The Lunenburg Werewolf (12 page)

“He seemed more beast than man,” one witness said.

After they managed to tie him up, they found what was left of Marie.

A Savage End

Hans was locked in the Lunenburg jail. He spent the first night howling and baying like a caged wolf. The full moon, welling up over the town of Lunenburg, served only to infuriate this caged beast man. The town jailer feared for his own life.

On the next afternoon the town officials met and decided Hans Gerhardt's fate. It took very little time for the judge and jury to come to a decision. Hans Gerhardt was sentenced to be hanged.

But the execution was doomed to failure. The next morning when the jailer opened the jailhouse door, he was horrified to find Hans lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor of the jail cell. Hans had used his strong white teeth to tear open the veins in both of his arms. The Lunenburg werewolf had met his final end.

You will find the town of Capstick, originally known as Wreck Cove, on one of the most northern points of Cape Breton, just a few kilometres shy of Meat Cove. Capstick is a green place, with welcoming waters and a cove that is bordered by high, steep cliffs. If you stand on those cliffs and keep a sharp eye seaward, you may even spot a pod of whales swimming in the water. And if you keep an even sharper eye towards the forest and hills, you might catch yourself a peek of the Capstick Bigfoot.

Big Ears and Big Feet

Over the last century there have been many reported sightings of a gigantic humanoid with long shaggy fur in the forests around Capstick. The Mi'kmaq even have a word for this beast—they call it “Se'skwetew,” which literally translates to “one who screams loudly.”

The Capstick Bigfoot has been described as an eight-foot-tall ape-like beast with long dangling arms that reach to his kneecaps, a tangle of snarled dirty hair, large brown soulful eyes, and a pair of long ears that stick out from his head like open car doors. Local storytellers say that the beast has been spotted off and on in these parts ever since the coal mines began blasting and drilling in the area.

Did early miners unintentionally wake something from a deep prehistoric subterranean hibernation? Are those long car-door ears sensitive to the loud blasting? In any case, an awful lot of people have seen the Capstick Bigfoot over the years. Several have nearly run it over while driving their vehicles. Others have complained about losing their hunting spoils to it.

“I had a big buck winched up in a tree,” one old hunter claimed. “We had it way out on the end of a sturdy limb, tied and wrapped in an old bedsheet to keep the horseflies from off the meat. My buddy was going to bring his four-wheeler around to help haul the carcass home but the next morning when we got there the deer was gone. The winch was there, each knot untangled. There was no way a bear could have done something like that. There was also no way anybody else would have stumbled across that deer carcass, hung that high. No, sir, it was something else that took that meat.”

Rabbit snares have been emptied and camp coolers cleaned out. Some of these occurrences should likely be blamed on bears and raccoons. Some of them should be blamed on vandals and thieves. But the fact is it takes an awful lot to feed a full-grown Bigfoot.

Even so, hunters who have encountered the Capstick Bigfoot have not felt the need to shoot it. One look at those soulful brown eyes is usually enough to discourage them from taking the shot. By all reports, the beast's gaze looks far too human for anyone to have the heart to shoot him.

Other local folk will tell you how the Capstick Bigfoot has helped them out in times of trouble. One man reported having a stuck truck pushed out of a muddy spot by a gigantic furry creature. Another camper swears that the
Se'skwetew
stacked up a large load of firewood for him as a favour.

So far there have no reports of the Capstick Bigfoot actually attacking anyone. It will come up behind a hunter or stand beside a roadway, but mostly it just seems to be watching.

According to recent sources, the beast has not been spotted in the Capstick area since the early 1990s, but the fact is the territory around these little coastal towns is still thick and primordially overgrown, and there could very easily be an entire family of these creatures still prowling the woods for forgotten coolers and “guddling” the rivers for trout. At least, that's what Clancy would have you believe…

Clancy Sees the Capstick Bigfoot

Clancy was hungry and only a trout would do.

Back then, if a Highlander like Clancy wanted a trout, he didn't go looking for any hook or fishing pole. You see, the Highlanders had themselves a trick for catching trout, more surefire and certain than any bait or lure you care to mention. And Clancy, even though he was born and raised in Capstick, was Highland to the bone. So Clancy knew just how to “guddle” a trout, as the Highlanders called it.

To successfully guddle a trout, or any other fish you care to mention, you first have to learn how to think like a trout, which is a pretty easy trick to accomplish because most fish don't
think
, they just
need
. Just like any other living thing, a fish has certain undeniable needs that go a little beyond merely wanting. A fish needs food to eat. A fish needs shade to keep cool. A fish needs something to hide under to stay safe.

Clancy knew that all he had to do was find those three things and he'd be able to guddle himself a fish. So first he found himself a leafy birch tree leaning over a cool running brook. The leaves of the tree gave shade and the bugs that crawled and fell off of the leaves offered a good supply of fish food. Next Clancy knelt down on the rock ledge beneath the tree. The rock was a perfect thing for the fish to take shelter under to hide from predators.

Then Clancy leaned down and let his arm slip into the cold stream water. He kept still, thinking cool, calm tree-thoughts. Before too long, Clancy, in his mind, was nothing but a big old willow tree leaning down over a cool running stream.

He let his fingers hang and dangle. Then, when he felt something moving, he hooked his fingers slowly up underneath the rock. This was always a dangerous part of the procedure—you never knew when there might be a big old snapping turtle down there under the rock instead of the trout you were looking for.

Clancy let his fingers move and waver in the water like a fistful of weeds. He felt something skitter across his palm. It might have been a frog or a big old water bug. It might have been a root. It might have been a long skinny string of water weeds. It might even have been a streak of rock. But Clancy knew full well that what he was feeling wasn't anything else but the tail of a fish.

He hoped it was a trout. It might have been a pickerel or a stickleback perch. He wouldn't know for sure until he had it up on dry land.

He reached up his fingers, just a little, and he stroked the belly of the fish. It wriggled, enjoying the petting sensation. Clancy continued to let his fingers glide and stroke along the fish's belly, moving upwards until he could feel the fringed hinge of the fish's gill.

He was so close he could taste the trout. With one quick flick he had the fish's gills snagged around his fingers. He raised the fish up out of the water, keeping his fingers hooked in as deeply as possible. The fish flapped and twisted, trying to break free, but Clancy brought its head down against the rock with a bang, knocking it stupid.

Clancy looked down at the fish and grinned so wide his teeth hurt. He had caught himself a fine fat trout and that would be dinner.

He was still grinning when he noticed how dark it had suddenly got. It felt as if he were lying in the middle of a total eclipse of the sun. He looked up and saw something standing over him, blotting out the sunlight with its shadow.

It was huge. Clancy had seen British Columbia totem poles that were shorter than this was. It was hairy, too. It looked as if it lived off a diet of sheep, hair balls, shaggy buffalo, and Highland cattle, so long and furry was its pelt. And it stank worse than a barrel of sun-fouled, maggoty fish.

I am going to die now
, Clancy thought.
I am going to get stepped on and eaten and whatever is left of me is most likely going to spill down into this cool running brook to feed the fish.

Only the Bigfoot did not step on Clancy. It knelt down beside him, poked its arm down into the water, and quicker than you could say the word “catch,” that big old Bigfoot had guddled himself up a trout nearly twice as long as Clancy's.

And now it was the Bigfoot's turn to grin.

He knelt there, grinning and gazing at Clancy with the biggest, most beautiful-looking pair of brown eyes Clancy had ever seen.

Clancy couldn't help himself. He laughed out loud, even though another part of him was still certain that the trout would only serve as an appetizer to a Bigfoot-sized pot of stewed Clancy.

The Capstick Bigfoot stood up and blinked, slow like a big old barn cat winking in the sun. Then it turned around and walked into the woodlands, disappearing like eight feet of furry smoke.

The Capstick Bigfoot has not been seen in this area for some time, but there are still a lot of old-timers who believe that it is out there in the thick of the Cape Breton forest. And it's most likely thinking about trout.