Garry Stuart Allen -- Missing After Boating Accident Since October 1978

Author: Shane Lambert
Original Time of Writing: January 5th, 2021
All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

Missing person: Garry Stuart Allen
Last-seen date: October 17th, 1978
Last-seen location: Turtle Lake
Link to Government Source: Canada's Missing
Sex: Male
Age at time of disappearance: 35 years old
Hair: Looks brown or dirty blonde in picture
Eye color: Hazel
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 5'10" and 150 lbs
Ethnicity/Race: White

Garry Stuart Allen went missing after a boating accident on October 17th, 1978. He was at Turtle Lake with a friend, a large lake that's near Glaslyn, Saskatchewan. The lake has an outlet in the form of the Turtle River and this river tributes the North Saskatchewan River. Water in this river ends up in Lake Winnipeg. However, there's no need to get fanciful with where he is: Garry Stuart Allen is probably at the bottom of the lake still.

Lakes in this region are not warm enough for swimming in mid-October. If someone's boat capsizes and they can't get to shore quickly then they are facing the threat of hypothermia. At 150 pounds for weight, Allen didn't appear to have much body fat as insulation for what would have been uncomfortably cold water.

When someone drowns, he sinks as the air in his lungs is replaced by water. The body might come back to the surface during the putrefaction process. During this process, gasses form in the body because dead bodies still have living organisms inside of them. It's these organisms that emit gasses, like carbon dioxide, that stay in the body and make it buoyant again after originally sinking (entire paragraph paraphrased from Moment of Science "Why Do Corpses Float" by Danit Brown/Jan 21 2016).

It may take about a week for a drowned body to return to the surface of a lake. In fact, Garry Stuart Allen went missing along with his friend on the lake. This friend, Paul Wallace, was found about a week after the boating accident according to a news article in Saskatchewan's The Leader Post (note: Allen's age of 25 is incorrect in the news article; he was 35 as per Canada's Missing and as per his family tree at Ancestry).

https://www.services.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/missing-disparus/case-dossier.jsf?case=2014002649&id=14 Tue, Oct 24, 1978 – 1 · The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada) · Newspapers.com

What likely hurt the chances of finding Garry Stuart Allen is the size of the lake. Turtle Lake is 21 kilometers long and about 5 kilometers across at some points. The search area would have been large at a time of year when the temperature is dropping in an area that's getting close to the subarctic. If the body isn't found after the gasses from putrefaction bring it close to the water's surface, then the lake freezing over in the winter would make finding the body next to impossible until the spring. The area has freezingly cold winter temperatures.

What effect -40-degree-Celsius or Fahrenheit (-40 is about the same by both scales) would have on a body's buoyancy isn't something I know. But based on the fact that Turtle Lake is popular and that Stuart hasn't been found in over 42 years makes me think that you don't stay at the surface. Turtle Lake isn't remote: there are hotels, adventure-tours, and beaches. There have been lots of eyes on the lake's surface for the decades since Stuart went missing.

The best chance of finding him is just that his body washes up somewhere near the shore at some time in the future. On that matter, websleuths or amateurs have access to information about broken bones. Any John Doe coming out of this lake with fractures in the shoulders, chest, ribs, jaw, and right arm would match Stuart's known physical condition in life.

Importantly, there may be other people missing in this lake. I found an article that someone named William Hutchings went missing in the lake in August of 1940. I found no article mentioning that he had been found (Star Phoenix, August 16th/1940).