Wait, they stole this VW convertible from where?

One of the NWT’s more mysterious car thefts is reported to have just taken place at an isolated highway outpost.

Simply known as Checkpoint, the bed-and-breakfast at the intersection of Highways 1 and 7 is an unlikely vehicle theft hotspot.

Not many people roam the highway between Fort Simpson, Fort Liard and Jean Marie River looking for cars to steal, not least because the logistics of getting said vehicle safely south – hundreds of kilometres away to BC via Fort Liard or east via Enterprise and into Alberta – are daunting.

You could have about a four-hour head start and RCMP at a detachment to the south would still face no more than a leisurely jaunt out to get you.

And if you try to stay in the NWT, when a VW Beetle convertible goes missing from Checkpoint – as Lynn McKay says hers did last weekend – where the heck are you planning to hide one of those?

“It’s going to stand out like a sore thumb,” she said. “There’s not that many of them.”

Yet she says her dark blue 2003 convertible is gone.

McKay and family left Checkpoint for Fort Nelson in northern BC last weekend, heading out on Friday and coming back on Tuesday afternoon.

The moment they got back, things seemed amiss. Her husband’s snowmobile, which he had parked on a trailer for the summer, had been taken back down from the trailer and driven around a little, although it was still there at least.

Then, the McKays noticed their main building had been broken into.

“It didn’t look like there was really much taken or disturbed, except for they had taken the car key. When we went outside it was like, ‘Where’s my car?’ It was gone,” said McKay.

She said the theft had been reported to police.

When McKay posted a note on Facebook about it, she said a man got in touch recalling seeing a person by Checkpoint’s entrance on Saturday night.

A second man deepened the mystery further, telling McKay he had picked up a hitchhiker at Liard Crossing on Thursday last week. The hitchhiker had wanted to go to Fort Smith. He was heading to Fort Liard, so he said he could take them as far as Checkpoint.

“We were still here Thursday night and nobody stopped in, but we also noticed that somebody spent the night in our greenhouse, underneath the bench where there was a bunch of plastic bags and old T-shirts,” said McKay.

“Maybe they slept there Thursday night and waited till we left Friday. I mean, I don’t know. It’s so bizarre.”

This has happened before

Bizarre, yes. Entirely new? Turns out, no. This is the second time in recent memory that a highly recognizable vehicle has disappeared from Checkpoint.

“Maybe seven, eight years ago, we had our fuel truck taken, which was an F-350. A pickup with two tanks of fuel in the back was stolen out of the yard,” McKay recalled.

“They never found that. That had a huge orange snowplow on it, too.”

McKay says she’s lived at Checkpoint for more than a quarter of a century. She’s convinced nobody who lives in the Dehcho is responsible. “Local people just don’t do that. It can’t be anybody around here,” she said.

She’s waiting to see if the police investigation turns up anything, and hoping she’ll see her VW convertible again.

“We were fortunate that they didn’t do any damage inside. I mean, it certainly could have been a lot worse. Nobody was hurt or anything,” she said.

“But you feel violated, really. You’re thinking, ‘How far do I have to go?’ The car was locked. The key was inside the house.

“It definitely makes you think: ‘Oh my God, can I never leave here?'”