0:10

Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me

0:12

Richard McClane Smith, where for the

0:14

weeks in between episodes, we look at stories

0:17

and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't

0:19

make it into the previous show. In

0:22

our last episode, Lost in Stormy

0:24

Visions, we cast our eye over

0:26

the epic tale of the lost Colony

0:28

of Roanoke. Having

0:31

only had a loose understanding of the story

0:33

before researching it, I was staggered

0:36

by its sheer scale and how wide

0:38

and deep the connections were with many major

0:40

events of the age. It

0:42

is unfortunate too that so little was

0:45

known about the lives of the undeniably

0:47

brave individuals, regardless

0:49

of how we might measure the consequences of their

0:51

actions, who made the journey in the

0:53

first place. It's

0:55

worth noting too that though this is

0:57

often referred to as America's Mystery,

1:01

from the perspective of the people and communities

1:03

already existing there, it was anything

1:05

but. I

1:08

find the notion of entire vanishing

1:10

communities or mass events such

1:12

as this endlessly compelling.

1:16

One such story that's always fascinated

1:18

me is the mystery of Scara Bray

1:20

in Orkney, Scotland. It

1:23

was during the winter of eighteen fifty that

1:26

a severe storm ripped into the Bay

1:28

of Skylee on the west coast of the island's

1:30

mainland, tearing at a large and

1:32

unusual grassy knoll known

1:35

locally as Scara Bra, which

1:37

overlooked the coast. When

1:39

the storm finally cleared one morning, the

1:42

local villagers woke up to discover the

1:44

knoll had been completely removed, and

1:46

in its place, the outline of an

1:48

ancient village was discovered buried

1:51

in the earth when

1:53

the site was eventually excavated. The

1:56

settlement, which dated to around three

1:58

thousand to five hundred BC, was

2:00

unusually modern and well preserved

2:02

for its time, with

2:05

the site being littered with various enigmatic

2:07

ornaments and decorative features,

2:09

as well as ancient pottery. It

2:12

was as if its inhabitants were not only strangely

2:14

advanced for the time, but had

2:17

just decided one day to up

2:19

and leave. That

2:21

much of the island is home to ancient mystical

2:24

architecture only added further

2:26

to the mystery.

2:29

More often than not, if we dig

2:31

deep enough, we tend to find, if

2:33

not the answer, then at the very least

2:36

a number of credible possibilities to

2:38

explain such disappearances. There

2:41

is one story, however, that has so

2:43

far proved a little harder to fathom.

2:52

In nineteen thirty, Joe la

2:54

Belle was an experienced fur trapper

2:57

who worked in what was then known by some

2:59

as the more than Territories of Canada,

3:02

in a region often referred to as

3:04

the barren Lands. In

3:06

winter, these barren lands would

3:09

be little but snow and ice for hundreds

3:11

of miles, with occasional tufts

3:13

of barren rock peppering the crisp

3:15

white landscape. During

3:19

the trapping season, LaBelle could

3:21

often go for weeks at a time, dragging

3:23

himself and his wares across the barren lands

3:26

without ever seeing another person. In

3:29

the more sparsely populated regions,

3:32

LaBelle was grateful for the hospitality

3:34

of a number of local Inuit communities

3:37

which he had befriended over the years. One

3:41

such community had, for a significant

3:43

time been camped on the shores of

3:45

Lake and Jucuni, located

3:47

about five hundred miles north of the

3:49

Port of Churchill in Hudson Bay.

3:53

It was one afternoon in November

3:55

nineteen thirty LaBelle, having

3:58

been paddling across the lake for some time,

4:01

decided to make his way toward the settlement

4:03

to check in with the people there. From

4:07

a distance, things already seemed

4:09

a little odd. There

4:11

was no sign of campfire or any

4:14

movement from the twenty strong community,

4:16

nor the animals which they kept there. Nearing

4:21

the shores of the camp, LaBelle

4:23

cried out at greeting, only to

4:25

be met with a deathly silence. Paddling

4:29

all the way to the shore, LaBelle

4:31

hauled his canoe onto the ice. Hearing

4:34

something padding toward him, he

4:36

turned sharply to see two lethargic

4:39

and emaciated husky dogs

4:41

slowly making their way toward him.

4:44

Clearly they hadn't eaten in days.

4:48

Calling out again, the concerned

4:50

LaBelle wandered into the camp, finding

4:53

the dead bodies of the seven other dogs,

4:56

barely more than bones, lying

4:58

frozen in the snow. There

5:01

were six tents in total, all

5:03

made of caribou skin and perfectly

5:05

preserved with no signs of damage.

5:09

Standing for a moment to try and comprehend

5:12

the scene, LaBelle moved nervously

5:15

toward one of the tents, after

5:17

calling out one more time, still

5:20

to no reply. He braced

5:22

himself before pulling back the flap

5:25

and ducking inside, Having

5:27

been half expecting to find a rotting corpse

5:30

or perhaps something even worse. He

5:32

was somewhat relieved to find the home completely

5:35

vacant. His discovery,

5:37

however, only added more fuel

5:39

to the mystery. Are

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you always taking care of your family?

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6:53

Parker coats made from deer hides

6:55

were piled up on the floor next to a number

6:58

of pairs of boots. A

7:00

black iron pot, still a little

7:02

greasy from the last time it had been used,

7:05

was positioned to the side, surrounded

7:07

by fish and deer bones. It

7:11

was as if the owners had merely gone out to run

7:13

an errand but never come back.

7:17

Pulling up the jackets, LaBelle

7:19

also found a badly rusted rifle

7:21

underneath. Considering

7:24

this and the starving dogs outside,

7:26

it was clear the occupants had been gone

7:29

for some time. Moving

7:32

from one tent to the next as the two

7:34

skeletal dogs shadowed his every

7:36

move, LaBelle found them all

7:39

to be in exactly the same state, each

7:42

full of bedding, skins and furs

7:44

and cooking utensils. As

7:48

he went, LaBelle pondered on what could

7:50

possibly have happened. Perhaps

7:53

they had all ventured out on a hunting trip, he

7:55

thought, but had been unexpectedly

7:57

caught up in a lethal shift in the weather.

8:00

It wasn't unheard of, but certainly

8:03

unlikely considering the Inuit's experience

8:05

with such matters and how unlikely

8:08

it would be for the entire village to have gone

8:10

out together, nor

8:12

were they likely to have simply moved camp

8:15

or joined another settlement, since

8:17

there was simply no way they would have left all

8:19

their possessions behind in the process. Then,

8:23

in the final tent, Lebelle found

8:25

something else, an Inuit

8:27

charm placed just inside it,

8:30

a device to ward off evil spirits,

8:33

and one in particular that the Inuit

8:35

were most wary of, an

8:37

entity known as a torn rack, who

8:40

was often blamed for causing terrible events.

8:44

Le Belle knew this spirit to be something

8:47

monstrous, with a grotesque

8:49

face and two long tusks

8:51

sticking up from its nose, though

8:54

he wasn't the superstitious kind. As

8:57

he stood outside moments later, surrounded

8:59

by the stillness of the tundra, as

9:02

a quiet breeze slipped through the village,

9:05

it was hard to resist the sense of unease

9:07

steadily intensifying inside him.

9:11

LaBelle wandered down to the edge of the lake

9:14

and gazed over its mirrored surface. Could

9:17

they have drowned? He thought? It

9:20

seemed ludicrous to think so, considering

9:22

their skill on the water. Unless

9:25

they had been forced to take some kind of drastic

9:27

action, but LaBelle dismissed

9:29

this idea too. Turning

9:33

back, he noticed something he hadn't

9:35

picked up on before, a

9:37

pile of stones scattered about

9:39

just behind the village. Having

9:42

swiftly made his way over to it, LaBelle

9:45

realized it was a cairn of some sort,

9:47

the remnants of a traditional grave site.

9:51

What didn't make any sense, however, was

9:53

that the grave was open and

9:56

whatever had been buried in it

9:59

was now gone. Hearing

10:02

the wine of the dogs behind him, LaBelle

10:04

stayed on to catch them a few fish before

10:07

eventually deciding to head back out.

10:16

Throughout the rest of the trapping season, LaBelle

10:19

would encounter a host of other Inuit communities,

10:22

but none had any idea as to what

10:24

could have happened to the missing villagers. All

10:27

muttered something about the torn

10:30

rack. Some

10:33

have speculated that this event never

10:35

actually took place, but was instead

10:38

concocted from the imagination of writer

10:40

Frank Edwards, who included an

10:42

account of it in his nineteen fifty nine

10:44

collection of stories Stranger

10:46

than Science. Recently,

10:50

however, the truth became a little

10:52

less clear when an earlier account

10:54

of the story was actually traced back

10:56

to a November twenty seventh, nineteen

10:58

thirty article that appeared in The

11:01

Bee, a Virginian newspaper

11:03

from the town of Danville in the United

11:05

States. The article,

11:07

written by one Emmett Kelleher, also

11:10

goes on to mention a few other details.

11:14

At the first opportunity, le Belle

11:16

is said to have contacted the Royal Northwest

11:19

Mounted Police, who Julie began

11:21

an investigation of the case. A

11:24

short time later, an unknown

11:26

ten year old boy was said to have

11:28

arrived out of the blue at a settlement

11:31

a hundred and fifty miles to the north of

11:33

the abandoned camp. When

11:35

quizzed by police, the boy was apparently

11:37

unwilling to say exactly where he'd

11:40

come from.

11:42

Not long after that, a man

11:45

named Salmec entered a hospital

11:47

located somewhere along the Hudson

11:49

Bay Railway line, suffering

11:52

from severe frostbite on both his legs.

11:55

Since the man didn't speak English, doctors

11:58

were forced to wait until a translator it could

12:00

be found to find out what exactly

12:02

had occurred. However,

12:05

when they finally located one Salmac

12:08

refused to talk to them,

12:10

repeating only that same familiar

12:13

word torn

12:15

rack. I'd

12:22

like to thank Scott Bathgate for recommending

12:25

this story. If

12:28

you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would

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like to help supporters, you can now go

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to Unexplained Podcast dot com

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Forward Slash Support. All

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elements have Unexplained are produced by

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me Richard McClain smith. Please

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subscribe and rate the show on iTunes,

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and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts

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or ideas regarding the stories you've heard

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on the show. Perhaps

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you have an explanation of your own you'd like to

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share. You can reach

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