Some of you may not be aware of the Canadian Foot Phenomenon.

In the last year and a half, a number of feet have been found washed up on the beaches of Northern Canada. Yes, feet. As in the sorts of things which people normally keep attached to the bottoms of their legs.

We pick up the story in March 2008, courtesy of The Guardian:

The first was washed up in August on an isolated island in British Columbia. A 12-year-old girl beachcombing with her family found a size 12 running shoe with a human right foot still inside. Six days later a couple hiking around coves on another remote island found another size 12 right foot in a trainer under a tree trunk. Then, last month, another right foot was spotted, this time bobbing about in the water off a third island.The Guardian: Mystery of three right feet washed up on Canadian islands

At the time, the DNA of the feet could not be matched to anyone, and it was not known where the feet came from, or whether any malice was involved. There was obviously speculation as to “why right feet?” but some people felt that the currents would tend to mean that feet in left and right shoues would drift differently and be affected by different currents so may take different times to wash ashore, or wash ashore in different places.

And then in May, the Mounties found another one.

Another right foot wearing a sock and sneaker was discovered washed ashore near Vancouver, the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] confirmed Friday. The foot is the fourth right foot wearing a sock and a running shoe to wash up in the area in less than a year.CBC News Canada

Four right feet? And seemingly no-one has been complaining that they have lost their feet, so there are presumably five “rest of the bodies” out there somewhere too.

Sorry, did I say four? By June it was five…

A fifth foot – this one a left one – has washed up on an island in the mouth of B.C.’s Fraser River. [...] It’s the latest step in a bizarre case that has the RCMP fielding media calls from around the world and the public talking about how ocean currents move, whether running shoes float better than other clothing, and if there have been any recent boat sinkings or plane crashes.Victoria Times Colonist

Only a few days later, foot number six turns up…

A sixth human foot, wearing an Adidas training shoe, bobbed ashore near Vancouver yesterday in a grisly mystery that has gripped Canada.Times Online

Only in what turns out to be a bizarre twist on a story which is surely already bizarre enough, it turns out that the sixth foot was a hoax.

What was believed to be the sixth human foot to wash up on the shores of British Columbia in recent months proved to be a fake, authorities said Thursday. A “skeletonized animal paw” had been placed in a sock and athletic shoe that was packed with dried seaweed…CNN.com

As if it’s not strange enough having human feet — which ‘do not appear to have been severed’ wash up along Canadian shorelines, some people have obviously decided that there aren’t enough feet washing ashore, and so they are creating new ones…

But the mystery of the feet was not to be denied, and by early November:

the sixth human foot in a running shoe to wash ashore on B.C.’s south coast in 15 months was found Tuesday [...] The running shoe — a left-foot New Balance sneaker — raises the possibility that it might be a match to a right-foot New Balance shoe that was found on nearby Kirkland Island on May 22 by the island’s caretaker.Victoria Times Colonist (2)

However, there may have been some doubt as to the exact number of feet washed ashore, as a report from the same time describes this as the seventh…

It’s the seventh such find inside a shoe along the West Coast from Georgia Strait to the northwestern tip of Washington State since August 2007 [...] confirmed Wednesday that remains were inside a left-foot New Balance runner spotted the previous dayCNews: Across Canada

Fortunately, Wikipedia provides the answer:

Since August 2007, six disarticulated (i.e. legless) human feet have been discovered in coastal British Columbia, Canada, and a seventh in nearby Washington, United StatesWikipedia: Discoveries of human feet on British Columbia beaches, 2007–2008

So I’m happy to call that seven feet. Seven feet, belonging to five people, because it turns out that the two New Balance sneakers were a match.

The British Columbia coroner matched a female right foot discovered on Canada’s West coast in November with a left foot discovered in May. Both were encased in New Balance running shoes…

DNA testing linked one of the Canadian feet to a depressed man who disappeared in 2007. Investigators have also concluded that two of the five feet belonged to one man who has not yet been identified.

Kirotv.com

The question is, where are all these feet coming from? Is foul play involved? Are feet simply becoming detached from some strange supply of undersea corpses? How many more feet are floating around near Canada?