Legend of the Wendigo: Flesh-Eating Creatures From North America

A man named Gino Meekus and his wife, along with their grandson, were out in the forest of northwestern Ontario, far away from one of the closest towns, which probably meant they were about fifty kilometers away from anybody. When people think about the Canadian wilderness, this is what they're visualizing, lush forests, greenery and nobody around for miles. Now, Gino was a hunter, and he had been that for a long time in that region. Living in a place with moose, black bears and wolves and having to watch out for them was common, and according to the article from The Guardian where I'm getting this information from, Gino said, quote, I've heard many different animals in the wild, but nothing like this. I grew up hunting with my grandfather for the first twelve years of my life. You could hear it moving, sounded kind of heavy. My wife, she got scared, picked up our grandson and started walking fast toward the vehicle. This was what he told CTV News. But what did he hear? Fortunately for us, gin was able to pull out his phone and begin recording the strange sounds. We have a sample of the eerie audio he caught. The footage started circling around the Internet, serving us proof of the existence of the Sasquatch or something else. In this episode, we explore perhaps one of the most mysterious creatures that is said to lurk in the dark, deep in the woods of Minnesota, in the forests in the Great Lake region as well as Central Canada. This is the legend of the Windigo. My name is Edwin, and here's a dark memory. There are several translations and variations of the name wind to go Wi to go with tiko we te go and others. However, once we looked up the translations, the phrase scents a few chills on my back. The evil spirit that devours mankind, the wendigo, originates from Native American legends and from certain tribes I Feelgonquian and Ojibwe. They say that whenever a human resorts to cannibalism to survive, they turned into a wendigo. As it turns out, when settlers and natives found themselves stratted in the winter, they were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive, which created their existence. Some versions say that humans who showed too much greedness or gluttony might become possessed by a wendigo evil spirit. The first descriptions were only that of an evil spirit or demon without any physical form, but as the stories were passed down, it became known as a beast, a large creature, thin, always looking like it's starving, its body matted with hair, its body with yellow skin. They say that it has a long tongue and long sharp yellow fangs, as glowing eyes, and long sharp claws. Some stories tell that its main goal is to eat human flesh and has several abilities that help it. Some of these characteristics are that it is very strong and immune to harsh weather, and has heightened senses. If you try to hurt it, it can heal and regenerate. They can get stronger as they age. The legend goes as far as to say that it can drive a person mad and lure them away by releasing an odor that only that person can smell, and the victim ends up losing sleep and giving them constant nightmare. Eventually they go insane. One of the interesting characteristics here is that it is said to be able to control the weather and mimic a person's voice. But along with this physical creature comes a curse like what the legend says, if you eat human flesh, you can become a Wind to Go, But it can also happen if you're in contact with one for a long time. From what we gather, the person who turns into the monsters still remains a part of it physically. The person's being remains near the heart of the Wind to Go. Despite all of this, they say that the person's soul can still be saved. One way is to kill the creature and the person, and the second option is to kill the Wind to Go only though this was a rare part of the legends, And how can the Wind to Go get killed if it becomes stronger as it ages and appears to have almost superpowers. Some variations of the legend says to burn it or to stake it in the heart with a silver weapon or shot with a silver bullet, but some becoming a bit more intricate, you must first stab it in the heart with silver, disintegrate the heart and put it in a silver box that bury it in a church cemetery. The remaining parts need to be disintegrated with a silver knife, then salted, burned, and the ashes completely scattered. And even though for you and me this legend might be just that, a legend or a thing we talk about around a campfire. I was unsettled by reports of encounters and murders related to the Wendigo. In sixteen sixty one, the documents from Jesuit Relations talks about several men that were sent out to North America and they had been killed the previous winter in a strange way. The document talked about how it was reported to them that men had been displaying a combination of lunacy, hypochondria, and frenzy, that they had become ravenous for human flesh and would pounce on men, women, and children like werewolves and devour them. The document also includes the following, this ailment attacked our deputies, and as death is a sole remedy among those simple people for checking such acts of murder, they were slain in order to stay the course of their madness. That there was yet another documented case in eighteen seventy eight, also found on the website Legends of America dot com. The trapper from Alberta, Canada named swift Runner was a trader with the Hudson's Bay Company A few years before the incident. He had also served as a guide for the Northwest Mounted Police. It was a harsh winter in eighteen seventy eight and his family had no luck finding food, just like the other Cree families. In an unfortunate series of events, the oldest son, one of the six children that he had, died of starvation, and eventually Swift became a victim of wendigo psychosis, a state where a person begins to crave human flesh. Emergency food supplies were available only twenty five miles away, but he didn't even try to travel there. Instead, he did the unthinkable. He killed the rest of his family and ate them. Eventually, he confessed and he was executed at four Saskatchewan. Perhaps another more famous case of wendigo psychosis is one with Jack Fiddler and Oja, Cree chief and medicine man. He claimed to have defeated over fourteen wendigoes in his lifetime, with creatures being sensed by his enemies and others who had supposedly become wendigoes. And in the records of Hudson's Bay Company there exist documents saying that there were indeed several incidents of people turning wendigo and eating human flesh. However, in nineteen oh seven, Jack Fiddler and his brother were arrested for murder. Jack committed suicide and his brother was sentenced to life in prison. Even today, people claim to see wendigoes out in the areas of northern Ontario, near a place known as the Cave of the Wendigo. They say that it still roams the woods of northern Minnesota and Canada, and though more sightings were reported between the late eighteen hundreds through the nineteen twenties, talks of wend to goes, strange noises and sights of large human eating giants in the wilderness are not as uncommon as you want them to be. This episode of A Dark Memory was researched by madel Inguera and produced by me Edwin Cobaruas. If you have an idea for A Dark Memory, reach out to us over on the website A dark Memory dot com or we are our email which will put on the description of this episode. See us soon.