Wrong Turn: The Disappearance of Brady and Halkett

Episode 436: In June 1967, two of northern Saskatchewan's most respected bushmen, Métis political organizer James Brady and Cree band councillor Absolom 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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