From the unexplained to the mundane, come join us on a journey to the fringe. Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, where rules are vaguely stated, but ardently adhered to. We are your internally consistent podcast hosts, Taylor and Chelsea, and today, Chelsea has assured me that this is going to be a fun quote winging it episode. We're going to say that. Yes. I was going to keep it a secret, but now that you're all into it. This is, Chelsea assures me it is a professional episode.
Yes, professional as always, just like my last Fringey Meanie that was grossly out of date. I do also like those too, but this week, we're celebrating my love of heritage minutes. And this one will be a heritage minute on Canadian cryptids because you know, knowledge is power. And I feel like in that power of your knowledge, Canadian spooky things must be in that realm of knowledge. I think that all came out coherently. Yeah. I mean, you know, our Canadian ghosts and geese.
Now you should know the other things too. There's a lot more than I thought there was. We live in an amazing land far and wide of some lake monsters, millions of lake monsters. We have so many lakes and monsters in each of them. At least one. Yeah. At least one. We also got land, sky, sea creatures for multiple forms of variations of Sasquatch. We have more than one Sasquatch. I just know Sasquatch because Sasquatch is the guy that lives in my woods in my backyard. But there's other ones.
We have the chinu. I don't think Toronto is what I meant to type there. So to be announced, whether or not that's a thing, we have the tachone, I think is how it's pronounced. Some of our country's French. So sometimes I don't know the words. We also have the lake monsters, Ogopogo, Champ, Memphra, Kay. Kay is one, I guess, to name a few. We've even covered, if you have been past, we've covered Sasquatch and Caddy. Do you remember Caddy? He's the one in Oak Bay off Victoria, the sea monster.
Yeah, at Pearl Bay. Yeah. Today is the Canadian cryptids time to shine. Anything you're hoping to see here today, Taylor? There's one that I learned about a long time ago, but I can't remember its name. But it's just like a giant pair of pants. Kind of like the Fresno monster, but gianter. But I don't think we're going to see it. And it's in BC, yeah. But what? No, I didn't even know. I was curious. He looked for it for a long time. I saved it, but I think I saved it a long ago.
It was on one of the cryptid subreddits. Yeah, but it was one post and I could never find it again. So if anyone listening has heard it, please send it to us. Like a giant pair. What are they doing? Like it was towering over the trees. Yeah. And it glowed in the dark. Like just, yeah. Yeah. It just gets crazier. We should adopt that in our national anthem. We have so many cryptids. I was going to do Wendigo, but that's its whole entire episode on its own.
And I feel like we just did Skinwalker not too long ago. So I wanted to do this one, even though I just did Canadian episodes not that long ago. But hey, I live here. I can. So yeah, I put some things from the Canadian archives, some of the less famous and popular cryptids and give them their time to shine. Some are longer, some are shorter. Yeah, it's a winged in an episode. So who are we to judge? I'm going to start off with the Uggwug and he hails from St. John New Brunswick.
He's a cryptid of an unusual sort, which as usual is a reflection of its environment. So this takes place in reversing falls and it's one of the only places in the world where the severe tides cause the river to literally change directional flow twice a day. So this would be close to the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world, I believe. Yeah, I'd love to travel there one day.
Every day water from the St. John River rushes through the narrow rock gorge and into the Bay of Fundy at 100,000 tons per second, which is I can't even fathom that amount of water, only to be pushed back up the gorge at high tide. These turbulent tides have carved out cave systems and the rock cliffs around St. John and in these caves is said to dwell a sea monster called the Uggwug. Very creative. It is said that you can see him or her in the spring when the moon is full and the tide is out.
He, her, is described as a seal, salmon, hybrid, 30 meters in length, and most times the Uggwug is seen in the waters of reversing falls, but it has also been reported to walk up on the land. I'm assuming you can't see him. Yeah. Would it walk on its tail? Up right? It says walk, so I'm assuming it's walking upright like a humanoid. But it's like back fins. Like I'm picturing like a seal walking that way. I guess seal salmon would not have legs.
So maybe flip, maybe it's doing that like roll thing that seals does, but I wouldn't call that walking. No. So it has legs. I just decided for it right now. And I'm assuming people aren't seeing this when the tide is like violently coming in and out. Like that would kill a person easy. Not sure about Nugwug though, so also to be announced. A handful of written sources variously claim that the creature is an old Inuit legend and that the story dates all the way back to the Champlain era.
Do you know what that era is by any chance? Louis Champlain. He was one of the explorers. In Canada? Yeah. Okay. When would that have been? In the 1900s I'm pretty sure. Okay. So I do have some sightings. Oh, Samuel's Champlain. Sorry. Apparently I do not know it at all. 1500s, huh? Okay. So none of what you get. Sorry. Nope. But that's okay. You made a guess at it. I just said I don't know what that is. So we're lacking on the Canadian stuff that is not cryptid ghosts or anything.
Guys got a good goatee combo. Mustache and little goatee. He does? I got to look at this. What's his name? Samuel? Jay Champlain. Yes, he looks like an Elgrim without the hat but with a good goatee combo. I feel like I've seen this guy somewhere before. Maybe it was just a popular combo of Mustache. It could in fact also be from history's class or social studies. This is very well groomed facial hair. Very well. I have to give him that. Incredible. Impeccable. Okay. Quote. This is a sighting.
A sighting of what's it called again? Uggmug. Uggmug. Uggmug. What he was brought to the surface, his hair had turned chalk white from the experience when he had... I feel like I just jumped in at the end of a sighting. I'm going to roll with it. What he was brought to the surface, his hair had turned chalk white from the experience of what he had seen in the murky depth. What the man saw will never be known for he refused to tell what he had seen and died soon afterwards.
I mean, this is what you get with a... That's not really a sighting, is it? No, it is not. This is what you get with this sort of episode. Another story describes our man, Drew, in Laolar Lake. I don't... What? How is this even related? Is there a chance that the lake is connected to that river that flows backwards?
Let's see if it tells us, quote, the body of water reported to be bottomless along present day Rathasay Road, and his body was found weeks later on a ledge of the limestone gorge at the falls. It's somehow related, so... Wait, person's body or Uggmug's body? Okay, I think... No, this would be the body of a person. But then I have the same sentence again right under it, so I'm just going to leave that. They need to be emphasized. Oh, this is a mess. I thought I had a good one in here.
Okay, let's see. Okay, Dr. David D. Archibald wrote an essay about the creature back in the 1950s and theorized that there are, quote, underwater caverns which extend for many miles from one place to another. The caves, he claims, are also home to a strange amphibian creature first recorded by hunters who noticed it following in the wake of the fish. Not because it's resemblance to both the salmon and a seal and amphibious because becoming quite friendly with them.
It would occasionally venture from its ocean layer and sit on the banks of the river basin. Okay, so this guy doesn't have a sighting. He has a... He's conveying other people's sightings then. Yes, yeah. Because of its affinity for both land and humans, the Eskimos christened the equinoxical visitor Uggmug, meaning the friendly animal.
Uggmug, Archibald writes, is still found in the lower basin below the whirlpools and will appear during certain times of the year if one employs the following definite method. The time must be early in the spring during the shad run. The tide must be on the ebb. Remember that time and tide wait for no man. And there are two other essential ingredients, an evening full of moonlight and court full of moonshine. After all necessities have been given proper attention, the Uggmug will appear.
So you gotta get like just hallowed. Yeah. A court of moonshine? No, it's saying in a full moon. Hold on. No, it's saying moonshine. Yeah. Um, yep, you did interpret that correct. That's what makes them appear, for sure, to be sure. So I'm going to be honest, the sightings were a mess on this one because it didn't really seem like there was many sightings other than the random guy who appeared with the light here. And then they just want to say anything and died. Good for him.
They just want to say anything. I mean, I'm just going to leave it. This episode is going to be a real thing. I'm going to say real. I'm going to say real too. I'm pretty sure, I mean, don't look into it if you want to keep your belief that it's real. Scientists assure us there's sightings out there. Yeah, which is a good reminder to put into always do your research because I do leave things out, especially when it says it's not real. I want to keep it alive for you guys.
Okay. The next one is the Interac, which I am probably pronouncing perfectly. The Interac is a shape shifting creature that kidnaps children. And I'm hoping the Interac is a little more organized than the Ugg walk. He was chaotic. After kidnapping someone, it will then hide them away and abandon them. If the children can convince the Interac to let them go, they can use a nook shuck of stone to find their way home. It can sometimes be helpful or at other times, fatally deceptive.
Although they are generally depicted as half man, half caribou monster, an Interac can shape shift into any form it chooses. I'm just curious, like which half human and which half caribou? It doesn't matter. I guess it's all in the hands of the Interac. Like human. Human hands. Yeah. And human face. Yeah. And then the rest caribou. Human hands, caribou hooves. Human face. And that's it. Just all caribou from there. Yeah. I mean, either way is creepy.
And I would prefer if I was to shape shift into one, probably to keep my upper half. I feel like that's the important half. And then just have like your boob butt. Do you really want to learn to walk as a bipedal ungulate? I feel like as long as I have this brain, that could be fine. Because you get the caribou brain as well. If you take that half, right? Yeah. That's a fair point. There's no, like you wouldn't be able to do it. I feel like with the caribou.
Because then how is the caribou going to figure out how to walk with these legs? I really, sorry. I just need to get an AI generation of a half man, half caribou. Can you send that to me when you're ready? I just need to figure out which one will actually let me do that. Yeah, see what one AI comes up with. When out hunting, the idrat can be seen in the corner of your eye, but will disappear when any attempts to see it straight on.
And that makes it very elusive, which is a paranormal thing that things only appear out of the corner of your eye. One of the most noted places in the Arctic for sightings of these shape shifters is the Freeman's Cove area of Tuktas-Servik, which is a place they hunt caribou. Bathurst Island. That's way up. The rich oasis is surrounded in a horseshoe pattern by dormant volcanic mountains.
That's pretty cool. Historically, Freeman's Cove is most notable as a stopover for the ship to intrepid, and also for the failed attempts by the infamous modern day explorer and eccentric Cory K. Boat at Settlement. The idrat are said to inhabit a place between two worlds, not quite inside this one, nor quite out of it.
Inuit further south than the north, bath and group used to hold to the belief that some Inuit went too far north in a chase for game, and became trapped between the world of the dead and the world of the living, and thus became the idrat. The Inuit that are settled in Resolute Bay and Grease Fjord are these shape shifters or shadow people because they went too far north. Some elders will avoid being in the presence of extreme northern Inuit fearing that they are evil idrat.
The home of the idrat is said to be cursed, and one will lose their way no matter how skilled or familiar with the land. Boat and his wife Inugu were said to be out hunting once in the small peninsula across the bay from Freeman's Cove, and Boat, despite being a renowned navigator, became completely turned around.
While he and his wife had been there before, and they could clearly see the camp where their children were on the horizon, Boat had to closely follow the trail of disturbed shale and rock to get back. It is thought by many that this temporary disorientation was due to the influence of the idrat. When Inugu and Boat finally returned to their children, they discovered a polar bear was circling the camp sizing their children up for a meal.
A local hunter with considerable local knowledge, Mark Amarulik, also of Resolute Bay, was said to have experienced disorientation in the same place on a hunting trip a year before. The Inuit believed the idrat do this to confuse Inuit people and to keep them from moving into their areas. That's the idrat. How did you come up with AI? Well, I'm fairly disappointed in the AI art generation. Yeah, I'm at AI. I just made it a caribou.
So unless humans are more caribou than I was first led to believe, they're gonna give it one more chance here. But so far I've been four for four for just a year. You have to give AI such specific commands, but I think sometimes it has no idea what you're talking about. Oh, okay. Yeah, it has no idea, because this is a man riding a caribou. And then an old man sitting with a caribou, which man, the AI has no idea how to do horns. Okay, I couldn't remember if we covered this one before.
You might have. I'm gonna, one sec, I'm just gonna share this because this is my best feeling of what it might look like. Okay, that's your best feeling. Hey, that's just a large caribou with a man on it or a regular caribou with a small man on it. I'm gonna try one more time. Oh yeah, you have like a nice caribou head there. Okay, I don't know if we covered this one. This one's called the Loop Guru. Have you heard of it? I don't think so now.
In this one, the story goes in 1766 to 1767, Quebec City was being terrorized. Newspaper reports from the time tell the story that an unknown baker had come to town only to transform into a wolf-like creature and attack unsuspecting people. The Loop Guru is believed to be a cursed man. In the French-Canadian tradition, a Loop Guru is often guilty of not being a good Christian. For example, people who did not confess during Easter could be cursed to become werewolves.
Sorry for the laughter I'm looking at AI's interpretation of a caribou human. The spell could last for as long as 101 days. It would take hold of the victim every evening. 21 days? 101. 101, Jesus. Yeah, exactly. They were forced to wander the countryside in animal form. Oh god. The spell might be broken if someone recognized the individual while transformed and could draw blood from the animal. Neither person could speak of this incident for fear of worse reprisals.
The Loop Guru however differ from your typical werewolf as they can not just take on the form of a wolf but also an ox, small calf, pig, cat, or owl. These shapeshifters are said to only be killed by hanging, beheading, or typically a silver bullet sometimes by being executed in a playground outside of an abandoned school in Saskatchewan. Man, she is way more in touch with Canadian lore than we knew. Oh yeah, I know. I specifically relating to the Loop Guru. Who would have known?
That's a Queen of Canada reference if you didn't know. Just so you know, those are her task watch apparently writing this caribou. I love their elf ears. Watch that giant beavers. Of course you can't have a Canadian cryptid episode without giant beavers. The beaver is Canada's national animal if you didn't know that, if you're not Canadian. I don't see how you would not know that if you are Canadian. Or it's industrious nature. I didn't know that.
But in Manitoba there are whispers of a fearsome water rodent of enormous size. The giant beaver is said to stand around 5 feet tall on all fours and weigh as much as an average adult male. While sightings are scant at best, we do know that the region was once home to a species of giant beavers some 10,000 years ago that matches these descriptions. However, as far as we know, these animals became extinct around the same time as the woolly mammoth.
So maybe we're dealing with de-extinction on this one. Yeah, I feel like there might be scientists out there saying these things if that's what we're dealing with. I think. Yeah. So we have only a couple left. This next one is actually one of my favorite ones that I was able to find and it's called the Adlet and it's another Inuit legend. The story goes that an Inuit woman lived with her father and refused to marry. Anyone human that is.
The woman married a giant dog, as you do when you refuse to marry, said to have white fur with red spots. If that wasn't gross enough, the two produced 10 offspring. Five of which were dogs and the other five were referred to as Adlet, which are bipedal dogs that walked upright, but the lower part was dog and the upper part was human. Wow. There's an orca jumping into that orca's mouth. Yes. Obviously, her father was aghast at this front against nature and tried to kill the Adlet.
Since the dog husband does not go hunting, apparently he's pretty lazy. The children were very hungry. So the wife's father had to provide for the noisy of all descriptors household. I guess finally decision is made to put them in a boat and take them to a small island telling the dad dog to come get meat daily. So the wife of the dog hangs a pair of boots around the neck of the dog to swim ashore, but the dad of the wife of the dog puts rocks in the boots and the dog husband drowns.
I hope you're following me here. Now having to be avenged, the dog wife sends the Adlet to gnaw off her father's hands and feet. That's incredible. In return, I'm talking about your picture. In return, the father kicks the daughter overboard and blah blah blah I feel like you're barely holding on at this point. It's a very complicated story. And he cuts off her fingers and they turn into wales and seals. Just when you thought you couldn't comprehend the story quite enough.
Apparently she doesn't die because she is fearful that the father will kill the little abomination so she sends them inland and the full on dogs. She sends those across the ocean to boat and they became Scandinavian ancestors. The half dog, half human go inland in Canada and they become their own tribe. So if you didn't follow me too long didn't read. There was a wife that married a dog. They had babies. Some of them were dog babies. Some of them were like centaurs of dogs, half dog, half human.
They will. There's a big battle. Murder was involved. The dog, the human dog babies went inland in Canada. That's where they live now. Some of their parents are dead and they become their own tribe. So that's the all in all of it. It is said that the ad let are cannibalistic bloodthirsty creatures that are adept at running on top of the snow. Although this is often seen as a myth, there are rumors of strange bipedal wolves running around the Arctic. Spoken in hush tones around the locals.
I'm sorry I read that wrong. Okay. This is often seen as a myth. There are rumors of strange bipedal wolves running around the Arctic. Okay. Last up. You're making some very weird art. The Toronto Tunnel Monster. Once upon a time in Toronto, Toronto once had a bunch of streams and waterways that were built over as the city expanded becoming underground waterways. Did you know this? I did not know. You have to look at this. You have to look at Toronto before it was a city.
I did find a picture of the dog tribe. You did? Hold on. Here it is. Oh yep. There it is. Look, they're so well dressed. Huh. This one has like slave dogs that are normal dogs and then also human dogs. Okay. I just sent you the link to actually go look at all the rivers that went underground in Toronto. Okay. It's more than you would ever think. Wow. So. Yeah. The underground waterways were buried beneath Toronto and merged with the sewer systems.
So if you look there, you can get down into them. You can see them. They run all under there. Turns out Toronto prior to all the construction and city being there and whatnot was absolutely covered. If you're not looking at this picture right now, absolutely covered with streams and creeks and rivers. So the answer obviously was to put it underground for the mutants, of course.
The Algonquin tribes of Canada spoke of a man like Harry creature that thrived in the rivers before they were upgraded to become hidden underground waterways, which was always their hidden potential. Their creatures were called the Mem Guessie or the Meimei Guashi. Their smaller water spirits said to inhabit rivers and riverbanks. They're generally harmless, but every so often they're prone to blowing canoes astray or stealing things when they're not shown proper respect. Yeah, that's him.
Yeah. When he gets out. That guy in the back of the police car is really pointing it out. There he is. And everyone's like, oh my God, you're right. In some Ojibwe traditions, Memeguezi can only be seen by children and medicine people. In others, they can appear to anyone and may help humans who give them tobacco and other gifts. Most often, Memguezi are described as being child-sized and Harry with a large head and a strange voice that sounds like a wine of a dragonfly.
The Kree and Innu describe them as having narrow faces and some menomini storytellers have said that they have no noses. It's sometimes said that the Memeguezi were originally created from the bark of trees. Memeguezi are said to carve symbols on rocks and sometimes carve small canoes for themselves out of stone. Oh, that's a cool picture. Some people believe that their name comes from the Ojibwe. Word for Harry, Memi, since Memeguezi are usually described as having hairy faces and bodies.
Other people believe that their name is related to the word for butterfly, Memengua. Anyhow, as a disclaimer, it may or may not be related. So I have a sighting of this one. This one is an actual sighting. I will give you that, unlike the... Ooh. The other guy. The... Oh, um, guas? I'm... Okay, I'll scroll up. Okay, I'll scroll up. What? Let's not worry. Let's not worry. August of 1978, a Toronto man had an experience with a strange creature that would forever change his life.
Ernest was a soft-spoken 51-year-old at the time of his harrowing experience. He and his wife of 19 years had been raising a litter of kittens. One of the kittens apparently disappeared and Ernest decided to search for it in the vicinity of their Parliament Street apartment. Closed by, he stumbled upon the opening to a dark cave and crawled approximately 10 feet inwards. This is where he said, I saw a living nightmare that I'll never forget.
I mean, that's probably why you shouldn't just go into random caves in the middle of the city that you find, miraculously. Can't say... I would do that. Yeah, that's not going to be advised by this podcast. No, I mean, I don't think I'd be like in the middle of the night like, oh, where'd this cave come from? Maybe I should go in it. No. So Ernest does. I guess probably all feelings in his body of danger should not do this. He goes in.
Armed with only a flashlight, he encountered a creature of unknown origin. He described the monster as long and thin, almost like a monkey three feet long. Large teeth weighing maybe 30 pounds was slate grapher. However, it was the eyes that truly stood out. Orange and red slanted. Ernest spoke reluctantly with reporters as to what occurred next. The creature spoke to him. I'll never forget it. He said, it said, go away, go away in a hissing voice.
Then it took off down a long tunnel off to the side. I got out of there as fast as I could. I was shaking with fear. Ernest never approached the media with this story. He was afraid that people would think that he was drunk or worse, crazy, and felt that no one would ever believe him. The Toronto area newspaper Sun found him after hearing about his experience from a reliable contact who worked with a relative of Ernest.
One of a handful of people to whom he had confided the experience, he would agree to talk only if his last name was not revealed. Quote, I believe Ernie saw exactly what he says he did. Says Barbara, Ernie's wife. Is that the reliable source? He was terrified when he came back to the apartment and he doesn't scare easily. Obviously, if he's going into random caves by his house he never saw before.
Look, he's been known to have a drink in the past, like most people, and to occasionally tie one on. But he's not a drunk and he wasn't drinking at all that day. Love that comment from the wife. This is not like his normal drunken story. This is not a cryptid you need to have like a leader of moonshine to see. The Toronto Sun did question some of Ernest's relatives and neighborhood acquaintances. They found that all agreed with and supported Barbara's evaluation of her husband.
He does drink, but not that day. Not that much, and probably not that day. This is the company by Sun staff returned to the location of a strange sighting in March of 1979. The cave's entrance was located at the bottom of a narrow passageway between the building where he lived and one next door. Together they found the corpse of a cat, which was half buried in the tunnel.
The sad discovery reminded Ernest of strange noises like animals and pain that he had heard emanating from the tunnel prior to his frightening encounter. Ernest showed the Sun reporter exactly where he saw the strange being. He stated, the last I saw the creature it was heading off into the dark. The passage seemed to drop down very quickly and go a long way back.
It was speculated that the tunnel in fact led to the sewer system and that the entrance way besides Ernest's apartment was an access point used by the creature to get to the surface. Safety concerns promoted Toronto's sewer department to thoroughly inspect the tunnel as it was feared that area children may in fact try to enter it. This story was very strange however sewage employees did not ridicule or scoff at it according to the report made by the Toronto Sun at the time.
One worker who was quoted in the paper stated, people who work on the surface just don't know what it's like down there. It's a whole different world. Who would have thought a few years ago that people would live in sewers and yet that's what they found in New York a few years back. Another was quoted as saying, I don't know what he saw down there. He also stated, I'll tell you one thing. If I could get in there, I sure as hell wouldn't want to go down alone.
Okay, so it does seem to steal a little bit from the idea of like the mole people of New York who live in this. So there is at least agreement that what this poll that he found did in fact exist. Oh yeah, because you saw the map. If you Google like the tunnels underneath Toronto, there's a lot that comes up and I'm going to send you a picture of this creature. You can share your screen. Hold on, everything's going crazy. Share your screen.
Okay, so now I don't want this to seem like a very mundane answer that wasn't explored, but is there a chance that there was a homeless person living in this duct and he just kind of got a little surprised? Well yeah, because he said go away, but that does not explain those glowing red eyes. It does not. Unless the homeless person was tying one on. I will say that, as you know, when they are doing that, the rise turned red. Yes, it's every person from the homeless. So I don't know.
Yeah, so those are some Canadian cryptids. A lot of them are actually Inuit legends, which I found pretty cool. A lot of them did mention that. I am just happy that we were able to get so many pictures out of this episode. Yeah, which we'll probably post on the socials because there's some good ones. Yeah, there are real life pictures that need to be shared so you can too picture what our minds are thinking about these. And yeah, that's my thrown together episode. Awesome.
Yeah. And yeah, the beautiful thing about this is we are just a short time away from another Canadian fringy topic, I think, because there is just a plethora of Canadian frigidness out there. There's more than I ever thought possible. Yeah, like transformers. You can't go in a lake in Canada without stepping on a cryptid or something like that. Yeah, in which case they aren't protected yet by law. So you're within your rights. Yeah, right. Yeah, no update on that.
No. Not until we get a decree, unfortunately. And thank you for this episode. I have been Taylor, hero Chelsea. We are Journey to the Fringe. Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week. You're welcome. Bye. Thank you for listening to Journey to the Fringe. If you have liked what you have listened to, please like, share, subscribe or follow, depending on what venue you are listening to us through.
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