Months after Nova Scotia children vanished, a clearer picture emerges of their lives – but not their fate

Deep in the middle of Nova Scotia, far from its quaint coastal towns, sits Lansdowne – a hamlet of around 100 people in a cellular dead zone. It’s surrounded by endless spruce forests, bushes like razor wire and bogs that breed swarms of black flies.

Like many faded settlements across the Maritimes, Lansdowne reached its peak more than a century ago. About 150 kilometres northwest of Halifax, it was once a busy railway stop bustling with Scottish immigrants who dug iron and copper mines deep into the hillsides.