Strange but True: Canadian Stories of Horror and Terror

By John Robert Colombo

This is a chilling collection of 50 accounts of truly unusual events and experiences that are told by the people who experienced them. Are there ghosts here? Yes. Are there strange coincidences here? Yes. Are there strange creatures of the forest here? Yes. Are there conspiracies here? Yes. Are there horors here aplenty? Yes, yes! The accounts come from many regions of Canada and cover the last hundred or so years. These fascinating first-person accounts originate in the columns of old newspapers or in the highly readable narratives derived from correspondence conducted by the author with present-day witnesses.

Shake hands with your fears and dreads. Here are engrossing and unsettling occurences that are supernatural or psychical, paranormal, or parapsychological, all betweent he covers of one book. Not for the faint of heart! Highly exciting reading!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Sep 30, 2007
• ISBN: 9781459720503

John Robert Colombo

John Robert Colombo, the author of the best-selling Colombo's Canadian Quotations and Fascinating Canada, has written, translated, or edited over two hundred books. He is the recipient of the Harbourfront Literary Prize and the Order of Canada, and is a Fellow of the Frye Centre.

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THE TROUT LAKE WINDIGO

Francis Work Beatton

For decades I have been under the spell cast by the figure of the Windigo, which stalks the woods inhabited by the Algonkian-speaking Natives of North America. This dread figure, the Windigo (also Wendigo, or Witiko), is the embodiment of cannibalism, the personification of possession, and the symbol of depersonalization or psychic loss.

Indeed, I had the opportunity to publish the first book-length study of this creature of lore and literature. That was back in 1982, when Windigo: An Anthology of Fact and Fantastic Fiction was issued in both the United States and Canada. Now in its third edition, the book has been influential in its own way. Over the last two and a half decades, the subject has inspired any number of poems and stories, as well as at least one novel and one stage play. So the spirit of the Windigo may be described as being very much alive in our woodlands!

Now one of the consequences of being associated with a pioneering publication like Windigo — which makes no scholarly claims at all — is that it generates correspondence with scholars who specialize in such fields of study as Native studies, psychiatry, psychology, history, literature, sociology, ethnology, anthropology, etc. One such scholar is Nathan Carlson, who, for his B.A. (Honours) degree in Native studies at the University of Alberta, prepared a thesis on the Windigo that unearthed old material on the Windigo psychosis, the creature’s disorienting spell. Carlson, who is himself of Métis background, was initially inspired by his grandmother’s tales about this creature. He undertook original research and collected a number of documented cases of alleged Windigo possession reported from sites in northern Alberta. He focused on the historical aspects of the subject and came to the conclusion that a Windigo disorder exists (or existed) that differs from a psychosis or a mental disorder as defined by the psychiatric profession.

I am grateful to Carlson for sharing this report with me and my readers. He explained that it comes from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s post journal written by Scottish fur trader Francis Beatton in January 1896. It is his eyewitness account of a very frightening incident that took place at Trout Lake, Northern Alberta — a man who arrived in the village was transformed into a Windigo. The journal recounts his final days and the events leading up to his execution.

I am reproducing the journal as it appears in archival records located in Edmonton, Alberta. I find it difficult to read this harrowing and gripping account without feeling sorry for the plight of this man, who seemed … to be crazy.

Provincial Archives of Alberta ACC. # A.281/5 File 70.387 Box 53, 1896; Holmes Letters.

Trout Lake January 3rd. Man arrived here today from Wapuskow who seemed to me to be crazy. I saw him coming and went to meet him at the door. As soon as he came in he told us, Francois was here at the time. He told us that last night he camped about 15 miles from here. I know the place, it is about that distance. He told us that after he had made camp, and was about to lie down. He was not asleep he said, but he saw the devil come to him, and from that he was crazy. He said that he must eat his child there. But his wife took away the child. She then took hold of him and he told her to try and pray for him and perhaps God would spare him to see this place. He said it was told him that he must eat them. He told us all what he saw and did. He said his son appeared to him like a young moose and he wanted to eat him. I did not listen to all he had to say as I thought he was starving and I was busy getting him something to eat, but he ate very little. He seemed to be getting a little better, and then he told us that he knew someone put medicine on him, and that was the reason he was going to be a cannibal. Then he began to cry at the thought of it. The man’s name is Napanin. The man’s father lives here at the end of the lake. The Indians are all terribly frightened. All the Indians think some one had done something to him with medicine. Yakwemoo is a Great medicine man, and that is why they put him here. The same night they were singing over him and the drums were beating. I expect they will try to drum the devil out of him. I hear that he told the Indians that he had to kill and eat them. He says he sees the devil often since then.

Jan. 6. I went to see the sick man today. He is a pitiful looking devil. They had him with about 6 blankets & still he was nearly freezing. I can do nothing for him.

Sunday 12. I went to see him today. He looks worse than ever. I gave him a dose of castor oil. He says his heart is freezing. He is always saying that he is going to be a cannibal. The Indians are terribly frightened. He told them that two men would arrive from Lesser Slave Lake in a few days, that is the devil told him so.

Jan 15. The two men arrived as the crazy Indian said. After they start back said he you must look out for me for I think I shall kill some of you. He wants them to kill him all the time before he gets worse.

Jan 19. The sick man’s father came to see me today. He said his son was getting worse. He said he thought they would have to kill him or he would kill them all. I pity the old man, he was very frightened, and he was crying most of the time he was in here. I believe they will finish him yet.

Jan 20. Francois came here and asked me if I would read some prayers for the sick man. I went with him. I found a great change come over him. He looked very crazy & I asked him if he knew me & he said yes. I read a few prayers out of the prayer book. He seemed to be getting worse all the time. He does not look like a human being. He seems to be terribly swollen in the body and face. I do not know how this will end. The sight of him is enough to frighten any person. The poor Indians slept very little here for the last 19 days. Since he arrived they have been watching him all the time.

Jan 20. I am going to go & sit with the crazy man tonight & see how he is.

Jan 21. Francois came for me last night & I went with him. I told him we ought to take some ropes with us and tie him with if we could. The man seemed to be getting worse. He told them to kill him or he would kill us all. The Indians are terribly frightened. When I told them that we would tie him, they said it was no use as no ropes could hold a Cannibal. The sound of him was terrible. He was calling like a wild bull. We tied him with the ropes & I left them to come & get more rope, but could not find any that was of use. I went back again about 3 am in the morning. When I got back the lines were breaking that was [sic] on his arms. The Indians asked me what we should do. They said that when he got up he would kill us all. I told them if they was [sic] to do anything to do it as I had no more lines to tie him with. The father of the sick man got up & told his brother that he saw that they could do nothing for his son. He was getting worse all the time and was too strong for us. He said what was here [?] that we could do nothing with him and that he could kill us all.

He told them, I give him to you to do what you want to do with him. Only he said, I do not want to see them hit him & went out.

Now the Indian Yakwemoo was the only man they thought could kill him. They had said before if he got lose [sic] he would be the man that would have to do it as I suppose he was the Great Medicine man amongst them. But Yakwemoo did not want to do it. He wanted me to do it. I told him that I would not do it, that I did not want to see them do it. He asked me again. I told him to do it himself. And then he asked his son to do it, but he would not, he told his father to do it himself. And then his 2 brothers in law got hold of him & told him that they would all be killed if they did not strike the Cannibal. At last Yakwemoo said, You all want me to do this. I will try & do it.[] He then took the axe. I went to the door. I not knowing how it was[,] I seemed terribly frightened. I came back again[,] he had already struck him on the head once with an axe. He struck him again and the man was going to rise. Yakwemoo said that he would yet get up, that he could not kill him. I told him to try & put him out of suffering. He hit him again & the man did not move. Yakwemoo now turned to round & told them, I have done what you told me to do.[] He said he would not have done it if they had not told him to do it. He said he knew that they all would have been killed if he had not done it.

I do believe that he would have killed them at last as I know they were all too frightened to defend themselves, they would have sat & looked at him. They did not have the heart to get up & try & hold him or help to tie him up. I had no ropes only cod lines and that was what I tied him with.

This is a copy of the Journal kept by Francis Beatton in charge of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s store

[signed] George Holmes

ATLANTIS

Ignatius Donnelly

Lost continents are the domains of lost races, and these are fields of study that pack a perennial appeal to the human race. There is something in the concept that really appeals to our nature. Thousands of books have been devoted to those civilizations of the past that have vanished from the face of the Earth. Some of those civilizations have left traces and archaeological ruins; others have left nothing tangible, only rumours and whispers, suggestions and speculations of what once was and is now lost. These lost worlds range from the fabled Garden of Eden, home of the first parents of mankind, to hidden cities that some say are older than mankind and will outlast our stewardship of the planet — Shamballah, Agartha, etc.

The best known of these lost continents is the one identified as Atlantis. For naming the island-continent and locating it beyond the Pillars of Hercules, history is beholden to the Greek philosopher Plato, who, in two of his dialogues, Critias and Timeas, describes Atlantis in myth-drenched words. He refers to it in terms of a moral fable that tells about the hubris of early man, which brings about not only his own destruction but also that of his advanced civilization. Nevertheless, the myth of Atlantis has singular appeal, for it seems to answer of our needs for a coherent if simple account of the origin of man and his achievements and values on a worldwide basis. As the world becomes increasingly globalized in the twenty-first century, we look back to an era in the Earth’s history when the planet supported a single race and culture. Here intuition and imagination augment the fields we know. Lost lands, deluges, floods! Cataclysms! Are these recollections of Pangaea, the original world continent described not by occultists but by geologists and geographers of lost lands, countries, and continents? Why this need is so pronounced is uncertain, but pronounced it is.

The leading proponent of the view that there is an Atlantis in our past was the extraordinary American politician Ignatius Donnelly (1831–1901). His name is a remarkable one. (Who, once having heard it, is able to forget it?) Donnelly served as lieutenant-governor and senator of the state of Minnesota, and he was nominated for the vice-presidency of the United States. Among his once-popular books are Atlantis, the Antediluvian World (1882), Ragnarök: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883), and The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon’s Cipher in the So-called Shakespeare Plays (1888). He combined populism with occultism and popular scholarship in equal measure.

In his day Donnelly was widely known as an orator and lecturer, and on one occasion he addressed a large audience in Winnipeg on the subject of Atlantis. He delivered his address in the city’s Opera House on March 18, 1891, and it was a notable social event. An unnamed reporter for the Manitoba Daily Free Press interviewed the speaker and then covered the occasion in two reports that appeared in print the following day.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is Ignatius Donnelly. He comes to us courtesy of an interview and a report on his address Atlantis, the Drowned Continent!

Ignatius Donnelly

A Talk with the Eminent Lecturer and Author

Ignatius Donnelly, Ningar, Minn., was the first record on the Clarendon registrar yesterday. The name was familiar to all Winnipeggers who saw it, though its possessor had never before been in the city, and people stood about in the rotunda curious to obtain a glimpse of him. The notoriety which he secured through his celebrated Bacon-Shakespeare cryptogram was the cause of this curiosity; they probably thought a man who would fly in the face of the world with such theories as the cryptogram contained must be a very extraordinary looking individual — a man with an hallucination of the brain, lean, lanky and lantern jawed, with his pants in his boots and his coat several sizes too small for him. Those who expected such to be the case must have been pleasantly disappointed when a portly gentleman of average stature, modest bearing, neatly attired in a black frock coat, with a clean shaven face — a face that would have been decidedly handsome had nature been less sparing in her gift with respect to the nose, but nevertheless attractive by means of its Irish mold — was the famous Ignatius Donnelly. And those who spoke with him must have remarked the peculiar softness of his voice in conversation, and his clear pronunciation entirely free from the American nasal twang, indicating a high degree of learning and culture. His whole demeanor is that of a thorough gentleman.

Mr. Donnelly is best known in this country by his literary works. He is little heard of here as a politician, but he is nevertheless a prominent figure in the politics of Minnesota. He was at one time lieutenant-governor of the state, and is now a state senator and chairman of the Farmers’ Alliance which is striving to secure several legislative reforms in the interests of the farmers. Mr. Donnelly is leading that party in the Senate with every prospect of ultimate success. One measure that he is striving for is the reduction of interest. At present the legal rate of interest in the State is seven per cent and the maximum of contract interest ten per cent. The Farmers’ Alliance is endeavoring to have this reduced to six and eight per cent respectively. The Alliance is also striving to have railroad lands taxed. Some of the roads there have not paid taxes for thirty years, and are holding their lands at such high prices that settlement is arrested and the development of the state seriously retarded. The alliance is also making a determined attack on railroad freight rate, especially on the rates affecting staple products, which are claimed to be unreasonably high. In the effort to secure this legislation Mr. Donnelly is the leading figure in the ranks of the aggressive party.

On account of his political duties he has abandoned his literary work for the time being, but will assume it again immediately after the session. He has in course of preparation a semi-political novel, which will be called Dr. Huguet. It is to be published simultaneously in Great Britain and America. His book Caesar’s Column has gone through several editions, and 30,000 copies have been sold in nine months. Mr. Donnelly will also shortly publish a supplement to the Great Cryptogram. The groups of words in some of the sentences of that work by which he attempted to demonstrate that the Shakespearean plays were written by Bacon are imperfect, and the supplement will contain specimen sentences which will be absolutely perfect in the systematic arrangement of words.

Yes, said Mr. Donnelly to a Free Press reporter last night, "this is my first visit to Winnipeg, and I am greatly interested in the city. I was surprised today at its size and the beauty of some of its buildings.

Mr. Donnelly is an old friend of Consul Taylor’s, they having formed each other’s acquaintance over thirty years ago.

The Lost Atlantis

The Submerged Continent Was the Cradle of Civilization

Hon. Ignatius Donnelly last night addressed a large audience in the Princess Opera House, on Atlantis, the Drowned Continent. The lecture was a condensation of Mr. Donnelly’s book on the same subject; and a further condensation to the limits of a newspaper report must necessarily reduce this daring hypothesis of the Minnesota statesman to a mere bald outline.

Briefly Mr. Donnelly holds that in the early geologic ages, uncounted aeons of years ago, a vast continent occupied the area where the waves of the Atlantic ocean now roll, and mighty rivers flowing east and west laid by their detritus the foundation of the American continent on the one hand and the European on the other. In support of the theory he cited the geologic formation of Europe and America where the sedimentary beds, broad at the coast but gradually narrowing as the centre of the continent is approached, prove that they are alluvial deposits brought down from this long vanished continent. In time this great body of land through volcanic and other great physical agencies began to subside, forcing up the present continents. Greenland which was the northernmost portion of this great drowned land is still yearly subsiding while the coast of Scandinavia is being steadily elevated more and more above the waves.

At one stage of this gradual submersion, what had been originally a high plateau with a towering mountain peak to the north of it became an island the size of all the British isles combined. This Mr. Donnelly regarded as the lost Atlantis — the cradle of civilization, the home of the race that gave the world its letters, its monetary standards, its religion, in fact nearly all of their invaluable possessions of civilization. Mr. Donnelly takes as a basis for his belief Plato’s description of Atlantis — regarded as a fable by ancient writers but accepted as historically accurate by Mr. Donnelly. Plato described Atlantis as an island lying out in the Atlantic beyond the Pillars of Hercules which had been the home for ages of a race highly civilized and strong intellectually and physically. These inhabitants had subjugated the horse; they had temples to the sun and moon, containing such treasures in gold and silver as the world has not since seen; and there was a way leading from the island to the great land that lay beyond. The Atlantians, growing great and strong, began trading and intermixing with other nations, and gradually became unjust, rapacious and cruel. In one day and one awful night Atlantis disappeared beneath the waves of the engulfing Atlantic.

Mr. Donnelly supported the accuracy of Plato’s description by a mass of evidence drawn from philological, historical and anthropological sources. In the first place Plato got his knowledge from his ancient ancestor, Solon, who in turn obtained it from Egypt, which was then a country with a civilization reaching back five or ten thousand years. Mr. Donnelly’s hypothesis is that civilization did not dawn in Egypt and Phoenicia, but that these nations in the far off ages were brought into commercial relations with Atlantis and secured the impetus towards improvement from that nation of God-like men. The present Azores are held to be the peaks of the high mountains of the lost Atlantis. When the Portuguese discovered these islands they were barren of human life, and yet coins, which it had been claimed were of Phoenician make, had been found on them. The Portuguese also discovered on one of the peaks a huge bronze statue of a man seated on a horse, pointing with his finger towards this west. This statue had been broken in pieces and taken to Portugal where, not being put together again, it gradually became lost. The statue showed to how high a state of civilization the Atlantians had arrived. Sea sounding showed a continental mass of land only a few hundred fathoms below the sea level, which above the sea would make just such an island as Atlantis was.

The Atlantians communicated not only with the European continent, which in part was colonized by them, but they colonized America as well. The speaker then went into an elaborate statement of the similarity of customs, faiths, beliefs between the Aztecs, Peruvians and other aboriginal inhabitants of America and the Egyptians and the early Greeks. One of the strongest proofs was the similarity between the Maya alphabet of Central America, and the Phoenician alphabet from which our own is derived. He showed that O, K, Q, H, T, and G were practically identical. The inference was that both Phoenicians and Central Americans got their alphabet from a common source — Atlantis. The Phoenicians Mr. Donnelly regarded as akin to the Atlantians who were probably a Semitic race. In his opinion the antediluvian world recorded in the Bible was Atlantis, and The Deluge recorded in Holy Writ referred to the submersion of the island.

The lecture was most interesting throughout, and closed with an eloquent peroration which was followed by a storm of applause.

Mr. A.W. Ross, M.P., moved a vote of thanks which Mayor Pearson seconded. Mr. Donnelly briefly returned his thanks. Mr. D. Smith, president of the C.M.B.A., presided during the evening.

THE STRANGE BEAST OF THE SWAMP

Special to the Toronto Star

Our parents, their parents, and their parents loved a mystery. It is not only our generation, raised on television shows like The X-Files and Unsolved Mysteries, that has a taste for strange events and experiences. Proof of this contention lies in the columns of old daily and weekly newspapers, which offered their readers — our ancestors — mysterious or puzzling accounts of occurrences that seemingly defy common sense.

The two articles that appear here, although short, illustrate two facts: that the readers

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