Terrifying True Urban Legends: The Canadian Wilderness
Two terrifying legends from deep within the Canadian wilderness. The first is about creatures in the woods that possess your mind and make you crave human flesh, and the second is the mystery of an entire village that vanished one night.
TW: Suicide, Cannibalism
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SOURCES
https://mysteriesofcanada.com/pei/5-spooky-canadian-urban-legends/
https://www.historicmysteries.com/unexplained-mysteries/lake-anjikuni/23871/
https://www.ducksters.com/history/native_americans/inuit_peoples.php
https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/northwest-passage
https://epicchq.com/story/francis-crozier-the-irish-explorer-who-disappeared-173-years-ago/
https://medium.com/@luxeleanor/how-did-an-entire-village-vanish-35058823bc15
https://murderpedia.org/male.R/r/runner-swift.htm
Vanished Eskimo Tribe Gives North Mystery Stranger Than Fiction. The Bee. November 27th, 1930. Kelleher, Emmett E.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/windigo
https://allthatsinteresting.com/wendigo
https://www.winnipegregionalrealestatenews.com/publications/real-estate-news/308
https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2015/04/windigo.html
https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/steamchallenges/chapter/windigo-footprints/
https://www.tbsnews.net/splash/legend-wendigo-44773
TRANSCRIPT
You know, a man that once tried to prove how strong a window was by running into it crashed through it and fell to his death.
The story spreads around the streets of Toronto like an urban legend. Whispered from person to person as they pass the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower, a 55 story building in downtown Toronto.
It’s a perfect urban legend. It features tragedy brought on by hubris like any good fable. And it seems too fantastic to be true.
But what if I told you it was?
On July 9th, 1993, a group of law students waited in the lobby on the 34th floor of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower. They were interested in apprenticeships at the law firm there, Holden Day Wilson.
That’s when they were met by a 38 year old lawyer named Garry Hoy, described as one of the best and brightest lawyers at the firm.
Hoy had given these tours before, they tended to be pretty mundane. So he developed a party trick he could play on the bunch.
During the tour, Hoy would tell the group that he could show them just how strong the windows of the law firm were. And then, with a running start, he’d throw himself against the window.
Each time he did this, his 160 pound body would bounce off the window with a loud thud, and the group would laugh.
But this day was different. as he lept off one leg and threw his weight into the window, the entire piece of glass popped out of the frame. Possibly from Garry throwing himself into it multiple times over the years.
The students watched in horror as Gary and the glass slipped out of view, and fell 24 stories into the courtyard below.
It was a freak accident, the glass was strong enough to withstand the force, but the frame wasn’t, and Garry hadn’t accounted for that.
Hearing this story got me thinking, what other legends in Canada have a bit of truth to them? And what I found was terrifying. Creatures in the woods possessing sleeping victims, and an entire community of people who just up and vanished one night.
Buckle up, because this one is going to be a wild ride. And as always, listener discretion is advised.
Welcome to heart starts pounding, a podcast of Horrors, Hauntings and mysteries, I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore.
I want to dive right in today, but first I want to give a big thank you to everyone listening for your support.
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It’s said that deep within the Canadian Boreal Forest the nights get so cold and the forest gets so dark that only the strongest and smartest can survive. Tall pines packed tightly together make it hard to navigate out of the three million square kilometers of forest undisturbed by roads and other markers. All kinds of animals, both friend and foe, have been living in this wilderness stretching 600 miles across the northern Canadian border since the beginning of its existence. For centuries now, Indigenous communities like the cree and algonquins,have learned to coexist alongside them, creating a kind of natural order. Some animals are friends, some animals are food, and some animals are best left undisturbed. And with this in mind, everyone in the forest can coexist peacefully.
But legend has it that there’s something else prowling deep within the woods. Something that doesn’t align with the universe's natural order. A creature so hungry it would bite off its own lips and shoulders to get through the winter. one that smells like rotting flesh and can twist it’s corporeal form to look just like you, mimicking your mannerisms and appearance before it goes in for the kill. This monster is called the Wendigo (when-digo, like indigo), and it doesn’t just prey on your body. It takes your heart, mind, and soul, too. It can infect your mind like a poison at night while you sleep, and cause you to behave just like it. You’ll become overwhelmed with an insatiable blood thirst. And you wont stop until you’re dead.
It’s a terrifying story, but it may be more than just a myth of the forest. Back in 1636, a man named Paul Le Jeune was deployed in the area from Paris.
One day during his deployment, a terrified Cree woman ran to him, breathless, terror in her eyes. What’s wrong? Paul asked. She hastily informed him that one of the men in her community had suddenly gone “half-mad.” She said that he had been possessed by the Wendigo in his sleep and was now refusing to eat regular food. He had a deep blood lust that couldn’t be quenched
His family became afraid that he would eat them in their sleep, and it was decided he should be executed. Typically to execute a wendigo, the Cree would bound and decapitate the infected with an axe and burn him in a wooden building to ashes.
A deep sense of unease overcame Le Jeune. He had heard of something similar in France, werewolves, but had never experienced anything like it for himself. He wrote home detailing the event, fearful that the Wendigo madness would make its way to the French fort, and that his men would be consumed by those affected by the illness. It’s the first written record we have of a wendigo sighting.
According to different legends from Algonquin oral traditions, a Wendigo might have slightly different characteristics, but most agree on a few things. The root of the word itself is said to mean “fat excess” or “evil spirit that devours mankind.” A Wendigo is a ten-foot-tall monster that was once a man. It has sunken black eyes, like an owl, where a human’s once were. It’s emaciated and sickly, with matted fur and debris from the forest floor covering its mummified flesh. Some people say the Wendigo is more of a beastly giant, like a sasquatch with shattered antlers, that gets bigger and bigger the more angry it becomes,. No matter what, one thing is known to be true: a ruthless heart of ice beats within its chest, making it nearly impossible to kill.
Wendigos tend to pray on the weak of mind and spirit. those who let greed or foolishness sway them, instead of the principles of their ancestors, are easy targets for the Wendigo who pounces on the weakest link. A Wendigo will try to eat its victims whole, but it will also sometimes just infect a victims mind. For instance, if someone escapes a wendigos clutches Or it may use supernatural powers to infiltrate a person’s mind through their dreams while they try to get some sleep
A common version of this story told by elders may go something like this…one night during another never-ending winter in Saskatchewan, a blizzard swept in from the north. The food supply was already dwindling thin and now the chances of gathering more resources were essentially 0. the group’s morale dipped even lower than the below-freezing temperature. This group of travelers had started to feel resentful and They neglected to pay respect to their ancestors as the journey grew long. When nightfall finally came, a couple and their three little children set up camp and lit a fire. But as the campfire started warming their bone deep chill, They felt something lurking behind them in the darkness of the trees. But as they turned their heads, nothing seemed to be out there, just the blackness speckled by the heavy fall of snow.
All was peaceful until the middle of the night. The father jumped up in a panic from a horrifying nightmare. He looked to his children to make sure they were alright, and to his shock and horror his children didn’t look like children anymore. They looked like juicy little rabbits that would make his empty belly full and his tired feet warm. He fled from the camp, tortured by the crazy feeling in his mind when a horrible smell overwhelmed his senses— like rotting flesh. And there it was: a Wendigo, looming over him with its deep set hollow eyes and thousand-yard stare, baring its fangs. It could move ten times faster than a man ever could, even over ice and snow. The frosted locks on its head trembled as it tossed trees and boulders out of the way with its super strength. The man had tried to scream but the monster had ripped him viciously from limb to limb before he could escape. It even savagely licked every last bit of flesh from the bone. But the wendigo wasn’t done yet…not with sleeping women and children just 100 yards away.
Terrifying, right? Why would such an awful story be passed down year after year? Elders spin the frightening warning to scare their people, especially the young, out of making bad choices. It’s a powerful allegory in a place where simple mistakes can lead to death
But history shows there may be some truth to the legend… The Wendigo isn’t just a creature of folklore, it’s been seen before, and it’s infiltrated the minds of community members
Another, more recent account we have of the Wendigos comes from the diaries of Hudson’s Bay fur trapper Francis Beatton when he was at Trout Lake. As Francis Beatton tells it, on January 3rd, 1986, he was approached by a Metis (may-tee) man named Napanin who looked like hell. He had sunken, red eyes suggested sleeplessnes.
Help me, Napanin begged of Francis, fear deep in his tired eyes. What happened? Francis asked.
Napanin told him that he had been traveling with his wife and children 80 miles from home to visit his father at Trout Lake. One night, as the family set up camp, he got an overwhelming feeling that they weren’t alone. That just beyond the treeline there was something lurking, and watching them. He stared into the blackness waiting for his eyes to adjust, when a tree appeared to shift. But it wasn’t a tree. The branches were the snapped antlers of a beast, 10 feet tall and completely emaciated. It’s sharp bones protruding like knots on a tree.
But as quickly as he saw it, it was gone, disappearing into the woods. Later that night when Napanin tossed and turned, images of the creature flooded his nightmares. The antlers, the hollow eyes. He woke up in a cold sweat. It’s ok, he told himself, it was just a dream. That’s when he looked over to his kids and saw they looked like moose instead of children.
He fled the camp, terrified of what he had become, and that’s how he wound up here. You have to help me, he begged, or I don’t know what I’ll do.
Beatton and the Metis people at Trout Lake tried to cure him, but as the days passed his eyes continued to swell and begged for death between hysterical fits. Everyone believed that Napanin was fulfilling a prophet’s prediction that a Wendigo was destined to ravage their community. He eventually became so violent despite being bound in chains they had to get rid of him for the safety of the group the only way a Wendigo can be killed: cutting off his head with an ax, burning the body, and pushing trees over the grave.
Of course, not everyone was so accepting of the monster of First Nations lore. But still, authorities couldn’t deny that something was plaguing indigenous communities, and the symptoms always seemed the same. Paranoia, nausea, lack of appetite paired with sudden weight loss, making involuntary unnatural noises, hallucinations, and a cannibalistic instinct. Tortured individuals who displayed an “obsessive-compulsive anthropophagus inclination,” otherwise put as a sudden compulsion to murder and consume human flesh, were diagnosed with Wendigo Psychosis. It was accepted by authorities as an actual medical condition, even if they didn’t believe the inflicted patients had the icy heart of the beast growing in their chest.
You may wonder, like I did, if this psychosis could have been confused with other diseases. Perhaps they just didn’t have the words to make a proper diagnosis in the 1600’s and maybe the symptoms were really schizophrenia or even smallpox. Western doctors and the Canadian police assumed the same. But Wendigo psychosis came with physical symptoms, like swelling and watery eyes and often quickly passed from one family member to another. The few people that were cured, instead of killed, had all their physical and mental symptoms stop after spiritual intervention.
Wendigo psychosis has been reported on throughout history. Actually, the first person to be executed in Alberta was said to be suffering from the possession. A Cree man named Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and 5 children one night in 1878. Westerners were hesitant to label it as the work of Wendigo. It was a long winter, Swift Runner must have been starving with no other options.
But the Cree knew better. Food was only 25 miles from Swift runner, he could have made the journey for more resources if they needed it. And if he were starving, why eat every member of his family in one go? Swift Runner confessed to his crimes and was executed the following year
Cases of Wendigo psychosis have declined over the last century. Some have suggested it’s because western ideals have permeated indigenous cultures. Other believe it’s because indigenous canadians are more sedentary now, and less likely to be wandering around the deep forest where the wendigos are.
But what is the psychosis? A shared delusion, or are there really creatures out there deep within the woods, possessing unsuspecting people to kill and eat their families? And if so, are you of strong enough mind and spirit to be spared? Is there truth to this legend?
More, after a short break.
If you wanted to visit Angikuni Lake, you’d have to follow a frigid path along a narrow river in Nanavut that eventually opens up to the Arctic Ocean. The same path Indigenous migrants and Hudson’s Bay Company trappers have been traveling by canoe for hundreds of years. These little offshoots of water surrounded by snowy shores have been a refuge, where animal hide tents set around fire pits were the only signs of life between freezing stretches of frosty terrain that could only be crossed by dog sleds. Times may have gotten a little easier with today’s technology, but true descendants of those who grew up within Nunavut’s borders could never forget the territory’s history. See, Angikuni Lake is the site of one of the strangest historical mysteries in Canada to this day.
In November of 1930, a seasoned fur trapper named Joe Labelle took his Canoe on the icy river towards Angikuni Lake. Through the pine trees lining the shore he could see the familiar village of the small Inuit tribe that lived on the lake. As he approached, something in the air changed.
Normally he’d notice the bustle of the community, children laughing, dogs barking, smoke from fire places rising into the air.
But there was an eerie stillness as he pulled over to shore. He called out a greeting, instead of hearing the lively welcome of community he had experienced all throughout his travels, he was met with an unusual dead silence. No laughing, no dogs barking, just a bizarre buzzing sound . Once he got closer to the settlement, he realized where the sound was coming from: flies buzzing around the decomposing bodies of sled dogs. No one came to greet him except for A few remaining starving Huskies that limped over to him, whimpering for food.
If he was on edge before, Labelle was definitely frightened now. No one in the community would have left the dogs like this. He assumed the only way these dogs could be left for dead, was if their masters were already dead themselves. But when he whipped back a caribou skin door of a home, he didn’t find families ravaged by disease. He didn’t find anyone, at all. He only found all of their possessions, left perfectly in place, like they’d be coming back any second now. Needles were left in half-sewn clothing, pots and pans still sat over burnt coals, and all the clothing the locals would need to survive — like fur lined parkas and waterproof boots — was left in their chests with rusted rifles. Judging from what he saw, he estimated 25 people had been living in the camp.
Labelle couldn’t make sense of the scene at all. First Nations peoples embedded in the territory have had subarctic survival skills running through their veins since their early days of voyaging from Siberia across the Bering Strait. They’d perfected the use of animal skins from Polar Bear fur to seal hides to keep from freezing and survived off of game they hunted with weapons on sleds. Natural medical remedies and spiritual healers were an essential part of staying strong through hard times. If disease had struck where were the bodies and evidence of care? If the group had left by choice, why would they leave behind everything that mattered, and how far could they get on foot without warm clothing or shoes?
As these questions raced through Labelle’s mind, he stumbled upon something that made his blood run cold. Stones scattered around his feet directed his attention to fresh dirt dug up from a human grave. He wanted to believe it could’ve been disturbed by an animal, but the way the precise piles of stones were carefully moved from on top of the grave made it obvious it had been done by a human — or something worse.
See, Labelle had heard stories from this tribe of an unruly, demonic entity that roamed the area. Suddenly, he remembered warnings of the creature, known as Tornrak, a Greenlandic Inuit Deity who appeared on earth as a beast to stir up evil. The Tornrak was usually described as an ugly man beast with tusks. He immediately stopped his investigation then and there and fled to tell the local mounties what he had found.
Labelle’s story didn’t merit a lot of attention from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police he told at the closest station in Le Pas. The RCMP looked into the disappearance at Angikuni Lake but their investigation only lasted 12 days. The sergeant in charge relied on the testimony of a friend in the area instead of going down to inspect Lake Angikuni himself. They did interview other Inuit settlements along the same river path to find out what anyone may have seen or heard about the missing village. This search turned up a 10-year-old boy who had been recently taken in. Strangely, nobody knew where the boy was from, or where his original family was now, but the boy was too afraid to talk.
The RCMP also tracked down a man named Saumek at the Hudson Bay Railway Hospital, who was being treated for frostbite. They suspected that he might be related to whatever happened at Angikuni. But when authorities asked Saumek if he knew anything he became terrified. He refused to say really anything at all, though at one point mumbled something to himself. Investigators were able to pick out one word before he refused to speak anymore. Tornrak.
But a possible Tonrak sighting wasn’t the only strange thing that happened in the area at the time. While the Mounties deny this next detail, along with any supernatural theories related to Lake Angikuni, it has been documented that local officers, along with residents of this specific part of Nunavut, had reportedly seen strange blue lights flashing in the sky — different to the Northern Lights the area is famous for — around the time the group is assumed to have gone missing. Radio signals were also suddenly on the fritz.
Even though authorities doubted Labelle’s tale from the very beginning, others were certain there was truth to the legend. Canadian journalist Emmett E. Kellerher wrote about the disappearance for the front page of an Indiana newspaper, including pictures of the eerie site, and the story stirred up curiosity across the United States. Kellerher’s story, while undeniably captivating, wasn’t foolproof. Readers soon learned the well-known writer had a history of embellishing facts. Some of the pictures that sold the story were apparently from an entirely different part of Canada, at an entirely different time. Joe Labelle’s credibility came into question when doubters pointed out that he didn’t receive his trapping license until the year of the disappearance. Was he really an experienced traveler who got spooked by unusual circumstances or was he a novice out of his depth in the intimidating tundra? Even though a team on a scientific study got pictures of the Inuit grave, authorities argued there was no way to prove it was authentic.
It would be easy to agree with skeptics’ version: Labelle told a tall tale to an overzealous journalist who ran with the gossip for fame.
But then what if I told you a different group had disappeared in the same region one hundred years earlier?
Captain Francis Crozier was the second in command on a mission to cross the Northwest Passage. This was a notoriously dangerous voyage that European powers were desperate to exploit as a trade route. The expedition got stuck in the ice, the same as many had before them. Once rations had grown dangerously low, Crozier decided to lead his remaining sailors on a mission across the ice to civilization. They were never heard from again.
Years later a search party found a letter under a rock on the shore from Crozier, stating his intent to reach a trading post 900 miles away at Great Fish Lake. The feat would have been impossible, yet the Brits leading the search were told by Indigenous tribes on the way to Crozier’s intended destination that they’d seen Crozier and his men, marching through the snow, and had even stumbled upon the men’s camps, where they found Western antiques left behind…and a few scattered corpses. European authorities refused to accept these witness accounts, until they excavated the grounds at Great Fish Lake. They eventually did find some of the men. what happened to the 75 people that were missing? They seemed to have also just vanished into thin air.
But the indigenous tribes in the area warned authorities of the creatures and demons that lurked in the area. And one thing that was noted was the some of the corpses had been cannibalized. Of course, western authorities quickly wrote it off as a survival mechanism employed by men in desperate situations. But for the tribes who stumbled upon the camp site, their mind first went somewhere else. They recognized the scene. Bodies picked down to their bones. Was this the work of the antlered creature who stalked them in the dead of night? The wendigo?
So what really happened at Angikuni Lake? Some people insist they mass-migrated overnight from their homebase, even though they clearly left everything they’d need to survive the trip behind. And like I mentioned, this was a group of people who were used to migrating. They knew how to pack up what they needed and head out. It was unlikely that they left everything in disarray before leaving.
The RCMP has suggested the group got swept away in a blizzard or some other natural disaster, but again, there wasn’t much evidence that that had happened. No bodies were recovered.
Others think it’s possible they were massacred by homicidal trappers who happened to remove all the evidence.
Another theory, this was from The spiritually inclined is that the disturbed grave DID have something to do with the disappearance. Perhaps a demon made them disappear because of the disturbed grave. Or maybe it was the one who disturbed the grave in the first place.
But then there’s the blue lights that were seen in the sky around the time of the disappearance. Some link the blue lights reported in the sky to a possible alien abduction, the largest in recorded history, if true. And maybe that’s what happened to Crozier and his men as well. Maybe it’s just an area of Canada that aliens like to beam people up from once every hundred years. If that’s the case, then the next abduction is scheduled to happen in the next few years.
Most people invested in solving this mystery agree on one thing: it’s strange how little effort the Mounted Police Force put into getting answers. Could they be involved in the disappearance and guilty of a cover up to make the whole thing go away? Some have suggested that the group was moved overnight by the government. In the end, the only people who know for sure aren’t here to tell us.
I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out what happened at Angikuni lake, and I really don’t know. I think it’s just lost to history because of a botched investigation and maybe a touch of sensationalist reporting.
However, I do think there is one way to know for sure.
Hear me out, I think that in November 2030, you, me and the rest of The Rogue Detecting Society should go to Angikuni lake and see if at any point we get abducted by aliens. Could be fun. I’ll bring smores, someone will bring a guitar, we’ll share stories and wait to get beamed up. Feel free to let me know in the comments if you plan on coming.
But in all seriousness, Next time you hear an urban legend, I want you to wonder if there really is any truth behind it? Each legend must come from somewhere, and I’d bet there is a lot more truth to many of the ones you’ve heard.
That’s all I have for this week, make sure to join us next week for more terrifying real life tales, this time coming from our listeners.