[SPEAKER_00]: Warning, this episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. [SPEAKER_00]: In New Brunswick, Canada, since the 19th century, a legend has passed down through generations of a ghostly figure who calls out as a warning or threat to those venturing through the dense forests of the province.
[SPEAKER_00]: This ghostly presence is known for its unrelenting [SPEAKER_00]: The Dungarvin Hooper is an integral part of Canadian folklore, and its origin, while debated, is frightening. [SPEAKER_00]: And whoever or whatever is in the woods of New Brunswick is still haunting those who visit. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a study of strange. [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back. [SPEAKER_00]: I am your host Michael May. [SPEAKER_00]: There are many versions of the story that Dungarvin Hooper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it is Hooper by the way. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm pronouncing that correctly. [SPEAKER_00]: It is not Hooper like I thought it was. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that's a Canadian pronunciation or if I'm just an [SPEAKER_00]: it, both might be true, but out of all the origin stories of the Hooper, they're all similar, they're all based around an event which I'll dive into in a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I like to do with paranormal subjects, I like to take the story back to the beginning as best as I can figure it out anyway, because whether you're [SPEAKER_00]: a believer in paranormal or you're a skeptic like I am, we all should be seeking the truth to figure out if we can understand these strange things and the best way to do that, especially with these paranormal legends, is to trace it back to its origin.
[SPEAKER_00]: New Brunswick is on the eastern coast of Canada, and the area of this legend is based around the Dungarven River, an area that is still to this day very much like it was in the 19th century when the legend of the Hooper allegedly began, meaning it's mostly untouched by modern man, think thick forests, flowing rivers, wild life, and historically the region was [SPEAKER_00]: The tail goes that the Hooper begins with an allagging camp that runs along the Dungarve and River.
[SPEAKER_00]: The camp was active in the 1820s and at that time, there was a cook named Ryan. [SPEAKER_00]: However, Ryan wasn't your typical logger, meaning the other men would take their money and they'd immediately buy booze or spend it all gambling, but not Ryan. [SPEAKER_00]: He saved his money and would wear his cash in a money belt around his waist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some accounts claim Ryan was saving his money for his family, other accounts are more specific and claim that Ryan was saving his money because he had a very ill mother, and he wanted to be able to afford to care for her. [SPEAKER_00]: Every day, when a meal was prepared, Ryan would call the loggers to camp by making a whooping sound. [SPEAKER_00]: It was very loud and carried far into the forest. [SPEAKER_00]: This hoop was a daily occurrence happening at every meal time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one day when the loggers are off, they began to wonder why they didn't hear a hoop at dinner time. [SPEAKER_00]: They waited a little longer, but the hoop never came. [SPEAKER_00]: They ventured back to camp and they found Ryan's dead body on the floor. [SPEAKER_00]: His money belt was missing. [SPEAKER_00]: As all the loggers were out in the forest working suspicion fell on the camp boss, the only person at camp besides the cook.
[SPEAKER_00]: The boss quickly said that, oh, Ryan had fallen ill and he died. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you suspect foul play, that is exactly what the tale implies. [SPEAKER_00]: The story goes that the meat and supplies were dwindling, and the logger's were growing anxious and angry, blaming the boss for their terrible working conditions. [SPEAKER_00]: To solve this situation, the boss had killed Ryan and taken his money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other accounts of this story are darker, claiming that Ryan's body was missing and the camp boss had actually butchered him, some even saying that he've cooked the meat and fed Ryan to the loggers. [SPEAKER_00]: While others claimed that Ryan's money wasn't from safe wages at all, but he had accumulated his cash from other vague mysterious means. [SPEAKER_00]: So, to summarize here, there are various versions of this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all, however, include the cook of this camp, sometimes he's named Ryan Garvin, and he's killed by either a boss or a group of people, always for his money. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, while there are a lot of versions of that story, what happened next is very consistent. [SPEAKER_00]: The night of Ryan's death, the loggers were sleeping when they were woken up by a very familiar sound, Ryan's hoop.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the sound seemed different, evil or supernatural, and it wouldn't stop. [SPEAKER_00]: The sound of hoops and moans and yells continued until the loggers were driven mad. [SPEAKER_00]: And they had to leave claiming that the area had been cursed. [SPEAKER_00]: And now, the legend continues that if you're in that area, near the Dungarvan River, you can still hear the hoops and cries of that camp cook, Ryan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many witnesses since the 1820s up to this very day claim that they can hear Ryan's hoops in the night. [SPEAKER_00]: But is this tale real? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, like most stories of ghosts, it's likely a combination of many things. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's important to note that this story does not appear in any contemporary 19th century records. [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, the earliest documentable events, documentable? [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that's a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please tell me, it is in gentlemen that it's a word. [SPEAKER_00]: The earliest documentable events tied to the Hooper began in 1869, not the 1820s, [SPEAKER_00]: Shortly after the catastrophic Saxby Gale, which is a hurricane that struck the area with winds exceeding 100 miles per hour, as left widespread destruction at flooded ports and neighborhoods destroyed bridges in the area, and much more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So following this storm, strange, [SPEAKER_00]: A man named George Scott claimed to encounter a two-legged creature that made the sounds and chased him away from caves near Clearwater Brook. [SPEAKER_00]: The hoops continued to fright vloggers, campers, and hunters until 1874. [SPEAKER_00]: When severe spring rains flooded these caves, and that's when the sounds just seem to stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later when the floodwater subsided and locals were able to investigate the caves, they found evidence of human habitation, like fire ashes, animal bones, and some clothes. [SPEAKER_00]: However, this tale is hard to confirm with no existing evidence. [SPEAKER_00]: At least that I can find, the sinners, if you have any specific evidence from the time, email me, a study of strange at chemell.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't find anything contemporary, making these claims of finding human habitation in those caves, which makes it more legend than fact. [SPEAKER_00]: However, the mystery resurfaced in a more concrete form in 1895, when New Brunswick Journalist Frank Christine and visiting American Reporter Frederick Irland went on a fishing trip. [SPEAKER_00]: And they encountered a real, living explanation while traveling through the Dungarvan region.
[SPEAKER_00]: Irland, while he was primarily a political reporter, published an account in forest and stream magazine under the title, The Lost Man. [SPEAKER_00]: In this article he talks about the trip he took into the forests of New Brunswick and regales readers about a strange photograph he took, which brought back a memory of one of the men in the photograph, an odd, hermit-type man who visited his camp one night. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's a quote from the article.
[SPEAKER_00]: In looking over a collection of photographs taken last summer while on a New Brunswick fishing trip, I have come upon one that revives queer memories. [SPEAKER_00]: The thing happened in a corner of the wide little known wilderness, which forms the larger part of the province of New Brunswick.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the next part of the article he discusses where about his group is traveling, who's in the group, who's with them, who has gone ahead, things of that nature, and then he continues. [SPEAKER_00]: It was a wilderness so little disturbed that we knew the pedigree of every footprint we saw. [SPEAKER_00]: When we crossed the Dungarvan on the afternoon of the second day out, the team went ahead while the three fishermen caught a few trout.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beyond across the St. John Waters on the West stretched the grim and unmapped wilderness while to the east of the settlements on the intercolonial railway were nearly a hundred miles away. [SPEAKER_00]: The day died slowly, as it always does in Latitude 47 early in July. [SPEAKER_00]: It was nearly 9 o'clock before it got too dark to see to read. [SPEAKER_00]: An argument as to whether it was yet too dark to see to shoot was settled by Christine.
[SPEAKER_00]: New Brunswick's metal-winning riflemen. [SPEAKER_00]: who fired at a distant stub and hid it. [SPEAKER_00]: As the teamsters wish to start back early in the morning, we turned in as soon as it was dark occupying the long deserted bunks of the lumbermen of other days. [SPEAKER_00]: The fire outside flickered and phased. [SPEAKER_00]: In two minutes after I lay down, I was asleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: to clarify here, the group was camping at an abandoned logging site, so there was a pre-built cabin in some empty bunks that they were taking advantage of. [SPEAKER_00]: And then this happens. [SPEAKER_00]: Sometime in the night, I do not know when it was after the moon rose, and that happened at 1030.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was awakened by Christine, who crept back into the bunk saying that a lost man had come into camp, and that he had eaten a big supper and that neither the men nor himself could make anything of it. [SPEAKER_00]: I was too sleepy to take much interest in the matter, but the next morning we all took a hand at trying to help the unexpected visitor find out where he was at. [SPEAKER_00]: He was a grizzled skinny old chap who might have been 70 and was more likely 60.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had two weeks growth of beard, he was tall and bony and strong considering his age. [SPEAKER_00]: How did he stumble upon us? [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he heard the gun go off just as he was laying down beside the run. [SPEAKER_00]: Where was he going? [SPEAKER_00]: To grand falls. [SPEAKER_00]: And thought he must be about there.
[SPEAKER_00]: A great goodness man, grand falls is on the St. John River 70 miles in a straight line and a [SPEAKER_00]: The rest of the article goes on to explain that they fed this old man. [SPEAKER_00]: He was very weird, he acted very strange, they asked his name, and they couldn't understand him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said something like Derns or Torrents, and they did find out that he was a veteran of the Civil War, and after the old man had stayed with them a bit, he wandered off by himself carrying his boots. [SPEAKER_00]: He was barefoot when he wandered away and did not have [SPEAKER_00]: Food did not have blankets or anything with them except a rusty old axe that the man had claimed he found in a river.
[SPEAKER_00]: Irland, the journalist, shares this story because it's very odd and it has to be a little scary with an old crazy man in the forest coming into your camp. [SPEAKER_00]: He also wanders what happened to this guy and they will likely never know. [SPEAKER_00]: What's interesting about this tale is that while researching this episode, I came across many articles from very trustworthy sources that claim this is the origin of the Hupertale because the old man.
[SPEAKER_00]: as it goes, was woping and calling from the woods before the men in the camp saw him, and that the sound was echoing around their camp and they couldn't tell what it was or where it was coming from until they heard rustling in the bushes and then this old wild man of the woods came out and set down by their fire and ate their food. [SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, I've read this article multiple times.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will provide links to it in the show notes, check it out for yourself. [SPEAKER_00]: Irland never says that they heard hoops or screams or supernatural type sounds that surround their camp frightening them all before this old crazy man came out and introduced himself. [SPEAKER_00]: The legend of the Dungarbon Hooper, but if you read it, it in no way implies that this hermit was the Dungarbon Hooper.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm just now realizing is that this story is often said to be like the real origin of the Hooper is this strange old man in the forest that would make these sounds and scare [SPEAKER_00]: But if that's not true, if this article just got caught in the web of local legend and it kind of spun out of control, which definitely happens, there's a bigger mystery to find out how this legend grew.
[SPEAKER_00]: A crucial part of this legend is that the murdered cook, the vengeful ghost narrative from a login camp in the 1820s, it turns out that that doesn't emerge until the early 1900s. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of that story is through sensationalized newspaper accounts by a reporter named John Cogswell, who would write stories like this for readers that love spooky and crazy tales. [SPEAKER_00]: He would have been a podcast host today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most famously, though, is we have to look at what I think is the key aspect to this legend growing, it's from 1912, when poet Michael Weeland penned the song The Dungarvin Hooper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Michael Weeland was deeply inspired by the landscapes and stories of the Miramichi region, and in January 1912 he wrote this song, a ballad set to the tune of where the [SPEAKER_00]: published in the Union Advocate newspaper on April 3, 1912, the song tells the story of a young Irish cook named Ryan, who met a tragic end in a remote lumber camp. [SPEAKER_00]: That is right, you all now know the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: His spirit began haunting the woods with terrifying hoops and screams. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's a quote from the song and I'm going to spare you all and not sing it, I'm just going to recite it. [SPEAKER_00]: In a lumber camp one day while the crew were far away and no one there but cook and boss alone, a sad tragedy took place and death won another race for the young cook swiftly passed to the unknown. [SPEAKER_00]: pop culture has always had a profound impact on lore and history.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without a doubt the song's popularity impacted the legend of the Dungarvan hooper. [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever the origin of this story is, the strange sounds after the Saxby Gale, the account from Frederick Irland in this wild man in the woods, or this song, [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe it's the power of suggestion of this local lore. [SPEAKER_00]: That fuels people to think that something a ghost perhaps might be in those woods. [SPEAKER_00]: But to me, here's the real mystery.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't really trace this story back to its origin like I wanted to. [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, we have the hurricane, and then sounds coming from the caves afterwards. [SPEAKER_00]: And we have the story from Frederick Irland. [SPEAKER_00]: But that kind of is debunked a bit because he doesn't talk about whoops or whales or screams from the old man they saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like people just put that onto the story without actually reading it for real to see what he really had to say. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's still a mystery here. [SPEAKER_00]: How did this tale develop? [SPEAKER_00]: And we don't know. [SPEAKER_00]: And the other freaky mysterious part of this is for nearly 200 years now people have heard and still here strange unexplainable sounds coming from the forests in this area.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to a study of strange. [SPEAKER_00]: Help us keep the lantern lit by subscribing to our sub-stack. [SPEAKER_00]: Just head to the support tab on our website, a study of strange.com. [SPEAKER_00]: There you will find additional content and early episodes. [SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, stay curious and stay strange.