The Truth Behind the Windigo-Nathan D. Carlson

The 'Exorcism' of the Windigo

2010-04-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

A Native Canadian 'ledger-style' drawing depicting the 'exorcism' of the 'cannibal' at Trout Lake in 1896 (see earlier blogs). Drawing by author. More details on this story to follow....

The Windigo

2010-04-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

This is a copy of a painting by Ojibway artist Norval Morriseau depicting the windigo monster. The creature is shown with a heart of ice and a frozen, naked body. The windigo is storming through a village devouring humans, which it percieves to be animals (in this case in the guise of 'beavers'). Notice the owl-like eyes, and the lipless mouth: characteristics that the windigo was belived to possess.

The Human Face of Windigo- Swift Runner (Kakisikuchin)

2010-04-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

This is the only known photograph of Swift Runner, taken at Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta in 1879, prior to his hanging. Standing in chains beside an undentified North West Mounted Police officer (NWMP, now the RCMP), Swift Runner was executed for the charge of serially murdering and cannibalizing his wife and five of his children. Swift Runner was the first person to be executed by the mounties in Canada. It is an interesting and little known fact that Canada's first, and perhaps most disturbing 'serial killer' was , in a sense, a windigo...

Thus, this photograph, taken just a short time before Swift Runner hung from the gallows, is the only known photograph showing the human face of windigo.

Follow this blogsite for the story of the Swift Runner Windigo incident, which will be posted shortly....

The text of the Francis Beatton Letter, January 1896

2010-04-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

Trout Lake January 3rd 1896. Man arrived here today from Wapuskow Lake 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 [Auger] 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, [he] 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 [sic] 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 Napānin. 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 [Auger] 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 [sic] 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 true; 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 [Medicine Man] Yakwemoo was the only man they thought could kill him. But Yakwemoo did not want to do it. He wanted me to do it. I told him that I would not do it …At last Yakwemoo said “You all want me to do this. I will try…[”]. He then took the axe. I went to the door…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…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.

The Eyewitness account of the Windigo incident of 1896

2010-04-11T16:56:00.001-07:00

This is a copy of the original eyewitness letter written by Scottish fur trader Francis Beatton, detailing what he witnessed during those terrifying three weeks when he saw a man slowly turning into a cannibal, and his subsequent execution.

The reproduction of the text will be posted in my blog shortly. Stay tuned for one of the most frightening and bizarre eyewitness accounts attesting to the reality of the windigo....

Newspaper headlines of the Windigo (Wehtigo) incident of 1896.

2010-04-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

Nathan and Marie Carlson

2010-04-11T16:47:00.000-07:00

This is a photograph of me and my late grandmother, Marie Carlson (1921-2002). Marie spoke to me of the windigo as a child, and it was her story which inspired my research that led to my discoveries, and to the newspaper story that may have been implicated in the 'windigo-like' incident aboard the Greyhound bus in the summer of 2008.

Heart of Ice Trailer

2010-04-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Site of the 1896 Windigo Case in northern Alberta

2010-04-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

An archived photograph of the site of the Windigo Case of 1896. The incident likely occured in or near one of these buildings.

2010-04-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

Stay informed on the development of the 'Heart of Ice' documentary on Facebook.com at:

www.facebook.com/WatsonStreetPictures

The Truth Behind Windigo

2010-04-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

The Legend Revealed...

During my childhood I heard a story from my grandmother, Marie Carlson, that would set in motion a chain of events that would change my life forever...

This story was about the Windigo, a terrifying folkloristic creature from Native North American legend that was believed to stalk the northern boreal forests of Canada.

In a remote locale in northern Alberta, over one hundred years ago, a man was executed by his companions after a terrifying three-week ordeal where the man was believed to be turning into Windigo-- a terrifying cannibalistic monster that devoured humans. It was believed that the Windigo spirit could possess or take over the body of a person, driving them insane and turning them into human flesh eating madmen.

Over the course of the weeks, several eyewitnesses watched as the man slowly succumbed to the malevolent windigo power until his behaviour and appearance was so frightening that one man, a fur trader from Scotland, stated in his journal that the man did "not look like a human being". He was bound with ropes, and during his struggle he begged his captors to kill him before he became fully unstoppable. When he broke free from his bonds, the terrified onlookers decapitated the man with an axe before he killed them all.

At the time, I did not know what to make of this story. But several years later, I began looking at microfilmed newspaper records, and found a story, dated April 16, 1896, that spoke of the exact same story told by my grandmother. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a harrowing journey that would cause me to discover one of the most bizarre and frightening mysteries in Canadian history. I discovered hundreds of pages of historic accounts describing this same phenomenon: the deaths of scores of people that were believed to have become overcome by the Windigo entity. Many of the accounts recorded from eyewitnesses described the same behaviour, the same bizarre physiological changes, and the same frightening and unexplicable phenomena that can only be classified as 'paranormal'. I had discovered records, many of which corroborated one another, that seemed, mysteriously, to confirm the historical existence of an actual windigo phenomenon.

As bizarre and unusual as this seeemed, the story took a strange turn of events when I discovered that the man in my grandmother's story was an ancestral relative.

Then, when I was interviewed in an Edmonton, Alberta newspaper that detailed my research into the Windigo, the story became known internationally when a newspaper delivery man who had distributed copies of the article to houses across the city, ten days later, dissapeared from his home and turned up on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg, Manitoba. The man, in what was a seemingly random and unprovoked attack, murdered a seat-mate with a hunting knife, decapitated him, and subsequently consumed his flesh.

Newsmedia covered the horrifying and bizarre story and my connection to it. Did the man on the Greyhound bus who delivered the newspaper article ten days earlier pre-meditate a copycat murder by being influenced by the details in the news-story; was this a completely unrelated incident which closely resembled the details in the newspaper story in a statistically mind-boggling coincidence; or did the man, as some have suggested, become affected by the unexplained Windigo phenomenon?

Stay tuned for more investigations into the Windigo, the actual documented historic evidence, and details on the upcoming documentary "Heart of Ice", directed by filmmaker Christian Tizya, in which the truth of this harrowing phenomenon is revealed in a series of interviews and documentary film footage, disclosing the truth behind the mysterious Windigo...