During his 1948 trip, Canadian explorer Farley Mowat arrived at Angikuni Lake, then part of the Northwest Territories, and found a cairn constructed in a fashion not normally used by area Inuit.

Mowat, knowing that only one other European explorer, Samuel Hearne, had been in this region previously (in 1770), speculated that the monument was built by Francis Crozier, who, as a member of the lost expedition originally led by Sir John Franklin, vanished in 1848 during the ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage.

He found unfinished shirts that still had needles in them and food hanging over fire pits and therefore concluded that the villagers had left suddenly.

That article states that Joe Labelle found an empty Eskimo camp with 6 tents and that 25 men, women and children had vanished.

Nelson reported that Joe Labelle, the informant, had taken out his first trapping license that season and questioned whether he had been in the territories previously as stated in the Kelleher article.

Brian Dunning debunked the claims in an episode of Skeptoid, although he updated his findings to report that he uncovered the existence of the November 1930 Emmett E. Kelleher article, previously believing there were no such references and that the story originated with the 1959 Edwards book (which he admits is incorrect).