The Village that Disappeared at Lake Anjikuni

Lake Anjikuni in Canada’s Nunavut region was once home to a thriving Inuit fishing village. One day in 1930 a hunter ventured there in search of lodging and found a truly disturbing site. The village had been abandoned, meals left half finished, crafts left with needles still in and loyal sledding dogs found starved to death at their posts. What could have happened to the people of Lake Anjikuni?

A Canadian fur trapper named Jo Labella was out hunting one freezing November day in the Northwest Territories of Canada. He entered the Lake Anjikuni Village in search of a place to stay only to find it completely deserted.

Lake Anjikuni as it appears today.

It appeared that whatever that had happed to cause the villagers to leave had happened suddenly. He found incomplete garments with needles still in them, charcoal black food hanging over fire pits hand half eaten meals. There were no signs of a struggle or anything that would suggest a violent event had taken place.

Even more disturbingly on the outskirts of the village Labelle came across the remains of seven sled dogs still tied to their posts. It appeared that they had starved to death. Sled dogs were vital for the survival of the Inuit people and to leave them behind would be unthinkable.

Labelle continued on to the edge of the village, where he stumbled upon a human grave that had been recently dug up. Decorate stones encircling the burial were undisturbed implying that it wasn’t an animal that had done this but a human.

Labelle went to the North-West Mounted police and told them what he had seen. The police launched an investigation but no one from the abandoned village was ever located. The investigation concluded that the villagers had been missing for about eight weeks before Labelle got there but were able to conclude little else as to what may have happened.

Even more strangely officers investigating the case reported seeing mysterious pulsing lights in the sky over the lake. This has led some to believe that the village may have been abducted by aliens.

Skeptics have attacked Labelle’s character claiming that he simply made the whole story up. Labelle claimed to have been a seasoned hunter but there was no record of him having a trapping license before 1930. It is possible that he just hunted without a license before this. The journalist that broke the story named Kelleher has been accused to exaggerating stories in the past. Based on this evidence and no doubt a desire to be done with such a perplexing job, the police declared the story as fabricated and closed the investigation.

We can’t help but wonder what it would mean if these men were telling the truth. What happened to an entire village full of innocent people at Lake Anjikuni? Was their disappearance connected to the strange lights in the sky?

If you like this article you may also like to learn about the unexplained disappearance of Vladimir Bastl or the Alaskan town abandoned due to sasquatch attacks.