Canada has its own version of the Loch Ness monster. Its existence is surrounded by legends and numerous reports of its appearance in people. Such strange creatures instill fear in people not only because of their mysterious origin, but also because of hostility towards people.
Like the Yeti, they hide in remote regions. Some people consider them just a myth, a figment of the imagination and an invention of people chasing sensations. Others believe in their existence and the veracity of eyewitness accounts.
Wendigo, wendigo, his eyes are like ice and indigo …
The first place among these creatures is occupied by the wendigo. Different tribes have different names for it. It is mentioned by the American Indians, especially in the northern states close to Canada. This is a terrible monster that eats people. His skin is yellowish, pale and taut. It is much taller than a person, about 4.5 m, with long, yellowed canines and a long, protruding tongue.
This creature lives in solitude. In various dialects, its name is translated as "one who lives alone" or "an evil spirit devouring people." Wendigo has long been identified with insanity, especially among people who have lost their minds as a result of practicing evil magical rituals.
Wendigo is a syndrome found in some Canadian indigenous tribes. According to MediLexicon.com, it is that a person believes that he has turned into a man-eating monster. The patient also experiences anxiety, depression and fears of not coping with his sadistic impulses."
In history, according to tribal laws, insane people possessed by an unclean spirit had to be killed, otherwise they could turn into a wendigo cannibal. The Wendigo trials occupy a separate chapter in the history of relations between indigenous tribes and colonialists in Canada.
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“No tribal tradition was more in conflict with Canadian law than the killing of Wendigo,” writes Sydney Harring in Violent Crimes in North America, edited by Louis A. Huffle. - From the point of view of the Cree and Ojibwe Indians, the world was inhabited by strange spirits living in the forest that will kill you if you do not kill them first. Traditional laws providing protection against them were fundamental to the society of these cultures.”
This video of the alleged Wendigo was uploaded to YouTube by teens last year and has over 3 million views.
Harring cites the example of Joseph Fiddle, one of the Ojibwe chieftains, who was imprisoned for killing a woman to prevent her from turning into a Wendigo. Fiddle's verdict was harsher than that of previous Wendigo killers. The government wanted to repeal tribal laws and strengthen Canadian laws among the indigenous population.
In his appeal to the court, Fiddle wrote: “I ask you not to treat me as a common murderer. I am the leader of my tribe, we had many sick people, one of them was possessed by evil spirits, and friends were afraid of them."
Despite the fact that the court sentenced Fiddle to a long term as an illustrative example, he was not sentenced to death. He fell ill in prison and died three days after his early release.
European settlers at first did not believe in Wendigo, but "in the 17th century, explorers and missionaries began to report encounters with this strange creature, which they described as a devil or werewolf with flaming eyes, large yellow fangs and a long tongue," writes Oliver Ho in the book "Mutants and Monsters".
A popular poem by Ogden Ours begins with the words: “Windigo, windigo! His eyes are like ice and indigo!"
Ogopogo - Canada's "Loch Ness" monster
Ogopogo is a long, serpentine aquatic creature that, according to legend, lives in Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. Its sightings are reported annually and many locals believe in its existence, although some are skeptical about it.
In the folklore of the local Indians, he was called Nha-a-tik, or "the demon of the lake." The part of the lake where he reportedly recently appeared matches the location of the monster in folk lore. The first recorded case of a white man being observed was in 1872 when Mrs. John Ellison reported seeing him.
The Indians make great offerings if they need to cross its territory in a canoe, because, as they say, it can attack.
A video of a alleged gunman in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. The dark spots are the creature's long tail. But some believe that it was just a fickle current.
Cannibal Bear with Inflexible Paws
In the legends of the Indians, a giant bear with a strange gait is mentioned. Some speculate that these tales may be a distant memory of woolly mammoths or mastodons passed down by word of mouth. When some indigenous tribes first saw elephants, they applied the same word to them. However, the stiff-legged bear eats humans, while mammoths and mastodons were herbivores. Also, there is no mention of it having a trunk.
According to another version, the Indians may have discovered fossils of mammoths and thought that they belonged to large bears with rigid legs. The Algonquin Indians called this creature the Yakwaviak. This word may have been borrowed from the Iroquois word niy'kwae, which means "Big Bear."
Can a huge cave bear still live in Canada?