It was early November 2007 it was on a Friday night I remember it being
unseasonally warm that night I was hanging out with my two friends Irene
and Dennis.
We were hanging out outside my truck right by the whites and First Nations
office Irene was there to get some type of paperwork for tribal scholarships our
other friend Dennis was going to meet us there and we were going to go into town
as we're talking we hear two footsteps in a twig break we think that it's a
friend Dennis we turn to our left and see that it's one of the elders in the
tribe he was kind of a funny guy a little strange his name was Robert and
everyone knew him around the tribe the thing that people remember most about
him was his last
I remember people used to say if you ever lost at one of the Pow wow's just use
his laugh as a compass he was a pretty religious man most of
the people in our tribe are Catholic and they also believed in the traditional ways.
He was studying to become a medicine man it was a little surprised
seeing him out here but we were right next to tribal office and he would
always do something tribal council what are you doing here I was hoping he would
move on I didn't feel like talking to him every single time he sees me he
always stops by and talks he always calls me in ningozis which is the
Ojibwe for son. You guys catching for the Wendigo? When I was around your age that's
when I saw it.
he tells us the story of what the Wendigo was he said that when he was in
his 20s he was hunting with his brother he got misplaced in the woods and found
himself in an area that he had no idea where he was at
he looks ahead of a trail and sees a tall skinny gray skinned big nose sharp
yellow teeth person standing in his way he said it was making sounds like it was
trying to throw up it screamed and made a dash towards him he looked down to get
his rifle to put it up as he looked up it was gone it started to immediately
snow after that he cuts the story off and leaves in the direction that he came
I thought it was kind of odd but maybe he saw two people in the field and
decided to investigate it we remained there for 15 minutes more waiting for
our friend
about 60 to 70 feet in front of us is a lake we hear splashing at first we think
that it's frog but all the singing from the frogs had stopped I look over and I
see that someone is crouching down on the bed of the lake thinking that it's
our friend that we've been waiting for I throw the beer bottle in the lake right
in front of his figure the splash on the bottle doesn't surprise this thing's it
slowly tilt his head up to look at the bottle and then turns to the left and
looks at us this thing's face was very skinny almost
like a zombie it stands up and faces us it was making a huffing pound like it
was out of breath I stare into the things eyes the eyes were milky white I
could see part of the iris in them it screams and takes a couple steps forward
we quickly get inside my truck as we get inside and locked the doors this thing
stops 20 feet away and stares it's mouth was opened and his tongue was
out I turn on my truck speed off I found it strange as how Robert was here at the
same time this thing showed up I thought that maybe Robert was playing a joke on
us I still don't know what happened to this day I always thought that the
Wendigo was a metaphor for survival during the winter the certain tribes
were more humane than others because they didn't resort to cannibalism or
maybe it's based on some true