Can You Solve The Mystery of The Vanishing Village?

There was something creepy about the appearance of the little Eskimo village that lay before him, and trapper Joe Labelle sensed it as he paused to survey the scene. The icy wind that blew off Lake Anjikuni (www.geocities.com...) flapped the skins that hung over the gaping doors of the huts. A few battered kayaks were blown up on the beach. No dogs barked, not a single voice broke the silence. Joe asked himself the logical question - where are the people? It was a very good question on that raw November day in 1930, and it still remains unanswered to this day... (id input a website map here but every effort I try I ends up with mysterious circumstances...)

For many years Joe had known this friendly little Eskimo village five hundred miles north of the Mounties' base at Churchill. On this fateful day, he had gone miles out of his way on the fateful tundra to spend a few hours with his friends... only to be greeted by an ominous silence.

According to his report to the Northwest Mounted Police (on file), Joe stopped at the edge of the village and yelled a greeting. He got no reply of any kind, a most unusual approach to this friendly little community. He opened the caribou skin flap to one of the huts and called again. More silence. A similar experience awaited him at every tent in the village. Very spooky, he said to himself - for there was no one else to whom he could say it. Spooky? Indeed it was. And so it remains...

Joe spent about an hour in the village examining it for some hint as to what may have happened to the missing populace. He found pots of food hanging untouched over fires which had been cold for months. In one hut were some sealskin garments for a small child, the ivory needle still sticking in the garment where the mother had abruptly ceased her mending.

On the beach were 3 kayaks, including the one which he knew had belonged to the headman of the village. These flimsy craft had been battered and torn by the wave action on the beach, evidence that they had been long neglected.

Both Joe Labelle and the Mounties who investigated after his report found the most puzzling bits of evidence when they looked into the empty huts and tents. There were the Eskimos prized rifles standing forlornly beside the doors, waiting for thier masters who never returned. Now in the Far North the rifle is more than a valued possession, it is virtually a life insurance policy. No Eskimo in his right mind would go on a long trip without his rifle - yet here were the guns... and the Eskimos were gone.

What about the dogs - the big powerful brutes which were almost as important in that bleak land as the rifles? About a hundred yards from the camp, Labelle and the Mounties found seven dogs. They had been tied to the stumps of some scrubby trees and all had died of starvation, as Canadian pathologists later confirmed.

But the most baffling aspect of the entire enigma was found on the side of the camp opposite the bodies of the dogs. There the Eskimos had buried some member of their tribe under the customary cairn of stones. But this grave had been opened, the body removed - and the stones carefully stacked in two neat piles. Grave robbing is unthinkable to the Eskimos - and animals could not have stacked the stones...

The experts summoned by the Mounties spent 2 weeks examining every bit of evidence they could find at the deserted village. They came to the conclusion that the Eskimos had not been there for about 2 months when Joe Labelle arrived. This decision was based on the type of berries found in some of the cooking pots.

Evidently the village of about 30 inhabitants had been pursuing its normal way of life when for some reason they all rushed out of thier huts and none of them ever got back from whatever had attracted their attention. For some reasons unknown the inhabitants of the village - men, women, and children - had left it, willingly or otherwise, in the dead of early winter (UNTHINKABLE). They had left it so hurriedly they had abondoned their food on the fires, their prized guns, their dogs, their clothing!!!! Skilled trackers failed to find any trail if they had fled acrtoss the tundra. The presence of their battered kayaks was mute evidence that they had not ventured out into the lake. And the plundered grave was just another bit of unexplained mystery.

Months of patient and far flung investigation failed to produce a single trace of any member who had lived in the deserted village of ANJIKUNI. The Mounted Police filed it as unsolved... and so it remains to this day...

(everything you need to investigate this is presented here - some are very skeptical and you will find websites to that degree, but they, just as us, speculate as well...)

Can you solve the mystery of the vanishing village?

No I can't but it's bloody interesting.

Maybe they all got swallowed up by the ice during a village meeting?

Eskimo (Inuit) do not have meetings out on the ice.

Here are a few sites concerning Eskimo (Inuit) traditions and way of life:

Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org...

Culture, traditions, history - www.windows.ucar.edu...=/earth/polar/inuit_culture.html

Tales and traditions - www.sacred-texts.com...

Its a good guess, but its just not possible for them to all be swallowed up by ice at the same time...

I hope so. I did a little digging and found the following:

Anjikuni

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.

source

I posted all of this information last night, I do not know why it was removed?

You state false information:

"The Canadian Mounted Police filed it as unsolved... and so it remains to this day...

Okay, from the Source (The Canadian Mounted Police Official Website):

"Historical Notes — Anjikuni

Anjikuni

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."

Source: www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca...

There is a lot more information I can post, but, first I would like to see if their is intelligent interest and that my post actually remains on the thread.

Anjikuni THERE IS THE ANSWER...

I think there was a huge build up of carbon manoxide ? that erupted like a volcano from the source of the lake or close near it. A pocket of gas so to speak.

The gas is dense and stay's low. It would affect those close like livestock animals of any kind. I think the local's investigated like anyone would when there was such a panic in such a close nit area. And they sadly were in turn killed by the noxious gas.

Regard's
Lee

If thats true h2akalee, wheres all the bodies?

Its my idea yes and btw it's h3akalee thank's. Now that is cleared up i would adjust your post as 1 liner's are punished for some reason around here.

Would be a shame to have less than 9 points.

What is your idea BTW ?

It look's like it was all made up but anyway i would still stand by the theory i stated if ever an event took place like the one suggested.


Regard's
Lee

[edit on 27-8-2007 by h3akalee]

Originally posted by Grock
Eskimo (Inuit) do not have meetings out on the ice.

Here are a few sites concerning Eskimo (Inuit) traditions and way of life:

Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org...

Culture, traditions, history - www.windows.ucar.edu...=/earth/polar/inuit_culture.html

Tales and traditions - www.sacred-texts.com...

Its a good guess, but its just not possible for them to all be swallowed up by ice at the same time...

Thanks for the links. I'm not really up with Inuit customs so I wasn't entirely sure where I was going with my comment.

My Opinion

Yes there could have been that many Inuit's living in that village.

What happened was there was a Wendigo and he chased after and ate all the

villagers, the Wendigo didnt eat the dogs because Wendigo's love human

flesh and not dog meat.

Or Alternatively they all could have been abducted by Aliens.

Those are my Theories take em or leave em.

And those are my Opinions

maybe there wasnt a village in teh first place and it was all made up for media coverge and media hype to get press attention??

could be a possibilty and from reading one of teh sources there, it said that it wasnt possible for a village of large proportions to exist in these regions.

the case continues...............

maybe there wasnt a village in teh first place and it was all made up for media coverge and media hype to get press attention??

could be a possibilty and from reading one of teh sources there, it said that it wasnt possible for a village of large proportions to exist in these regions.

the case continues...............

Was reading about this on mysteriousuniverse.org and found this part where the author defends the story against the Frank Edwards allegations:

FRANK EDWARDS VS THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE:

After a brief media blitz, this bizarre event was filed away under a heap of unsolved cases until 1959, when journalist and author, Frank Edwards, dug up the tale and included it in his tome “Stranger than Science.” While Edwards did not shy away from the unusual, he was not prone to over sensationalism and there are no accounts of this reporter ever outright fabricating a tale, yet that is just what the RCMP accused him of on the webpage that they’ve dedicated to this mysterious case.

According to RCMP, Edwards manufactured the whole affair for his book and that no such event ever occurred. As printed on the RCMP website:

“The story about the disappearance in the 1930′s of an Inuit village near Lake Angikuni 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.”

I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a distinct possibility that the case of the missing Anjikuni Inuits is little more than an infectious fable. There can be little doubt that the alleged missing persons count offered in many reports — including “The World’s Greatest UFO Mysteries” by Boar and Blundell, which put the figure at a ludicrously whopping 2,000 — have been massively exaggerated, but it seems as if the RCMP’s stance is a little dismissive, not to mention simply incorrect.

To begin with, as mentioned above, the first known accounts of this event were not published after Edwards’ 1959 book, but in the same year that this unexplained event was said to have occurred. This means that there is no way he could have concocted this legend. Also there are records of at least two separate investigations into the subject by members of the RCMP.

Source

Originally posted by h3akalee
Anjikuni THERE IS THE ANSWER...

I think there was a huge build up of carbon manoxide ? that erupted like a volcano from the source of the lake or close near it. A pocket of gas so to speak.

The gas is dense and stay's low. It would affect those close like livestock animals of any kind. I think the local's investigated like anyone would when there was such a panic in such a close nit area. And they sadly were in turn killed by the noxious gas.

Interesting theory. I know this story, and would not explain the bodies not being there after they died. No tracks were found leading away from the village, and some of the graves were disturbed

edit on 15-8-2012 by Rubicant13 because: (no reason given)

this story reminds me of the one in australia about the picnic at hanging rock .
and that proved to be a total fabrication