Episode 436:In June 1967, two of northern Saskatchewan’s most respected bushmen, Métis political organizerJames Bradyand Cree band councillorAbsolom Halkett, were dropped off by float plane to prospect for uranium near La Ronge. A week later, their employer found the camp standing, the beds slept in, the canoe still tied to shore. Both men were gone. The RCMP searched for three weeks, found a trail of unexplained clues, and closed the case without finding either man. More than fifty years later, a small team of researchers and family members went looking for answers the original investigation never sought, and what they discovered at the bottom of a northern lake raises more questions than it resolves.
Sources:
- Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett— Michael Nest, with Deanna Reder and Eric Bell (University of Regina Press, 2020)
- CBC News — “Searchers pursue the truth on mysterious disappearance of Métis leader” (2018)
- CBC News — “Authors explore decades-old mystery of disappearance of 2 northern Sask. leaders” (2020)
- MBC Radio — “RCMP says it has no plans to search northern Saskatchewan lake for remains of Brady and Halkett” (2018)
- Canada’s History — “Cold Case North” (2021)
- Prairie Books Now — “50-year-old case of two men disappearing revisited, investigated from Indigenous perspective”
- Slaw / Canadian Law Library Review — Book review of Cold Case North
- Wikipedia — James P. Brady
- The Canadian Encyclopedia — Jim Brady
- Active History — “Liberation from ‘That Vicious System’: Jim Brady’s 20th Century Métis Cooperatives and Colonial State Responses”
- Glenbow Museum — “Enclosing Some Snapshots: The Photography of Métis Activist James Brady”
- SaskCulture — “Remembering James Brady”
- Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police — Missing Persons Database, Absolom Halkett
- Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police — Missing Persons Database, James Brady
- Simon Fraser University — Deanna Reder faculty biography
- Simon Fraser University, Indigenous Studies — “Cold Case North”
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