking to witnesses. And apparently, Captain Larson heeded the idea of leaving the disappearance unsolved. He didn't want to rest until he learned exactly what happened to the missing Inuit people.

• 23:35Yvette Gentile?

  It took nine years, and I'm not sure exactly what evidence he gathered during that time, but I do know the conclusion he came to. He was utterly convinced that all of the villagers were taken by aliens back in 1930. At some point after he finished his investigation, he met Betty by chance. They both just happened to be on the same ferry. Obviously, he didn't have all of his research materials with him at the time, but he told her about the work that he'd done, and that's how Betty knows all of this information.

• 24:16Rasha Pecoraro?

  Interestingly enough, once Betty comes forward, other eyewitnesses start speaking up as well. They say they also have evidence that UFOs were involved in the Anjikuni Lake incident. For example, a 1983 book called The World's Great UFO Mysteries covers the disappearance, and it includes statements from three fur trappers. They were passing near Anjikuni Lake around the time of the disappearance. According to them, at one point, they looked up in the sky and saw one or more strange craft flying overhead, and apparently, they were headed right toward the village. Not long after that sighting, Joe LaBelle contacted the Mounties to report the missing residence.

• 25:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which, of course, all sounds pretty compelling, except for one issue, and it's a pretty major one. None of those accounts can be verified. Take the story of the three fur trappers. Their account was only reported in one place, in the book The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries, and that book got a lot of the facts wrong. For example, it says the village had a population of 1,200 people, not just 25.

• 25:29Yvette Gentile?

  I mean, and that's a huge difference.

• 25:32Rasha Pecoraro?

  Totally. It also talks a lot about how Joe got in touch with the Mounties by calling them from a local telegraph station. But the problem with that is, there weren't any telegraph stations within about 600 miles of the lake in the year 1930. So let's just say the claims from the book should be taken with a grain of salt. And since no one else has been able to verify the trapper's statements, it's hard to accept them at face value, too. As for Betty Hill's claim that she knew a mountie who investigated the disappearance, that could actually be true. But it doesn't sound like she necessarily saw any of the evidence he'd gathered, you know, with her own two eyes.

• 26:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  Again, they just chatted for a while during a ferry ride. All she knows for sure is that he believes aliens were behind the disappearance. In fact, given the amount of misinformation about Anjikuni Lake and the UFO sightings, it's hard to say what is true. So maybe we need to ignore the more recent sources and look at the older accounts, the original ones. Because the truth about the Anjikuni Lake disappearance might lie in some of the world's most ancient Inuit legends.

• 26:55Yvette Gentile?

  In 1930, 25 or more people reportedly disappeared from a village on the shores of Anjikuni Lake. Nobody could explain what had happened to them. But, of course, lots of people had theories. One popular explanation was that maybe aliens abducted the villagers. But there wasn't much evidence to back it up. Another idea was that maybe the villagers were kidnapped or killed by some kind of monster. And if you look at ancient Inuit mythology, one creature stands out as a possible culprit. It's called a kalupolik. And legend goes that the kalupolik is basically

• 27:39Yvette Gentile?

  an evil mermaid or an Inuit version of a siren. It's a half-human, half-fish creature that lives in the Arctic Ocean. And the kalupolik are bewitching singers. It's said that if one starts humming, people in the area have no choice but to walk toward the sound, even if that means stepping out onto the unstable ice. Once a person gets too close to the shore, the kalupolik will burst from the sea, grab their unsuspecting victim, and drag them to a watery death. And apparently, they really like to target children.

• 28:21Yvette Gentile?

  There are other stories that say the Kalapalik can swim under thick sheets of ice, stalking travelers who aren't anywhere near open water. They'll tap on the ice in order to get an Inuit person's attention. Then they'll lure their victim away from the safety of the village and out toward the open lakes and rivers.

• 28:44Yvette Gentile?

  Once they have a chance to strike, the Kalapalik snatches the person and drowns them, or even keeps them living underwater for eternity. I just have to say, Rasha, there's this show that I've been watching that's on Netflix. It's called "North to North", and they, they talk about this Kalapalik in it.

• 29:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  Really? I haven't heard of the show.

• 29:09Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. It's actually very interesting because it's all about the Inuit community.

• 29:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, when I hear that story, it reminds me of something Joe LaBelle told the press after he found the abandoned village. He said that while he was exploring, he had the eerie sensation that all of the residents may have walked into the lake and died, frozen forever in its waters. Now, Joe knew that that sounded far-fetched, but as we've learned doing this show, anything is possible.

• 29:40Yvette Gentile?

  True statement there.

• 29:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  So if you add a monster to the mix, and one that might lure the villagers into the lake, it does start to feel like a real theory. At least, it would be believable if Anjikuni Lake was a traditional lake. But like we mentioned before, it's frozen solid for most of the year. There's no way that a Kalapalik, or any other sea monster for that matter, would be able to drown anyone in a block of ice. And I'd also have to imagine that once the lake melted the next year, people could have just checked the water to see if there were bodies in it. But the villagers' remains have never been found.

• 30:25Rasha Pecoraro?

  Not to mention, there's nothing in the Kalupalik legend about them stealing bodies or raising the dead. So if the villagers did die in a monster attack, it doesn't explain the open grave. But there is another possibility, that the people of Anjikuni Lake died at the hands of a different kind of monster, something that lived on land, not in the water, like, say, a polar bear. Anjikuni Lake doesn't have much wildlife, but it is smack dab in the middle of polar bear territory. So naturally, some people wonder if the missing villagers were all killed, or eaten, or dragged

• 31:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  off after a bear attack, but that doesn't make much sense to me either.

• 31:11Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, that doesn't make any sense, because there were no signs of a struggle in the village. Everyone's gear was neat and tidy inside their tents, their dogs were still tied up. If a bear, a monster, or even rival villagers had attacked and killed every single Anjikuni Lake resident, you would naturally expect to see tents damaged, trash, food or valuables like the furs would have been taken. I mean, there would have been at least one body on the ground, and blood probably everywhere, right? Because that would have been like a savage attack. And again, a polar bear wouldn't carefully move the stones off a grave, stack them up

• 31:54Yvette Gentile?

  neatly, and then steal someone's remains? This theory just doesn't make sense to me.

• 32:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  Completely agree. There's a lot about the Anjikuni Lake mystery that just doesn't add up. Not just the monster theory, but the entire account. And by the mid-1970s, skeptics were poking holes all over the story. Let's start with the original testimony that came from Joel Lebel. You'll remember, he only knew the community at Anjikuni Lake existed, because he'd apparently passed through it on previous fur trapping trips. That's how he was able to find it when it was abandoned. But in the 1920s and 30s, every fur trapper in Canada was required by law to have a valid hunting license. And guess what?

• 32:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  There's no record of Joe ever getting a license prior to 1930, which means there's no proof that he ever set foot in northern Canada before that year, let alone that he befriended the residents of a tiny, remote Inuit village. That means he might have been lying about knowing the villagers and having a previous relationship with them. And if he wasn't honest about that, he could have lied about other parts of the story too.

• 33:14Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, and with that being said, back in those days, I mean, a lot of people skirted the laws. Tons of trappers worked without getting the proper license and permits. It's not hard to believe that Joe might have just been one of those guys.

• 33:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, that's totally a possibility. You know, maybe Joe didn't lie, but maybe someone else did. Either by exaggerating his story or making it up and giving Joe credit for the account.

• 33:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  The earliest record of the disappearance came from a newspaper article from 1930. It included quotes from Joe and paraphrased comments from the Mounties who investigated the scene. You have to figure if a reporter is talking to witnesses, taking statements and publishing their findings, the story has to be accurate, right? Except, this article was written by a man named Emmett E. Kelleher. And he has a history of exaggerating or including misinformation in the pieces that he works on. In fact, when he published his article about the 1930 disappearance, he ended up getting into a lot of trouble. He included a photo that was allegedly of the abandoned village.

• 34:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  But then, some eagle-eyed readers noticed the picture was decades old and of an unrelated Arctic expedition.

• 34:37Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, I get that Emmett was pretty deceptive when it came to the photo. But that doesn't mean every detail from him was a hoax. He could have been covering a true story with, you know, some slight exaggeration. Which is why it might make sense to ignore the newspaper articles and books for just a second and go straight to the people who were on the scene. Like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. At least theoretically. According to the Mounties, there's no record that their officers ever investigated a disappearance near the lake. And they also claim that Joe LaBelle never called them.

• 35:20Yvette Gentile?

  Not in November of 1930, or any other time.

• 35:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  So that's one more piece of evidence to back up the theory that Emmett made the entire story up just to sell papers.

• 35:34Yvette Gentile?

  Either that, or they're hiding the evidence of the investigation. You know me, I totally believe that this could be part of a UFO cover-up. And of course, there's no evidence of that in this case. But I just have to say that I always consider a cover-up a possibility. Especially in cases like Anjikuni Lake, where there's no other logical explanation.

• 35:58Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, some people have chosen not to take the Mounties' word for it and instead ask the indigenous communities what they thought of Anjikuni Lake. And according to the other local Inuit people, there was never a village there. The Inuit have so many beautiful oral traditions going back centuries. A lot are about where their people settled, who they traded with, and what life was like. And there's nothing in their stories about any communities by Anjikuni Lake. In fact, there's no reason for anyone to ever establish a village there. Again, it's hours away from the next closest settlement.

• 36:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  The land is just too desolate. There's nothing to eat, no resources you could use to build homes or sleds, no one to trade with, it's completely impractical. Which is why I wonder if the whole disappearance story is completely fabricated after all.

• 37:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  Maybe by reporters to sell newspapers, or maybe even by Joe LaBelle himself. I'm afraid that when it comes to Anjikuni Lake, we might never know the truth.

• 37:16Yvette Gentile?

  Well, there is one part of the narrative that is true, and it's not up for debate. Inuit people are disappearing, not in an overnight vanishing act like in the story of Anjikuni Lake, but their beautiful culture, their language, and their way of life are being lost.

• 37:37Rasha Pecoraro?

  One part of the issue has to do with climate change. For centuries, the indigenous communities used to follow the same routes to hunt each season. But now, the ice is melting, and some of those trails are impossible for them to navigate.

• 37:55Yvette Gentile?

  But another major part of the fact that the Inuit cultures are disappearing is what we touched on at the top of this episode. Situations like what happened to 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, who was failed at every turn by the very systems meant to protect her, and so many other indigenous people whose lives have been treated as less urgent or less worthy of justice. So, even if the story of Anjikuni Lake isn't literally true, it can still serve as a deeper lesson. We need to work with indigenous leaders to see what kind of assistance would be the most useful to them

• 38:40Yvette Gentile?

  so we can not only preserve their cultures, but protect their people.

• 38:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at @SoSupernaturalPod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 39:17Rasha Pecoraro?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 39:22Speaker 03

  I've been having a hard time trying to explain what Midnight Burger is. How about I let them give it a shot?

• 39:28Speaker 00

  Your podcast is amazing.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  It's such an amazing show altogether. You guys have actively ruined all other audio dramas for me. You can't get people to understand the humaning that happens in this damn show. Keep doing what you're doing, because it's awesome. You might not think it, but you are far more important than you realize. Thank you.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  At the nexus of all things, there is a diner. Look for Midnight Burger on your favorite podcasting app, or just go to weopenat6.com.