Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett

by Michael Nest, Deanna Reder, Eric Bell

Overview

Shortlisted, Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence, The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book, 2021

Tells the story of the unsolved murder of indigenous activists, police investigation misconduct, and the community who tracked down the clues which officials failed to uncover

Missing persons. Double murder? Métis leader James Brady was one of the most famous Indigenous activists in Canada. A communist, strategist, and bibliophile, he led Métis and First Nations to rebel against government and church oppression. Brady’s success made politicians and clergy fear him; he had enemies everywhere. In 1967, while prospecting in Saskatchewan with Cree Band Councillor and fellow activist, Absolom Halkett, both men vanished from their remote lakeside camp. For 50 years rumours swirled of secret mining interests, political intrigue, and murder. Cold Case North is the story of how a small team, with the help of the Indigenous community, exposed police failure in the original investigation, discovered new clues and testimony, and gathered the pieces of the North’s most enduring missing persons puzzle.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780889777545
Publisher:	University of Regina Press
Publication date:	11/07/2020
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Nest is the award-winning author of three non-fiction books. Corruption, mining and conflict are the theme of the first two. The third, Still a Pygmy, is a collaboration with Congolese activist Isaac Bacirongo, the first Indigenous Pygmy to ever publish his memoir. Michael’s ‘day job’ is preventing corruption in government and in the mining sector. He lives in Montréal.

Deanna Reder (Cree-Métis), Associate Professor in the Departments of English and First Nations Studies at Simon Fraser University, teaches Indigenous literatures, especially autobiography. Her SSHRC-funded research project, "The People and the Text" makes extensive use of library and archival methods, in collaboration with Indigenous research networks, to uncover forgotten or lost work by Canadian Indigenous authors. She has worked collaboratively to edit four anthologies and is the series editor of the Indigenous Studies Series for Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Eric Bell is a member of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band. He has owned and operated La Ronge Emergency Medical Services for 25 years and was a Park Warden for 23 years with Parks Canada.  His involvement in this search is personal as he remembers Jim Brady, who was a friend of the family, and Abbie Halkett, a fellow community member. Eric lives in La Ronge, SK.

Table of Contents

1 A Quintessential Canadian Story 1

Part 1 Last Known Position

2 Circling 15

3 Recovery 20

4 Not Just Another Indian 25

5 The Enigma of Abbie Halkett 39

6 Precambria 48

7 The Drop-Off 58

8 The Search 63

9 Misgivings 74

10 Finding Truth in Stories 86

Part 2 Parallel Sweep

11 Uncle Frank's Theory 95

12 Persons of Interest 106

13 The Flying Preacher 113

14 Americans 123

15 Zombies in Toronto 127

16 The Capitalist 133

17 The Boss 138

18 Tough Old Northerners 142

19 La Ronge, Late Summer 150

20 The Guide 157

21 River Ice 166

Part 3 Dead Reckoning

22 In Plain Sight 175

23 Jigging for Trout 180

24 Dreams 188

25 The Friend 195

26 The Big Find 209

27 A Tip-Off 214

28 "My Answer Is No" 220

29 Omens 223

30 "A Lot of Water out There" 226

31 Anomaly 237

32 Road to Saskatoon 243

33 Reckoning 248

34 Focusing 254

Part 4 Steady Green

35 Pâstâhowin: As Far as You Can Go 259

Acknowledgements 273

Notes 279

References 295

Index 301

Editorial Reviews

"Cold Case North makes readers care about the disappearance of James Brady and Absolom Halkett, and leaves them with the ache of knowing that there remain unanswered questions."

Winnipeg Free Press

"A fascinating search for the truth, Cold Case North unravels the layers of a decades’ old mystery. It is about how communities hold knowledge for generations, and how missing loved ones are never forgotten."

Katherena Vermette

"A careful and thoughtful piece of investigative journalism."

CTV Saskatoon Ali's Book Club

"The diversion from a traditional narrative (court documents and media reports) not only emphasizes the importance of Indigenous knowledge and leadership but also uncovers new perspectives and truths in the case."

NUVO Magazine

"Like too many cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous people, authorities failed to ensure that Brady and Halkett’s deaths were properly investigated. This book helps get to the bottom of the fate of these two men, and demonstrates why investigators should never dismiss the knowledge of Indigenous peoples."

Darren Prefontaine

"Cold Case North … peels back over five decades of history by revisiting the cold case that has hung like an impenetrable cloud over La Ronge, Saskatchewan, since 1967."

Prairie Books Now

"While Cold Case North doesn’t offer a lot of answers about James Brady and Absolom Halkett — or any of the others who have lost their lives so that southern Canada could have seemingly endless supplies of energy — it does include many important lessons about this country, then and now."

Literary Review of Canada

09/28/2020

This engrossing account charts the efforts of three dedicated people to determine the fate of two missing Indigenous men in the north of Canada. James Brady, a respected Indigenous activist who helped establish the Métis Association, and Absalom Halkett, a Cree band councillor, disappeared in June 1967 while prospecting in northern Saskatchewan. After a cursory investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police concluded the men, both experienced prospectors, had gotten lost. In 2007, Reder, a Cree-Métis literary critic related to the two missing men, decided to try to find out what really happened. She enlisted the help of researcher Nest and Bell, a member of the Lac La Ronge Indian band. The team doggedly pursued every avenue, including the theory that Brady and Halkett’s two business partners killed them after they discovered a big uranium find. Eventually, the authors learned that at the time of the disappearance, a fishing guide and an American tourist found a body with tied wrists near the lake where Brady and Halkett were last seen, but didn’t report it. The authors hired a scanner and divers, who believed they’d identified a body in the lake, but the RCMP Historic Case Unit wanted more proof that there was actually a body to be found. Reder and her team didn’t reach any conclusive answers before running out of funds. Meticulously researched, this smoothly written tale of injustice showcases the authors’ tenacity and arouses the reader’s indignation. This is a scathing rebuke of the RCMP’s failure to take the case of missing Indigenous people seriously. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Over the years the disappearance has touched many people who weren’t even alive at the time and has become part of the narrative of missing Indigenous peoples in Canada."

SaskBooks

"Cold Case North is part true crime thriller, part gripping mystery about the disappearance of Métis legend James Brady and Absolom Halkett in northern Saskatchewan. It is also about Indigenous knowledge, investigative incompetence, and the stuff of legend."

Paul Seesequasis

10/01/2020

In 1967, prospectors James Brady and Absolom Halkett disappeared in northern Saskatchewan while looking for the next big claim. Fifty years later, their Indigenous community is still searching for answers: Did the two men succumb to the elements? Were they attacked by bears? Or were they murdered? Nest (Coltan) teams up with Cree-Métis academic Deanna Reder (English and First Nations studies, Simon Fraser Univ., Burnaby, BC) and Eric Bell, a former Parks Canada warden who knew Brady and Halkett, to find clues and conduct interviews with the remaining Cree and Métis community members who remember the missing, with the aim of discovering what happened that fateful June on the Lower Foster Lake. Readers get a clear picture of Brady, a revered Métis community activist and political leader who focused more on the La Ronge community and prospecting in later years, and Halkett, an activist in his own right, though more reserved and interested in a bushman's life. The authors share their findings in a manner that is respectful to the First Nations and Métis people they interviewed, while keeping an open mind and exploring all possibilities. VERDICT Blending historical narrative and true crime, this is compelling reading for anyone interested in First Nations cultures or cold case research.—Ahliah Bratzler, Indianapolis

Library Journal