Fearsome Critters - PaulBunyan.org

FEARSOME CRITTERS

Throughout the diverse myths and legends across the world, there are countless heroes who ballads are sung and great epics recited. But, among those heroes, are a great number of extraordinary creatures, which our protagonist might chance to encounter. Paul Bunyan was not immune from this, and, surely, when comes challenge comes someone, or rather something, there to meet it.

HAVE NO DOUBT THAT PAUL BUNYAN is the most famous of all the legends what ever come out of them logging camps. But, while he is a right important figure of lumberjack stories, he ain't the be all end all of all things. Loggers, they spin their stories, y'see? But, that ain't all what goes on in camp. Jacks, they like to play jokes, too. Especially, fond they are for playing a joke or two on those what just come into camp and don't know nothin' about no woods.

So, what they go and do. They get themselves someone new, and talk all casual like, y'see? Say somethin' like, "I heard a strange somethin' or other out there in those woods," when another might say, on the lines, "What it sound like?" Well, they get to talkin' back and forth among themselves. At some point, one of them jacks gonna mention a curious soundin' name, like "snipe," "upland trout," "hodag," and such. Well, eventually, that newcomer, he get right curious, he would. That newcomer, what they call a “greenhorn” or “tenderfoot,” usually both, he start askin' all kinds of question 'cause he never heard of such a thing. But, that's a bit like a blue billy bass takin' to some bait. All the fisherman has left to do is reel in his catch. So, the jacks, who are all in on it, obliged any new fellas and answer any questions what might come there way. They tellin' stuff about all the weird critters, and the strangeness of the woods. It usually goes somethin' like this here:

“Perhaps one may hear some old-timer with an audience of one or two innocents, telling of seeing ‘windigo’ tracks in the woods where he had been at work during the day. These tracks may be described as of any outlandish size, from 2 ft. across up to 10 to 12 ft. apart, or perhaps he is telling of his travels and describing places he has visited, such as ‘Rock Candy’ Mountains, the ‘Lemonade’ Springs, ‘Cigarette’ Groves, ‘Doughnut’ Forest, ‘Milk’ River, ‘Whiskey’ Lake and what not, each and every place named on account of their being producers of the actual articles their names imply. If any of his audience are credulous enough, he may send them around the next day to get the loan of a ‘cross haul’ or help him to capture a ‘snow snake’ or some other non-existing animal.

Perhaps before breaking-up time in spring, those who have been the butts of a lot of stock jokes have developed somewhat a few chases around hillsides, trying to head off ‘side hill gougers,’ that are described as having legs longer on one side of their bodies than on the other and are therefore compelled to inhabit hillsides only and may be easily captured by turning them in the opposite course that nature intended them to travel, as they then roll over and over down the hillside and fetch up helpless on level ground.

Of course a great deal of this has changed since the winter of the ‘blue snow.’”

— Matt Riley, “Life in a Northern Wisconsin Logging Camp,” The Building Age, vol. XXXII, no. October, 1910

Well, it was a good bit of fun. They go and talk for a good long time 'bout this and that. This went on, 'til at the end, those greenhorns were made into true believers, yes sir. The older jacks even send them on errands and such. Make them go about the woods lookin' for such creatures. And, well, sometimes, they just might stay out for hours and find nothin'. Now, I ain't gonna say which are real and which ain't. Hate to spoil someone else's fun. Just, if you hear somethin' 'bout some new sort of animal from an old lumberjack, take it with a grain of salt, or better— a wagon load.

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TALES

“There were the ferocious tigermunks, shrunken after the privations of the Hot Winter so lamentably that they have ever since been derisively designated as chipmunks. There is the ’ring-tailed, ripsnorting, spike-chewing’ balvidorious, and the indefinite but ubiquitous hodag, whose description varies from time to time from place to place. There is the bumbletoe, that deadly cross between the very large mosquitoes and the bumblebess imported to exterminate them. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the piece of timber land known from its peculiar shape as the Pyramid Forty. This hill not only enjoys the distinction of being the highest in America, so high that it takes one man seven days, or seven men one day, to see the top, but has the glory of producing the animal which disputes the claim of the hodag being the most widely known of the Paul Bunyan fauna. The animal is the notorious side-hill dodger, which has adapted itself to its uncomfortable environment by emerging from a square and therefore non-rolling egg, equipped with two short legs on the uphill side and two long ones on the downhill side. There are frost-biters, and the snow-hens which lay only hard-boiled eggs. There are creatures whose anatomical arrangements I should blush to have to describe.”

—J.D. Robins, “Paul Bunyan,” The Canadian Forum, Toronto, Ontario, February, 1926, Vol. VI, No. 65

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“The commonest fish was the "Whirly-Gig" fish. The jacks, on Sundays and holidays, spent all their spare time catching the Whirly-Gig fish. They would bore a small hole in the ice of the river, and bait it with cheese, smearing the cheese around the edge of the hole. The fish, it seems, had a ravenous appetite for cheese, and could smell it for miles. They would come to the hole, and then one of them would begin its whirling motion under the hole. Presently it would shoot up through the hole, and holding itself up by its back fins, placed near the tail, would begin eating the cheese. The fish had a queer mouth shaped like a sucker's mouth, and would suck up the bits of cheese. It would soon begin to swell, for the fish apparently could not control their appetites for cheese, and presently it would pop out of the ice like a seed squeezed from between the thumb and first finger. It was then an easy matter to catch it on the ice, and the hole was rebaited. The Whirly-Gig fish was very fine eating. ”

— “Legends of Paul Bunyan, Lumberjack,” K. Bernice Stewart & Homer A. Watt.

* * *

“The following 18 a dispatch from Westwood, Calif:

While spotting a logging road north of here, Paul Bunyan heard the crash of falling timber in a locality where no cutting was in progress. Taking his 2-barrel gun, Big Betsey, which requires a dishpanful of powder to load, he approached the spot and as he expected, found a hodag at work. He shot the beast and brought it into town. It is said to be the first hodag seen in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Note:
The hodag [shovel-nose variety] is a very rare animal, but a few have been reported by oldtimers in the White Pine forests of the east. It is about the size and build of a rhinoceros with a heavy plate of bone on his face the shape of a spade extending forward like a duck's bill. A high bony edge at the base of this beak extends in front of the eyes so the hodag can not see in any direction but straight up. It's only food is porcupines, which it obtains by felling the tree in which the porcupine sits. The hodag drives his beak in the ground, cutting off the roots till he can push the tree over. Porcupine quills in his stomach give him a rotten disposition. Lumberjack traditions of the hodag are corroborated by the scientific classification by J. H. Fredricy.”

— Annoymous, The Hood River Glacier, May 19, 1921

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“MOSKITTOS. The naturalist in Paul Bunyan's camp classified these as birds. When Paul was logging in the Chippewa River region the mosquitos were particularly troublesome. They were so big that they could straddle the stream and pick the passing lumberjacks off the log drive. Sometimes a logging crew would find one in this position, quickly tie his legs to convenient trees and use him for a bridge across the river. Paul imported from Texas a drove of fighting bumblebees to combat the mosquitos. They fought for a while, then made peace and intermarried. The result of this crossing made the situation worse than ever before for the loggers. The offspring had stingers at both ends.”

— Charles E. Brown, “Paul Bunyan Natural History”

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“Haunting the woods about the logging camps were numerous fabulous animals. Some were very wild and fierce and others harmless. There was a bird which laid square eggs so that they would not roll down hill. The upland trout built its nest in tall trees and was very difficult to catch. The side-hill dodger had two short legs on the up-hill side. The pinnacle grouse had only one wing. This enabled it to fly only in one direction about the top of a conical hill. Snow snakes were most active in the winter time. They made victims of men who wandered in the woods after dark. The rumptifusel and the hodag were beasts of great ferocity.”

— Charles E. Brown, “American Folklore Paul Bunyan Tales”

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“John Braasch brought to the city, Saturday, one of the most curious looking specimens of the animal family ever found in this section. Though not so large or fierce looking, it rivaled in rareness the famous Gene Shepherd hodag. Mr. Braasch went to a spring on his place in the town of Maine that morning to draw a pail of water. He noticed the animal swimming about in the water trying to escape, and after several efforts captured it. It was about as huge as a chipmunk and of a dark color. Its front feet were webbed as if it were an acquatie animal and it had a beaver-like tail. Instead of a mouth it had a sucker-like proboscis provided with short tentacles. Hundreds examined the animal and none knew of what species it belonged until a traveling representative of a lumber firm, and who is well versed in the work of Hoo Hoo, gave it as his opinion that it was either a young snark, boojum or jabberwock. Another thought it a side hill gouger and various opinions were expressed. All of these theories are doubted by Seim Bros., in whose store the animal is on exhibit, and to satisfy their curiosity they have offered a prize of a second hand pair of suspenders to anyone who will before March 4th properly define to what species this rare animal belongs. A paper collar will be given to the next nearest guess.”

— Anonymous, “Queer Looking Animal,” The Wausau Pilot, February 28, 1905

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