© 2019 Michael Riis-Christianson and the Lakes District Museum Society
Murder!
News of a fatal shooting at Trout Creek dominated the front page of Burns Lake’s newspaper on August 28, 1935.
John Lake and Emil Perle were members of a thriving Finnish community at Trout Creek that included Frank Saari and August Kivi. On August 26, the men met at the cabin of Mr. and Mrs. D. Cordila in preparation for a haying party. Also at the cabin were Frank’s daughter, Bertha Saari, who was cooking for the haying crew, and her eight-year-old brother Billy.
Bertha told the local coroner and a jury on August 28 that Lake had been morose and wordless on the day of the shooting, refusing to accompany the other members of the haying party. When Perle and the others returned from the fields at approximately 6 p.m., he took a .303 rifle down from the cabin wall and headed toward the door, threatening to shoot Miss Saari if she interfered with him.
Once outside, Lake confronted the men. He shot at Frank; the bullet passed through the latter’s cap, prompting him to seek shelter in the woods. Lake then pointed the gun at Kivi, at which point, Perle attempted to intervene.
Perle tried to reason with the distraught man. “John Lake, you better not do that,” he said.
His words had an undesirable effect. Lake trained the rifle on Perle and fired once. The bullet passed through Perle’s stomach, exiting out his right side.
Bertha fled. Billy, seated on the wagon, followed her lead. “I see Mr. Perle fall down on the ground and say: ‘Oh, oh!’,” Billy testified to jury members J.S. Brown, Harry Jewell, John Berg, T.P. Smith, Maynard F. Nourse, and A.E. Windle. “Then I see my sister and I run away with her.”
Frank Saari, having fled the scene, went to neighbours for assistance. C.M. Roberts, Herman Johnson, Mr. E. Osborne, Allen Myers, James Walker, Ralph Johnson, and another man from Colleymount reached the scene of the crime at 11 p.m., where they found Perle lying unattended on the ground and moaning feebly. They carried him into the cabin, but the wounded Finlander died an hour later after telling Herman Johnson “Leki ampui mi.” (Lake shot me.)
Constable Sande and Doctor Haugen, summoned by telephone by Francois Lake resident Charles Hunter, arrived a half-hour too late.
The jury didn’t deliberate long. Based on young Billy’s testimony, Lake was named the killer. A volunteer posse consisting of David Roumieu, M. Roberts, James Walker, and Aale Antilla (then Justice of the Peace) was formed and set off after the accused.
They couldn’t find him.
Initially, it was thought that Lake committed suicide, but the theory soon felt out of favour. “Corpses,” noted the Inland Independent on Sept 4, 1935, “are not adept at evading pursuit.”
When the posse failed to locate Lake, Inspector J.A. Fraser arrived from Prince Rupert to take charge. When Fraser met with no success, Inspector T.W.S. Parsons traveled from Victoria to oversee the manhunt.
Despite an extensive search by residents and police, neither Lake nor his body were ever found.
