15 Minutes of Infamy

  On the morning of Monday, January 6, 1936, near the tiny settlement of Pacific Junction in New Brunswick, Canada, a middle-aged woodcutter named Otto Blakeney saw smoke over the snowy horizon. He trudged through the woods and was shocked to discover a burned out cabin. Six days earlier, on New Year's Day, Blakeney had come to this same cabin, which was occupied by 29-year-old Philip Lake and his family, to pick up his mail and provisions, and now he had returned for the same purpose, only to find the tiny two-room cabin deserted. He wondered what had become of Philip Lake and his wife, Bertha, and their two infant children, a boy named Jackie and a baby girl, Betty Ann. Blakeney walked among the wreckage, marveling at the contrast of charred black wood against the pristine whiteness of the freshly-fallen snow. He recognized what was left of the kitchen, and among the ruins he recognized what was left of Philip Lake.  Then he spotted a set of footprints in the snow, made by s...