On April 24, 1964, Fernand Martin, a 35-year-old man, was last seen in the Pakashkan Lake area of Ontario, within the Thunder Bay District. Martin had traveled to an outpost located at the north end of Pakashkan Lake, where he was tending to traplines running through the surrounding bush. That visit became the final documented sighting of him. The official Government of Canada missing-person record does not describe anyone accompanying Martin, nor does it identify a specific event that caused concern while he was at the outpost. What is known is that after going into this remote wilderness area to work his traplines, Martin disappeared and was never accounted for afterward. He was also known by the name Fernand Boutin, an alias that investigators continue to associate with the case.
Martin was born in 1928 and was described in official records as a white male with a medium build and a dark complexion. He stood approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed about 181 pounds, with brown hair. At the time of his disappearance, he was reportedly carrying or wearing a backpack, a light doe-skin or other light animal-skin jacket, and a size 33 shirt with a 15.5-inch neck. These details have remained important because so little additional information about his disappearance has been made public. The surviving official case record does not provide a description of his eye color, any distinctive scars or tattoos, or further identifying characteristics, and it does not document whether personal belongings, equipment, clothing, or other evidence connected to Martin were subsequently recovered.
The setting surrounding Martin's disappearance is an important part of the case. Pakashkan Lake is an officially recognized lake in the Thunder Bay District of northwestern Ontario, and Martin was specifically described as working traplines in the bush near the lake when he vanished. The record places his last known activity at an outpost on the lake's northern end rather than in a populated community. Publicly available official information does not describe the route Martin intended to follow, how long he expected to remain in the bush, when others first realized he was missing, or what searches were undertaken afterward. There is likewise no publicly documented account identifying an accident, encounter, medical emergency, criminal act, or other confirmed explanation for why he failed to return. As a result, the circumstances after his final sighting remain largely unknown rather than supporting any single conclusion about what happened to him.
Decades after Martin vanished, his case remains preserved within Canada's national missing-person system and under the responsibility of the Ontario Provincial Police in Thunder Bay. The federal case record identifies OPP reference number RM05023523 and continues to list Fernand Martin as missing; the information displayed by Canada's Missing was noted as current as of July 18, 2026. No official resolution, confirmed discovery of his remains, or verified explanation for his disappearance is included in the public record. More than six decades after a 35-year-old trapper named Fernand Martin, also known as Fernand Boutin, went to an outpost at the north end of Pakashkan Lake and tended his traplines in the surrounding Ontario bush, the central facts remain painfully few: he was seen there on April 24, 1964, he subsequently disappeared, and his whereabouts have never been established. His case endures as a long-standing missing-person investigation centered on a final journey into the remote wilderness around Pakashkan Lake and the unanswered question of what prevented him from ever returning.
Last Seen: Apr 24, 1964
