It’s been more than 50 years since Jim Brady and Absolom Halkett went missing in northern Saskatchewan and a group of La Ronge searchers are hopeful they may have solved at least part of the mystery.
Prominent Métis activist Brady and his friend Halkett were prospecting in the Foster Lake area, about 120 miles northwest of La Ronge, when they went missing in June 1967.
La Ronge resident Eric Bell is part of a team that revived the search for the remains of the two men in March looking in the northeast corner of Lower Foster Lake.
With the assistance of Grandmother’s Bay Search and Rescue and their underwater sonar vehicle, Bell says the team came across findings in July that they then turned over to researchers in Saskatoon and Washington, D.C.
“They came back to us and said, ‘yeah, you definitely have some unnatural anomalies there,’ and they told us what we probably found may be human remains,” he says.
He says after speaking with the researchers, they proceeded to obtain more evidence of the underwater area taking images and video with the sonar vehicle earlier this month.
This information was turned over to the RCMP late last week.
“I can’t say exactly at this stage, exactly what it is,” Bell says. “It’s up to the RCMP and their investigators to determine what it is.”
He says the area where they found the anomalies is about two miles from where it is believed Brady and Halkett were camped when they went missing more than half a century ago.
People from Stanley Mission and others from La Ronge have also assisted in the search.
The RCMP could not be immediately reached for comment.
(PHOTO: Jim Brady. Photo courtesy of saskculture.ca)