Wicked Woods (14 page)

That was right about when the logjam that was blocking up the Keswick Stream let go. The felled timbers that were clogged in the water tumbled free and ran down towards the mill. The watching lumbermen whooped for joy. Folks said they could hear the echo clear into the town.

People in the Howland Ridge area will also tell a tale of how hunters have seen the ghost of Sam Whitlock howling like a New Brunswick panther through the woods, not as loud as the Dungarvon Whooper, but loud enough to send a herd of goose–bumps galloping up a grown man's backbone. Woodsmen have seen a grey figure moving through the woods, and when they try to approach, he disappears.

“All grey and hazy,” they'll tell you. “Like he was made out of smoke and seafoam.”

They tell this story in Howland Ridge sometime after the rum has been poured — and they always tell it soft, in a whisper, just in case the ghost of Sam Whitlock happens to be listening nearby.

20
T
HE
D
ARK
C
HUCKLE

LOWER WOODSTOCK

Some folks claim that laughter is one of the finest tonics known to man, but in the town of Lower Woodstock, New Brunswick, a chuckle might very well be an omen of impending doom.

The town of Woodstock lies at the mouth of the Meduxnekeag River where it flows into the St. John River. Medux-nekeag is taken from the Maliseet word for “rough and rocky at its mouth,” and any–one who has ever tried to say Meduxne-keag River five times fast, will certainly agree with that translation. Just try and see how rough and rocky it is in your mouth.

The town was originally settled by Loyalists following the American War of Independence. It is the oldest incorpo–20 rated town in New Brunswick, achieving this status way back in 1856. The town was officially divided into three separate sections —the Upper Corner, the Creek Village, and Lower Woodstock.

For many years, the Maliseet who lived on the old Lower Woodstock reservation lived in fear of the sound of laughter. Not just any laughter, mind you. It was a certain eerie chuckle heard on nights when the moon was clear and bright. The Maliseet swore they could hear the chuckle, low and raspy like a creaking coffin hinge, and anyone who heard it knew that before the night was out a member of the tribe would die.

And die they would, whether of sickness, or drowning on the Meduxnekeag River, or in some hunting accident. The chuckle might bring on a fishing accident, or a murder, or just the slow and creaking slip of old age. Nothing and nobody was safe. Any time a Maliseet heard that croaking, creaking chuckle, they would shiver and prepare to mourn.

It was “a very weird sound, almost guttural, like a duck being choked,” reported Dr. Peter Paul of Lower Woodstock. “After a death, someone would always remark that they had heard the chuckle three or four days before.”

This carried on throughout the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth. Only a startling, gruesome discovery brought an end to the eerie New Brunswick forerunner.

In 1930, a local demolition crew tearing down an old abandoned house came across a small collection of animal bones on the prop–erty. As they continued to root and dig they found a human skull, and realized that the bones were in fact human in origin.

A little careful investigation unearthed the identity of these long buried bones. A pathologist in Saint John went over them carefully and came to the conclusion that they were the remains of Noel Lolar, an old-time Maliseet moose-hunting guide who had lived at the house back in the early 1840s. Lolar had lived there with a woman whose name no one could recall.

Apparently Lolar had passed away of natural causes, but because he had been living with this woman without ever having married her, the local priest denied him a burial site in conse–crated ground. As far as the pathologist could guess, the woman had buried Lolar in a drainage ditch on his land, and had then left the county to go and live with relatives.

She probably hadn't meant any harm in her actions. It prob–ably seemed like the best way to deal with someone who'd gone and died. Bones needed burying, and if the man in the collar told her she couldn't bury them inside the fenced-off orchard of gravestones, then it was an easy enough decision to bury him in a ditch. She was a small woman, by all reports and the ditch was probably soft for digging.

The local Maliseet holy men decided that these bones were the actual source of the ominous chuckle, and thought that they could only truly be put to rest if they were buried in consecrated ground. The new priest had no objections, and in 1930 the long dead bones of Noel Lolar were finally laid to rest in a Lower Woodstock burial ground.

Locals swear that since that belated burial the chuckle of death has not been heard in the Woodstock night. All the same, the Maliseet around Lower Woodstock are pretty careful just how they crack their jokes on certain moonless nights.

Don't laugh now. There's no telling just who might be listening.

21
T
HE
S
HIKTEHAWK
V
IKINGS

BRISTOL

“Cattle die, kinsmen die, all men are mortal,” the old Vikings said. “Only the legends live on.”

However, even names can die as we've already seen in a couple of our other stories. The village of Bristol, New Brunswick, was once known as Shiktehawk —a Maliseet word that means “where he killed him.” The word refers to a legendary battle between the Maliseet and their old foe the Mohawk. The battle was decided by a one-on-one showdown between the chiefs.

According to the legend the Maliseet chief won, and Shiktehawk was where he killed the Mohawk chief.

Shiktehawk lends itself to a lot of unfortunate incorrect pro–nunciations, so way back in the late nineteenth century the name of the village was changed to Bristol, after the city in Britain. The name was selected by the postmaster general, who originally hailed from Bristol. One wonders if he was homesick.

This story takes place where the Shiktehawk River branches into the St. John River. A band of treasure hunters were out for an evening of excavation, hot on the trail of one of Captain Kidd's numerous caches.

“It's here,” one of them shouted. “I know it is.”

Just then the edge of somebody's spade clanked hard against something that sounded a lot like a wooden chest.

“We've found a coffin,” one of them swore. “We've been dig–ging in a graveyard.”

“You daft fool,” the leader said. “It isn't a coffin. It's a chest and it sounds to me as if it's laden with gold.”

He thumped again, and before anyone could think to ask just what gold sounded like when it was cased up neatly in a box of rotting timber, an apparition loomed up out of the darkness.

Sailing down the Shiktehawk, just as big and bold as Johnny-be-pleased was what the fortune hunters later described as a great glowing Viking longship. The sides of the stout craft were armoured with heavy round shields. The deck was lively with the clamour of heavily armed Vikings. The ship's prow sliced through the water like a keen hunting knife.

“You could see their beards and hair blazing about them like golden fire,” one man swore, “and they were singing something that sounded a little like a dirge or a war song. I could smell the coppery tang of fresh-spilled blood in the air and the dragon fig–urehead roared out at us like a lion.”

There was nothing else to do, but turn and run blindly into the night, leaving picks and shovels and the treasure map behind them. In the morning when the would-be treasure hunters had mustered up the courage to return and continue their search, there wasn't one of them that could find his way back to the site.

Historians have proven that the Vikings did indeed make their way to New Brunswick from their base in Newfoundland. They called it Vinland way back then, perhaps for the bright blueber–ries or blackberries growing throughout the woods. The strongest proof is the presence of wild walnut trees, or butternut trees as they were called back then. Butternut trees, which are native to New Brunswick, were found growing at l'Anse aux Meadows, a known Viking settlement, but do not grow anywhere else in Newfoundland.

Did old Vikings sail down the Shiktehawk River and leave behind a treasure chest? Or perhaps their ghosts were sailing the river in search of plunder? It might be that the poor frightened treasure hunters looked like easy pickings to those bold Viking spirits.

Why don't you set out some night along the Shiktehawk River with a pick and a spade and find out for yourself some time soon?

22
E
CHOES IN A
C
OVERED
B
RIDGE

JOHNVILLE

Forget about Madison County —the world's most beautiful covered bridges reside in New Brunswick. Mind you, these bridges are a vanishing breed.

They are old and losing ground in the battle against steel and plastic and profit margins; still, as of 2006, a total of sixty-five authentic covered bridges of a total of nearly three hundred back in the 1960s remained in New Brunswick.

One of the province's most famous bridges has been swept from the land–scape, but folks around Johnville still remember the Keenan Covered Bridge that crossed the Monquart River in Carleton County. The bridge was known for its beauty and its haunting story, and tourists would travel from miles around to visit, take a few snap–shots, and hold hands as they walked through its creaking splen–dour. However, the local folks tended to steer clear of the Keenan Covered Bridge, detouring for miles if they had to. They knew that it was truly haunted and they had no wish to court the dark–ness that lurked within.

The story begins back in the 1800s when an old woman appar–ently vanished somewhere along the twenty-six metre length of the covered bridge while out for her evening walk.

“She walked on in,” locals will tell you. “But she never came out on the other side. Not in one piece, anyway.”

The history books haven't left us with her name, but folks around Johnville sometimes call her Molly —and sometimes they call her Headless Hannah. A headless female cadaver was reputedly found upon the roadway just beyond the bridge back in 1890.

The original bridge was built back in the 1800s, then torn down and rebuilt in 1927. It was during this reconstruction that the dried and desiccated remains of a human head were dug up by bridge workers. They assumed that the head belonged to the body found nearby forty years before, and reburied it a little fur–ther from the bridge.

“She'll rest in peace here,” the foreman was heard to pronounce.

Shortly after the reconstruction and the burial of the head folks began reporting that the bridge was haunted. A woman in a long black dress and shawl would often materialize upon carriages as they passed through the darkness of the bridge. Not much of a cause for panic, I suppose, except that this old woman was headless.

One farmer crossing the dark bridge in his wagon noticed that someone was holding onto his hand. The grip felt cold as if the hand holding his had been dipped in icy river water. He squinted and stared into the darkness as a shape slowly formed directly beside him. It was the headless ghost of the Keenan Covered Bridge. A low moan, like wind whistling through a broken win–dow, emanated from the stump of her neck. The farmer, nor–mally a hard-headed New Brunswick fellow, fainted dead away. He awoke on the other side of the bridge, his horse in a complete state of panic. It took a full week before he found the nerve to tell his sister the story. Until his confession, he had just sat on her front porch and stared down the road towards the Keenan Covered Bridge.