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BWBS Ep:137 The Traverspine Gorilla
In this chilling episode of Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, we delve into the haunting events of the winter of 1913 in the remote settlement of Traverspine, Labrador. A young girl encounters a mysterious, ...
BWBS Ep:137 The Traverspine Gorilla
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For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world refuses to believe in. But those who have survived, they know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness. Bigfoot, Dogman, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready? Because once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and remember, some things in the woods don't want to be found. Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, and let's head off into the woods. If you dare. The winter of 1913 came to Labrador like a predator, silent, patient, and utterly without mercy. In the remote settlement of Traverspine, where the black spruce forest pressed in from all sides and the nearest neighbor might be 20 miles away through trackless wilderness, the darkness fell early and stayed late. Here at the edge of the world, where the mealy mountains rose like ancient sentinels and the Traverspine river cut its path through endless forests, families huddled in their log cabins and told themselves that the sounds they heard in the night were only the wind. But they knew better. The dogs knew first. They always do. On those long winter nights when the temperature plunged to 40 below and the stars blazed like ice chips in the black vault of the sky. The sled dogs would begin to growl low, guttural sounds that rose from somewhere primal in their throats. The hackles would rise along their spines. Their eyes would fix on the dark tree line, and they would back toward the cabins, teeth bared, as if confronting something that violated the very laws of nature. And then would come the sound that no one in Traverspine would ever forget. A tapping. Deliberate, methodical. The sound of something moving around the perimeter of a cabin, pausing at each window, each door, testing, probing. Something that walked on two legs but was most definitely not human. Something that grinned with white teeth in the darkness and beckoned for children to come closer. Something that left footprints 12 inches long in the snow. Footprints with only two broad toes pressed so deep into the frozen earth that they seemed to belong to a creature weighing 500 pounds or more. Welcome to Traverspine, where in the winter of 1913, a family named Michelin learned that the wilderness harbors secrets older and stranger than any tale told around a campfire. This is their story. This is the true history of the Traverspine gorilla, a mystery that would perplex doctors, confound wildlife biologists, and eventually vanish into legend. But legends as you're about to discover, are often born from something very, very real. To understand what happened at Traverspine, you must first understand Labrador itself, a place so remote, so unforgiving, that it was the last region of the entire western hemisphere to be settled by Europeans. This wasn't an oversight. It was a testament to just how brutally inhospitable this land truly is. Labrador sprawls across the northeastern corner of the North American continent, a vast expanse of rocky shores, endless forests, barren tundra, and mountains that have stood since the dawn of geological time. The mealy mountains where our story unfolds are among the oldest mountains on earth, ancient even when the dinosaurs walked. They rise from the shores of Lake Melville like the petrified bones of something that died before history began, their glacially rounded summits reaching heights of nearly 4,000ft. In winter, this is a landscape of almost cosmic desolation. The temperature can drop to 50 below zero. The wind screams across the barrens with such force that it can strip the skin from exposed flesh in minutes. Snow falls not in gentle flakes, but in blinding curtains that erase the world. The darkness is absolute. No street lights, no distant glow of civilization, just an endless black that seems to swallow sound itself. And yet, people lived here. Trappers, mostly, families who scratched out an existence running trap lines through the wilderness, supplementing their meager income by working in the lumber camps that briefly scarred the forest before moving on. These were people of extraordinary resilience, Inu, Inuit, and European settlers who had intermarried over generations, creating communities adapted to a life that would break most modern humans within a week. Traverspine was one such community. It sat near the confluence of the Traverspine river and the mighty Churchill river, about 20 miles upriver from the slightly larger settlement of Northwest river in 1913. It consisted of perhaps a dozen cabins scattered along the riverbank, connected by footpaths that became invisible under winter snow. The nearest thing resembling a town, Happy Valley, Goose Bay, wouldn't exist for decades. The nearest doctor might be 50 miles away, the nearest police constable perhaps a hundred miles or more. In this isolation, stories took on a life of their own. Ghost stories, the settlers called them, though they spoke of them with a gravity that suggested they were something more than mere entertainment in a land where you might not see another human face for weeks at a time, where the winter night stretched for 18 hours or more, where every crack of a branch or cry of an animal became magnified in the darkness, the line between the natural and supernatural grew dangerously thin. The indigenous peoples of Labrador, the Inu and The Inuit had their own stories about the deep wilderness. They spoke of creatures that didn't fit neatly into the categories of known animals. The Inuit told of the Tunajuk, a race of primitive giants who once lived in stone pit houses and could carry full grown seals on their backs as if they weighed nothing. The Innu whispered of things that walked like men, but were most definitely not men. Beings that inhabited the most remote valleys of the Melee Mountains, where no human trapline had ever penetrated. The European settlers laughed at these stories at first. Then came the autumn of 1913, and nobody in Traverspine was laughing anymore. Her name has been lost to history, but let's honor her courage by telling her story anyway. She was a daughter of the Michelin family, Joe and his wife, and on that particular autumn afternoon, she was playing in a meadow near the family cabin. The exact date is uncertain. Sometime between 1903 and 1913. Though most accounts place it firmly in 1913. What is certain is what happened next. The girl was perhaps eight or nine years old, playing in the tall grass not far from where the forest began. It was late afternoon, that peculiar time of day when the light takes on a golden quality and shadows begin to stretch long across the ground. The cabin stood perhaps a hundred yards away, smoke rising lazily from its chimney. Her mother was inside, preparing the evening meal. Her father and the other men of Traverspine were elsewhere, checking traplines or working at the lumber camp at Mud Lake. The girl was alone. She heard it before she saw it. The sound of something large moving through the underbrush at the forest's edge. At first she thought nothing of it. Black bears were common in this country, and while they commanded respect, they rarely bothered humans unless provoked. Moose, too, were frequent visitors to the river valley. The sound of a large animal in the woods was about as remarkable as the sound of wind in the trees. But then the sound changed. The footfalls became more deliberate, heavier, and they were approaching the meadow with what seemed like purpose. The girl looked up from her play and saw the forest itself seemed to darken, as if a shadow had detached itself from the trees. She stood, curiosity warring with the first tendrils of unease. The sound grew louder, closer, and then the bushes at the forest edge began to move. What emerged from the tree line defied everything the girl knew about the natural world. It came out on all fours at first, its massive body covered in dark hair or fur. But this was no bear. No bear moved like this. No bear had proportions like this. As the creature cleared the underbrush and entered the meadow, it rose to its hind legs with an ease that suggested this was its natural posture. The girl found herself staring at something approximately 7ft tall. Its body was powerfully built, with long arms that hung almost to its knees. The entire form was covered in dark, matted hair or fur. But what seized the girl's attention, what would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life, was the creature's head. It had a mane of white hair that ran across the crown of its skull like the crest of a Roman soldier's helmet. The face beneath was almost human in its expressiveness, but twisted into something that belonged in fever dreams. And it was grinning at her, actually grinning, displaying rows of white teeth and what might have been mistaken for a smile, if not for the predatory intelligence in its eyes. The creature stopped perhaps 30 yards from where the girl stood, frozen for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity. The they regarded each other, the small human child and this impossible thing that had walked out of the deepest wilderness. Then the creature did something that transformed the girl's curiosity into pure, liquid terror. It beckoned to her. The gesture was unmistakable, a deliberate motion of one long arm calling her forward, inviting her to approach. There was something obscene about the familiarity of that gesture, as if the creature was mimicking human behavior in a way that highlighted just how inhuman it truly was. The spell broke. The girl's paralysis shattered. She screamed, a high, piercing sound that cut through the afternoon quiet like a knife, and ran. Her legs pumped beneath her as she tore across the meadow toward the cabin. That grinning face burned into her mind, the sound of her own breathing and her pounding feet filling her ears. Behind her, she heard something else, a sound that would be described later as something between a growl and a laugh, a vocalization that suggested intelligence and amusement in equal measure. The girl burst through the cabin door, slamming it behind her, her chest heaving, tears streaming down her face. Her mother, Mrs. Michelin, immediately knew something was gravely wrong. As the girl babbled out her story between sobs, Mrs. Michelin did what frontier women did. She reached for the shotgun that hung above the door. By the time Mrs. Michelin had loaded the weapon and rushed outside, the creature was gone. The meadow stood empty in the fading light. But Mrs. Michelin was a woman who had killed 12 bears in her life. She knew the wilderness. She knew how to read sign. And what she saw in the earth at the forest's edge stopped her in her tracks. Footprints. Not pawprints, not hoofprints, but something that looked disturbingly like the print of a human foot. If that foot was 12 inches long, narrow at the heel and terminated not in five toes, but in two broad round ended appendages. Mrs. Michelin stood at the edge of the meadow, shotgun in hand, staring at those impossible tracks as the sun began to set behind the mountains. Whatever had visited Traverspine that afternoon, it was unlike anything in her considerable experience of the Labrador wilderness. She had no name for it, she had no explanation for it, but she knew with the certainty that comes from decades of living on the edge of survival that it would be back. Mrs. Michelin was right. The creature, and that night they began calling it the Traverspine gorilla, though it resembled no gorilla any of them had ever seen in pictures. Returned with the darkness. That first night, the Michelin family barricaded themselves in their cabin. The door was secured with a heavy wooden beam. The windows were shuttered. Joe Michelin had returned from the trap line and he sat with his rifle across his lap, his wife's shotgun within easy reach. The children were sent upstairs with strict instructions to be silent. The family sled dogs, tough battle scarred animals bred for survival in the harshest conditions, were brought inside, where they paced nervously, their hackles raised, low growls rumbling in their throats. The moon rose over the spruce forest, casting the snow in shades of silver and shadow. The temperature dropped toward zero. And then, around midnight, the tapping began. It started at the back of the cabin, a methodical sound, like someone testing the logs with a stick. Tap, tap, tap. The sound moved along the back wall, paused at the corner, then continued along the side. Inside, the family sat frozen, hardly daring to breathe. The dog's growls intensified. One of them, a large male named Ranger, began to bark, deep, aggressive barks that spoke of fear and fury combined. Joe Michelin moved to the window, carefully cracking the shutter to peer outside. What he saw would be seared into his memory forever. In the moonlight, he could make out a massive shape moving along the side of the cabin. It walked upright, its gait oddly smooth despite its size. In one hand, and yes, it appeared to have hands rather than paws. It held what looked like a thick branch, which it used to tap against the logs of the cabin wall. Wall. The creature moved with a deliberate quality that suggested intelligence. It wasn't simply wandering. It was investigating the cabin, systematically learning its dimensions, testing its structure. At one point, it paused at a window and seemed to peer inside, though the shutters prevented it from seeing anything. Joe Michelin found himself staring into shadow, where he knew a face must be separated from this thing by only a few inches of wood and glass. Then the creature moved to the front of the cabin and did something that made every hair on Joe Michelin's body stand on end. Stay tuned for more backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. It struck the corner of the cabin with such tremendous force that the entire structure shook. The beams trembled. Cups rattled on their shelves. One of the children upstairs began to cry. The attack, for that's surely what it was, seemed to satisfy the creature. The tapping stopped. Joe Michelin watched as the massive form loped away from the cabin on all fours, moving with a fluid grace that seemed impossible for something of its size. It headed toward the Traverspine river and disappeared into the darkness. The family sat awake until dawn, weapons at hand, listening to every sound. The dogs remained on high alert. Sleep was impossible, and when the sun finally rose, painting the snow in shades of pink and gold, Joe Michelin ventured outside to examine the damage. The corner of the cabin bore a massive dent where the creature had struck it. Splinters of wood lay scattered in the snow. But what truly caught Joe's attention were the footprints that circled the cabin in an almost perfect perimeter. They were everywhere, pressed deep into the snow, clear and unmistakable. Twelve inches long, narrow at the heel, two broad toes. The stride between prints was enormous, suggesting a creature of tremendous size and power. Joe Michelin bent down and carefully measured several of the clearest prints. He traced their outline on paper, creating a record that would eventually find its way into the journals of no fewer than three medical doctors. The depth of the prints suggested incredible weight. If these were indeed footprints, the creature that made them must weigh at least £500. But £500 of what? Word of the creature's visit spread through Traverspine with the speed that news travels in isolated communities. Which is to say, everyone knew. By noon, the men gathered at the Michelin cabin, examining the prints, discussing what should be done. These were not men given to panic or superstition. They were trappers, loggers, hunters, men who spent their lives in the wilderness and knew every animal that called Labrador home. And not one of them could identify what had visited the Michelins. It wasn't a bear. Every man present had killed bears, skinned bears, eaten bears. They knew bear tracks as well as they knew their own signatures. These prints were nothing like bear tracks. It wasn't a moose or caribou. The hoof structure was entirely wrong. And besides, no hoofed animal moved with the kind of intelligence suggested by the creature's systematic investigation of the cabin. It wasn't a wolf. The size alone eliminated that possibility. Not to mention the bipedal stance and the use of a club as a weapon. The French agent from Revillon Frere, the fur trading company, traveled the 20 miles from his post to examine the evidence. He was a man of considerable wilderness experience, Someone who had seen the full spectrum of northern wildlife. He stood in the snow outside the Michelin cabin, staring at the tracks and could offer no explanation. The lumbermen working at Mud Lake heard the story, and some of them joined in what became an organized hunt. Bear traps were set near the cabin and along likely paths through the forest. Men took positions in the trees, rifles at the ready, prepared to spend cold nights waiting for a shot at this mystery creature. Others attempted to track it through the snow, following the distinctive two toed prints deep into the forest. The creature, however, proved to be far more cunning than they anticipated. It avoided every trap, the steering clear of them with a precision that suggested it understood exactly what they were. The men waiting in ambush heard sounds in the darkness. Branches breaking, the occasional grunt or vocalization that sounded disturbingly human, but never got a clear shot. Those who attempted to track it found that the trail inevitably led to the Traverspine river, where it disappeared. Either the creature was comfortable in near freezing water water, or it was using the river deliberately to break its trail. Evidence of its presence, however, was everywhere. Trappers reported finding places deep in the forest where logs had been torn apart, the bark ripped away as if the creature was searching for insects beneath. Trees showed claw marks at heights that seemed impossible for any local animal. And always there were the tracks, those strange two toed prints that appeared in the most remote locations, far from any human settlement. One trapper claimed to have seen it at a distance, standing at the crest of a ridge, backlit by the setting sun. He described it as easily 7ft tall when fully upright, with arms that seemed disproportionately long and a distinctive white mane visible even in silhouette. When he raised his rifle to take a shot, the creature dropped to all fours and vanished into the undergrowth with shocking speed. The hunt continued for weeks. The men of Traverspine were determined to solve this mystery, to either kill the creature or at least get close enough to identify what it was. But the creature seemed to possess an almost preternatural awareness of their efforts. It remained always just out of sight, just out of range, A phantom that left only tracks and destruction in its wake. And all the while, it continued to visit the Michelin cabin at night. The second major encounter came on an afternoon, perhaps two weeks after the initial sighting. Joe Michelin was away again, working at the lumber camp. Mrs. Michelin was in the cabin with her children, going about the daily tasks of frontier life. Cooking, mending clothes, tending to the endless chores that kept a family alive in this unforgiving land. One of the children, accounts don't specify which one, happened to glance out the window and froze. There, not more than 20ft from the cabin, standing at the edge of a clump of willows, was the creature. In daylight, it was even more imposing than it had seemed in darkness. The child could see the powerful musculature beneath the dark fur, the way its chest rose and fell with breath, the disturbing near humanity of its posture. It was watching the cabin with what seemed like intense concentration, its head cocked slightly to one side as if listening. Mother. The child hollered. It's here. Mrs. Michelin didn't hesitate. In the seconds it took her to grab the shotgun and burst out the door, she experienced no doubt no fear, only the fierce, protective rage that comes to mothers defending their young. She rounded the corner of the cabin, the shotgun already rising to her shoulder, and caught a glimpse of movement in the willows. All she could see was the white mane, that distinctive crest of pale hair atop the creature's head, and the shape of something massive trying to disappear into the underbrush. She didn't pause to aim carefully. She simply pointed the shotgun in the direction of that white flash and pulled both triggers. The report echoed across the valley like thunder. Birds erupted from the trees, and from the willows came a sound that made Mrs. Michelin's skin crawl, a cry that was neither human nor animal, but something in between. It was a sound of pain, certainly, but also of rage, and beneath it all, something that sounded almost like speech. Then came the sound she would later describe to investigators, the distinctive meaty thud of buckshot hitting flesh. She had scored a hit. Mrs. Michelin advanced toward the willows, the shotgun broken open as she fumbled to reload with shaking hands. The dogs, which had burst from the cabin behind her, rushed past, barking furiously. They reached the willows and stopped, hackles raised, growling at something she couldn't see. She found blood. Not much, but definitely blood. Dark against the snow, the trail led away from the cabin toward the river, marked by both blood spots and those now familiar two toed prints. The dogs refused to follow, their courage, apparently exhausted. Mrs. Michelin, alone and armed with a weapon that had already proven it could hurt the creature, made the difficult decision not to pursue. When Joe Michelin returned that evening with other men from the settlement, they followed the blood trail. It led a quarter mile from through the forest before the blood stopped appearing. Either the wound was superficial, or the creature had managed to staunch the bleeding. The tracks continued toward the river, but, as always, disappeared at the water's edge. But something had changed. From that day forward, the creature seemed more wary of the Michelin cabin. It no longer approached as boldly. Its nighttime visits, while they continued, became less frequent. Mrs. Michelin had proven that the creature was vulnerable, that it could be hurt, potentially killed. This knowledge spread through Traverspine, providing some measure of comfort. The creature was not invincible. It could bleed. As autumn gave way to the full grip of winter, the encounters took on a new pattern. The creature, perhaps made cautious by Mrs. Michelin's shot, stopped approaching the cabin stone so directly. Instead, it began to focus its attention on something else. The sled dogs. The dogs of traverspine were not pets in any modern sense. They were working animals, bred for strength and endurance, capable of pulling sleds for hours through sub zero temperatures. They were tough, aggressive when needed, and bonded to their human families with a loyalty that went beyond mere training. These were animals that thought nothing of standing their ground against wolves or bears. But something about the traverspine gorilla drove them to absolute frenzy. The creature would approach the settlements at night and deliberately harass the dogs, staying just out of reach, seemingly taunting them. The animals would bark themselves hoarse, lunging against their chains, desperate to either flee or attack. It was often hard to tell which. The sound of an entire settlement's dogs barking in terror became a regular feature of winter nights in Traverse Pine. Then came the night when the creature's harassment turned to something more aggressive. It was early December and the temperature had plunged to 30 below zero. Joe Michelin had his dogs tied outside the cabin, as was normal. They were northern animals, comfortable in temperatures that would kill a human in minutes. The family was preparing for bed when the barking began. But this was different from the usual alarm barking. This was the sound of dogs in battle. Joe Michelin grabbed his rifle and rushed outside, followed by his wife with the shotgun. What they witnessed would be recounted in at least three separate written accounts over the following decades. Their two best dogs, Ranger and Duke, were locked in combat with something that moved through the door darkness like a living shadow. The creature had apparently ventured close enough that the dogs, driven past their fear by territorial instinct, had broken their chains and attacked. In the light spilling from the cabin door, Joe Michelin could see the creature rearing up on its hind legs, towering over the dogs, which came only to its mid thigh. The thing was swinging its arms with tremendous force, batting at the attacking dogs, like a person, might swat at large insects. One of those blows caught Duke and sent him flying 10ft through the air to land with a yelp in the snow. Ranger, the larger of the two dogs, had managed to get hold of something, leg or arm, it was impossible to tell in the darkness, and was holding on with grim determination despite the creature's attempts to shake him loose. Joe tried to get a clear shot, but the dogs and the creature were too close together. He shouted, hoping to drive the thing away, but his voice seemed to have no effect. Then, in a display of strength that defied belief, the creature simply reached down, grabbed Ranger, an 80 pound dog, by the scruff of his neck and hurled him away. Both dogs landed in the vicinity of the Traverspine River. There was a tremendous splash as one or both of them hit the water. The creature, perhaps finally recognizing the threat posed by the humans with guns, dropped to all four fours and bounded away into the darkness with a speed that seemed impossible for something of its bulk. Joe and Mrs. Michelin rushed to the river, calling for their dogs. The wait was agonizing. Had the dogs been killed? Had they drowned in the freezing water? The river here ran swift, even in winter, and the cold would be lethal within minutes. Then, from the darkness downstream, came the sound of scrabbling and the distinctive panting of dogs. Dogs. Ranger and Duke emerged from the darkness soaking wet, shivering, but alive. They both bore scratches and bruises, and Duke had a nasty gash across his shoulder, but they had survived. Joe brought both dogs inside the cabin that night, an unprecedented move, and they huddled by the fire, still trembling. Whether they shook from cold or from fear, no one could say. The creature didn't return to the Michelin cabin that night, but the message was it was powerful enough to fight off their best dogs, smart enough to use the river as both a weapon and an escape route, and bold enough to approach within feet of armed humans. From that night forward, the dogs of Traverspine slept indoors. As winter deepened and January 1914 arrived, the nature of the encounters changed again. The creature seemed to have withdrawn to the deeper wilderness, perhaps driven back by the increasingly aggressive response from the humans of Traverse Spine. Sightings became less frequent, though tracks continued to appear in unlikely places, on ridges, in remote valleys, far from any human habitation. But then the trappers began reporting something new. Double tracks. Not the single trail of one creature, but two sets of prints, often walking side by side, sometimes appearing to be following each other. The prints were slightly different in size, suggesting a larger and a smaller individual. The Traverspine gorilla It seemed, had found a mate. And with that came sounds that added a whole new dimension to the mystery. Trappers working their distant lines began to report hearing vocalizations from the deepest parts of the forest. Forest sounds unlike anything they had encountered before. These weren't the simple howls of wolves or the bugling of moose. They were complex vocalizations that rose and fell with what seemed like emotional content. Some described it as similar to human speech, but in a language no one could understand. Stay tuned for more backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. Others compared it to the calls of primates they had heard described by sailors who had visited Africa. Most disturbing were the sounds that Dr. Harry Padden would later describe in his journals as sounds of domestic strife. The trappers reported hearing what could only be described as arguments. Two distinct voices, one deeper and louder, the other higher pitched, exchanging what sounded like angry calls back and forth, forth. These exchanges could last for minutes, echoing through the valleys, before culminating in what one trapper described as loud lamentations from the weaker member. It was almost human in its familiarity, the sound of a couple in conflict, yet utterly alien in its execution. These sounds were heard most frequently in the area between Traverse Pine and Mud Lake, in a region of particularly rugged terrain, where the foothills of the Melee Mountains created a labyrinth of valleys and ridges. This was country that even the most experienced trappers approached with caution. It was easy to become lost in the maze of similar looking valleys, and the cliffs and ravines made for dangerous going, even in good weather. The double track suggested that the creatures, and now everyone accepted that there were at least two, had established a territory in this remote region. Region. Perhaps they had always been there, living in the most inaccessible parts of the Meli Mountains. And the logging operations at Mud Lake had disturbed them, driven them closer to human habitation. Or perhaps they were migrants traveling through Labrador on some unknowable route. No one could say for certain. What was clear was that these were not mindless animals. The systematic way they investigated human habits, habitations, their ability to avoid traps, their use of tools, even if those tools were just clubs and branches. And now these complex vocalizations, all of it pointed to intelligence of a fairly high order. Yet they weren't human. No human could survive in the deep wilderness through a Labrador winter without shelter, fire or clothing. No human had feet like that or could move with such speed and power. Whatever these creatures were, they occupied some middle ground between human and animal, a category that didn't exist in anyone's conception of the natural world. The Sounds continued sporadically through the rest of the winter. Sometimes they seemed to come from very close to the settlement, close enough that people would bar their doors and sit awake with weapons ready, waiting for an attack that never came. Other times, the calls echoed from miles away, faint and ghostly, reminding everyone in Traverspine that somewhere out in the darkness in the ancient forests of the Meli Mountains, something strange and powerful had made its home. News of the Traverspine encounters didn't stay confined to the remote settlement for long. Labrador in 1913 was isolated, but it wasn't completely cut off from the outside world. The Grenfell Mission, founded by the legendary Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, operated hospitals and medical stations throughout Labrador. And the doctors and nurses of the mission moved between communities, bringing not just medical care, but news and letters from the broader world. When word of the strange creature reached these medical professionals, several of them decided to investigate personally. These weren't credulous frontier folk trading ghost stories. They were educated, scientifically minded individuals who approached the tale with appropriate skepticism. The first to examine the evidence in detail was Dr. Harry Padden, a British physician who operated a hospital at Northwest River. Padden was a meticulous observer who kept detailed journals of his experiences in Labrador. In the winter of 1913, he visited Traverspine specifically to interview the Michelin family and and examined the physical evidence. What he found impressed him enough to record it in his journals for posterity. Patton interviewed each member of the Michelin family separately. Their accounts matched in all essential details. The creature was approximately 7ft tall when upright, covered in dark hair or fur, with the distinctive white mane. It had a face that was almost human in some respects, capable of expressions, including that disturbing grin. It could move both on two legs and on all fours. It demonstrated intelligence in its actions, testing the cabin, using a club as a weapon, avoiding traps, using the river to escape. Patton examined the footprint casts that Joe Michelin had made. He measured them carefully, noting the 12 inch length, the narrow heel and the two broad toes. He noted that the depth of the prints in snow and soft earth suggested an animal of tremendous weight, perhaps 400 to 500 pounds. He also examined the corner of the cabin that the creature had struck with such force, the damage was real, not something that could have been faked. Something large and powerful had delivered a blow that had made the entire structure shake. In his journal, Dr. Patton admitted that he could offer no explanation for what the Michelins had had encountered. He wrote of how the children, even weeks after the initial encounter, remained frightened and insisted on sleeping upstairs together. He noted that Joe and Mrs. Michelan, both experienced wilderness people, were unshakable in their accounts and showed no signs of fabrication or embellishment. Perhaps most significantly, Padden noted that other families in the area had reported similar experiences. The the Michelins were not alone in their encounters. Something was definitely moving through the forests around Traverspine, something that didn't match any known species. The second medical professional to investigate was Dr. Wilfrid Grenfell, himself, the founder of the mission that bore his name. Grenfell was a towering figure in Labrador, a man who had dedicated his life to serving the remote communities of the coast and interior. In his 1919 autobiography, A Labrador Doctor, he devoted a section to the strange tale from Travers Pine. Grenfell interviewed Joe Michelin personally, and his account adds important details. He noted that the French agent from Revillon Frere had not only examined the tracks, but had measured the footmarks in the mud and even fenced some of them round to preserve them for future examination. He recorded that the stride of the creature was approximately 8ft longer than any human could manage and longer than any bear would typically step. Crucially, Grenfell noted that Michelin told him the creature had been seen by multiple children several times disappearing into the trees, and that the dogs had been driven, growling, from the house into the water on multiple occasions. This established that the encounters were numerous and witnessed by many members of the community. The third major investigation came in 1947, more than 30 years after the initial encounters, when Bruce S. Wright, director of the Northeastern Wildlife Station of the University of New Brunswick, traveled to Labrador specifically to interview survivors of the original events. Wright was a professional wildlife biologist with a master's degree in wildlife management from the University of Wisconsin, where he had studied under the legendary Aldo Leopold. Wright sought out Mrs. Michelin, who was still alive in 1947 and still living in the Labrador region. Her account, given three decades after the events, remained remarkably consistent with the original reports. Wright recorded her words directly. It was no bear. I have killed 12 myself and I know their tracks well. And I saw enough of this thing to be sure of that. I fired a shotgun at it. It and heard the shot hit. My little girl was playing behind the house and she came running in, saying it was chasing her. I grabbed the shotgun and went outside just in time to get a glimpse of it disappearing in the bush. When Wright suggested that the creature might have been a barren ground grizzly, a rare subspecies of grizzly bear from the far north, the Labrador locals all laughed at that, as they were all very familiar with bear tracks. These were people who lived alongside bears, who hunted them, trapped them and knew their behavior intimately. They were unanimous in their insistence that this was not a bear. Wright documented his findings in a letter to Canadian folklorist Philip Godsell, and his conclusion was cautious but significant. Something genuinely unusual had been witnessed at Traverspine. Whether it was a known species appearing after of its normal range, a misidentified animal seen under unusual circumstances, or something more mysterious, he couldn't say. But he believed the witnesses were credible and their accounts deserving of serious consideration. A fourth medical professional, Dr. C. Hogarth Forsyth, an English American physician who operated a hospital in Cartwright, Labrador, also weighed in on the mystery. In a newspaper interview conducted about six months before Wright's investigation, Dr. Forsyth discussed the strange two toed footprints that had been found throughout the Labrador wilderness. While he didn't investigate the Traverspine case directly, his comments suggested that unusual tracks and sightings were not as rare as might be expected in the region. The story might have remained a local legend, known only to the people of Labrador, if not for a young American writer named elliot Merrick. In September 1930, Merrick arrived in Labrador at the age of 24, seeking escape from his job in New Jersey and drawn by wanderlust to one of the most remote regions of North America. He worked as an unpaid volunteer for the Grenfell Mission, living among trappers and traders, experiencing firsthand the brutal beauty and isolation of the Labrador wilderness. Merrick was a natural storyteller with an eye for compelling narrative. During his time in Labrador, he collected stories from the people he met. Tales of survival, of strange occurrences of life at the absolute edge of civilization. And one story in particular caught his attention. The tale of the Traverspine gorilla. By the time Merrick heard the story, it was already nearly 20 years old. But the people who had experienced it were still alive, still willing to talk about those terrifying months in 1913 and 1914. Merrick sought them out, interviewed them and listened as they recounted their encounters with something that defied explanation. What struck Merrick was the consistency of the accounts and the credibility of the witnesses. These weren't people prone to flights of fancy. They were pragmatic, experienced wilderness dwellers who approached, approached the unknown with caution and skepticism. Yet they were unanimous in their descriptions of the creature and unwavering in their insistence that what they had seen was real. In 1933, Merrick published True A Journey into Unexplored Wilderness, an autobiography of his time in Labrador. The book was well received, praised for its vivid descriptions of northern life and its honest portrayal of Both the beauty and brutality of the wilderness. Among its many stories, was the account of the Traverspine gorilla. Merrick's telling of the tale was atmospheric and compelling. He understood that the isolation of places like Traverspine was not just geographic, but psychological. Ghost stories are very real in this land of scattered, lonely homes and primitive fears, he wrote, capturing the mental state of people who might go weeks without seeing another human face, who endured six month winters in near total darkness, who lived always on the edge between survival and death. His account included all the major details. The little girl's initial encounter, the white maned creature that grinned and beckoned, the nighttime harassment of the cabin, Mrs. Michelin's shot, the battles with the dogs, and the strange double tracks suggesting a pair of cool creatures. He described the footprints in detail. It is a strange looking foot, about 12 inches long, narrow at the heel and forking at the front into two broad round ended toes. Sometimes its print was so deep it looked to weigh 500 pounds. Perhaps most importantly, Merrick gave the creature a name that would stick. He called it the Traverspine Gorilla, despite acknowledging that it bore little, little resemblance to actual gorillas. The name was catchy, memorable, and it ensured that the story would be remembered and retold. The publication of True north brought the Traverspine story to a much wider audience. The book sold well in both Canada and the United States, and the tale of the strange creature in Labrador became part of the broader folklore of the North. Other writers picked up the story, embellishing it, theorizing about it, adding it to collections of unexplained phenomena and cryptid sightings. But Merrick's account remained the definitive version, the one closest to the original witnesses, the one that treated the story with respect rather than sensationalism. His book ensured that even as the original witnesses died and Traverspine itself faded into obscurity, the story would survive. The encounters at Traverspine didn't end with a dramatic climax. There was no final confrontation, no dead creature dragged from the forest to be examined and identified. Instead, the story ended the way many true mysteries do, gradually, ambiguously, with more questions than answers. Through the winter of 1913 and 1914, the creature or creatures remained in the area. Sightings became less frequent as the humans of Traverspine took preparation precautions. But evidence of the thing's presence continued. Tracks appeared regularly. Dogs continued to react with fear and aggression to something in the darkness. Distant vocalizations echoed through the valleys. But as winter gave way to spring and spring turned to summer, the encounters tapered off. The tracks stopped appearing. The nighttime disturbances ceased. The strange calls from the deep forest fell silent. It was as if the creatures had simply moved on, traveling deeper into the Meli Mountains. Or perhaps migrating elsewhere entirely. The wilderness of Labrador is vast, tens of thousands of square miles of largely unexplored forest, mountains and tundra. A creature could exist in that immensity for a lifetime and never be seen by human eyes. By the winter of 1914 and 1915, the Traverspine gorilla had become a story people told, a chapter in the community's history that had seemingly closed. Stay tuned for more backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. Life returned to normal, or as normal as life ever was in such an isolated place. Joe and Mrs. Michelin continued their work as trappers. Their children grew up carrying memories of those terrifying months, but eventually left Traverspine for larger settlements and opportunities elsewhere. Traverspine itself began a slow decline. Logging operations moved to other areas. Young people left for places with more opportunities. By the mid 20th century, Traverspine was barely a settlement at all, just a few cabins scattered along the river, most of them abandoned or used only seasonally. Today, Traverspine doesn't appear on most maps. The site of the old settlement has been almost entirely reclaimed by the forest. If you were to travel there, and you would need to canoe up the Churchill river and then hike through trackless wilderness to do so, you would find little evidence that humans ever lived there at all. A few collapsed cabins, some rusting equipment, stumps where trees were cut long ago. The forest is swallowed. Everything else but the story survived. It survived in The Journals of Dr. Harry Padden, in the Autobiography of Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, in Elliot Merrick's book, and in Bruce Wright's careful investigation. It survived in the memories passed down through Labrador families, becoming part of the region's folklore, a tale told and retold around campfires and kitchen tables. And occasionally, very occasionally, it survived in new reports over the decades that followed, there were sporadic sightings of strange creatures in the Labrador wilderness. Things that walked on two legs but weren't human. Things that left tracks that didn't match any known animal. None of these later reports achieved the same level of documentation as the original Traverspine encounters. But they suggested that whatever had visited that remote settlement in 1913 might not have been an isolated incident. The indigenous peoples of Labrador, the Innu and the Inuit, maintained that such things had always existed in the deep wilderness. The Europeans had simply been too confident in their understanding of nature to believe it until confronted with undeniable evidence in 2019. More than a century after the original encounters, modern explorer Adam Scholz decided to investigate the Traverspine mystery. Schultz was no amateur. He was a professional explorer and an expert on Canadian wilderness. Serving as explorer in residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, he had read all the original accounts and was struck by a crucial detail. Unlike most cryptid stories, the Traverspine encounters had been documented by credible, educated witnesses, including three medical medical doctors and a wildlife biologist. Schultz recognized that something real had happened at Traverse Pine, even if the interpretation of those events might have been influenced by fear, isolation and the psychological pressures of frontier life. He decided to mount an expedition to the site of the abandoned settlement to search for clues that might solve the century old mystery. Accompanied by Zack Junkin, a mixed martial arts fighter with extensive wilderness experience, Schultz traveled to Labrador in the summer of 2019. The journey was extraordinarily difficult. They canoed up the Churchill river, then had to bushwhack through dense forest, cross swamps, climb mountains, and navigate through terrain that seemed designed to resist human passage. The Melee Mountains, they discovered, fully lived up to their reputation as one of the most remote and and mysterious places in North America. These ancient mountains, worn down by time but still formidable, created a landscape of endless valleys and ridges, all of them covered in dense spruce forest or exposed bedrock. It was easy to see how something could exist here. Unknown to science, the region was vast, difficult to access, and largely unexplored. As they approached the site of old Traverspine, both men experienced something that gave them insight into the psychological state of the original witnesses. At night, in their tents, they heard sounds. Some were identifiable. The call of owls, the rustle of small animals, the whisper of wind through the trees. But others defied identification. Strange vocalizations that might have been animals they couldn't identify, or might have been the wind playing tricks, or might have been something else entirely. They found the sensation deeply unsettling. Even as modern men with scientific education and good equipment, they felt the isolation and the sense that the wilderness around them held secrets. They slept poorly, often waking at sounds in the night, hands reaching for bear spray and knives. Schultz would later write, my strangest, most uncanny journey by far is my recent one in Labrador's Melee Mountains, which are among the oldest mountains on Earth. There are many strange legends connected with them, and after venturing far off the beaten path there, I could certainly appreciate why. After extensive research in the abandoned settlement and the surrounding wilderness, Schultz came to a conclusion about what had likely terrorized Traverspine in 1913. His explanation, detailed in his 2021 book, The Whisper on the Night, the true history of a wilderness legend provides a rational answer to the mystery, one based in biology and animal behavior rather than the supernatural. However, Schultz was careful to note that his conclusion, while satisfying from a scientific standpoint, couldn't fully capture the terror experienced by the original witnesses. Whatever the traverspine gorilla actually was, was it had been real enough to traumatize families, real enough to be shot at, real enough to leave physical evidence that multiple trained professionals examined and could not explain at the time. The question that has haunted researchers for over a century remains what was the traverspine gorilla? What creatures could account for the evidence and the experiences of those witnesses? Let's consider the facts we know with certainty. Multiple credible witnesses, including children, experienced trappers and visiting professionals, reported seeing a large hair covered creature approximately 7ft tall. When upright, the creature had a distinctive white mane or crest of pale hair on its head. It could move both bipedally and on all fours with considerable speed and agility. It left footprints approximately 12 inches inches long with two broad round ended toes and a narrow heel. It demonstrated intelligence, investigating structures, systematically avoiding traps, using clubs as weapons, using water to break its trail. It showed aggression toward dogs, but generally avoided direct confrontation with armed humans. It was powerful enough to shake a cabin with a single blow and to throw an 80 pound dog through the air. Two creatures appeared to be present, based on double tracks and vocalizations that suggested communication or conflict between individuals. Now let's examine the theories. Theory number one is that it was a misidentified bear. This was Bruce Wright's initial hypothesis. Perhaps a barren ground grizzly far out of its normal range, or a black bear behaving unusually. The problems with this theory are numerous. Numerous. The witnesses were intimately familiar with bears. Mrs. Michelin had killed 12 bears herself and was adamant this was not a bear. The footprints were completely unlike bear tracks. Bears have five toes, not two, and their prints are distinctive and unmistakable to anyone who has seen them. The bipedal stance and gait were wrong for a bear. While bears can stand on hind legs briefly, they don't walk upright with the fluid, comfortable gait described by witnesses. The use of clubs and the systematic investigation of structures suggest a higher level of intelligence than bears typically demonstrate. The white mane is not a feature of any bear species. The locals dismissed this theory immediately and their expertise in identifying bears must be respected. Theory number two is that it was a misidentified moose, moose or caribou. Some have suggested that a moose or caribou seen under unusual circumstances or at night might have been misidentified this theory also has problems. Moose and caribou have hooves, not two toed feet. The tracks don't match at all. Neither species uses their front legs to manipulate objects or knock on structures. Neither species is covered in the kind of fur described or has a wide white mane. In the location described, the size and build are wrong. Moose are tall, but not built like the creature described. Theory number three is that it was a wolverine or wolverines. Some researchers have suggested that wolverines, perhaps a mating pair, might explain some of the evidence. Wolverines are powerful, aggressive animals capable of driving off much larger predators. They can be dark in coloration and some individuals show pale markings. This theory is more plausible than the others, but still has issues. Wolverines are much smaller than the creature described, perhaps 40 pounds versus the 500 pounds estimated for the traverspine creature. Wolverines have normal paw prints with five toes and claws, not the two toed prints described. The bipedal stance doesn't fit. Wolverines are are quadrupeds. The height is completely wrong. A wolverine standing on hind legs might reach 2ft, not 7. Theory number four is that it was an escaped exotic animal. Could the creature have been an escaped or released exotic animal? Perhaps something from a ship or trading post? A primate of some kind? This theory requires several unlikely circumstances. There's no record of any exotic animals being present in Labrador at the time. A tropical or temperate primate couldn't survive a Labrador winter outdoors without shelter or fire. The footprints don't match those of known primates. How would such an animal have gotten to one of the most remote parts of North America? Theory number five is that it was a surviving archaic human or unknown hominid. Some cryptozoologists have suggested that the creature might have been a surviving population of Neon Neanderthals or some other archaic human species. Or perhaps an unknown hominid related to the Sasquatch or Bigfoot phenomenon. This is the theory that captures the imagination but faces severe scientific objections. There's no fossil evidence for large hominids in North America except humans. A viable breeding population would require dozens or hundreds of individuals and no such population. Speculation has been verified. The creature's apparent lack of clothing, fire or shelter is inconsistent with any known hominid behavior. The footprints don't match those of any known hominid, fossil or living. Theory number six is that it was mass hysteria or a hoax. Could the entire thing have been fabricated or the result of mass hysteria? This theory must be considered, but doesn't fit the facts. Well. Multiple independent witnesses over a two year period reported consistent details. Physical evidence existed, tracks, damage to structures, blood from Mrs. Michelin shot. The witnesses included educated medical professionals who examined the evidence skeptically. There was no apparent motive for a hoax, and the story brought unwanted attention to the remote community. The accounts remained consistent over over decades, with witnesses like Mrs. Michelin maintaining their story until death. Adam Schultz, after his modern investigation, proposed a solution that involved a combination of factors. While he doesn't definitively identify the creature in his public writings, saving that for his book, his research suggests that the encounters may have involved a known animal behaving in unusual ways. Seen under conditions that distorted perception and exaggerated certain features, the psychological context is crucial to understanding what happened. The people of Traverspine lived in extreme isolation. Winters brought not just cold, but near total darkness, with the sun barely rising above the horizon for months. This darkness, combined with the sensory deprivation of isolation, can create conditions where perception is altered. A known animal, perhaps acting unusually due to injury, rabies or other factors, might appear monstrous under these conditions. The white mane is a key detail that several researchers have focused on. Some animals in winter coats show pale coloration, and snow or frost caught in an animal's fur could create the appearance of a white crest. The two toed footprints remain the most puzzling element. Some researchers have suggested that certain animals, when their tracks partially overlap or are distorted by melting snow, can create prints that don't look like their normal tracks. Others have noted that prints in deep snow, where the animal is post holing, sinking deeply with each step, can look very different from prints on solid ground. The human mind is also extraordinarily good at finding patterns and assigning human characteristics to animals, a phenomenon called pareidolia. In conditions of fear and darkness, this tendency would be amplified. An animal's normal features might be interpreted as a grin. Natural behaviors might seem purposeful or intelligent. Over a century has passed since those terrifying months when something stalked the perimeter of the Michelin cabin in Traverspine. The original witnesses are all dead now, taking their memories and their terror to their graves. The settlement itself has vanished, reclaimed by the wilderness that briefly retreated before human habitation. Even the name Traverspine has faded from common use, appearing only in old documents and historical accounts. But the mystery refuses to die. The Traverspine gorilla has become part of the larger mythology of the North American wilderness, taking its place alongside other unexplained encounters and mysterious creatures. The story is retold in books about cryptozoology, in collections of Canadian folklore, in documentaries about unexplained phenomena. Every few years, someone new discovers the tale and becomes fascinated by it, Drawn in by the combination of credible witnesses, documented evidence, and the tantalizing possibility that something strange and wonderful might exist in the world. The Mealy Mountains still stand where they've stood for hundreds of millions of years, largely unexplored, mostly uninhabited. In 2015, much of the region was designated as Mealy Mountains national park reserve, ensuring that it will remain wild and protected. It's now the largest national park in eastern Canada, encompassing over 10,700 square kilometers of boreal forest, tundra, mountains and rivers. If you were to visit this park today, and few people do, given its extreme remoteness, you would find a landscape that looks much as it did in 1913. The same ancient mountains, the same endless forests, the same sense of being at the edge of the world. And if you camp there, open overnight, as Adam Schultz and Zack Junkin did, you might hear sounds in the darkness that you couldn't quite identify. Sounds that might be wildlife or wind or something else entirely. The truth about the traverspine gorilla may never be known with absolute certainty. Science requires reproducible evidence, and the creature, whatever it was, appeared for a brief time and then vanished, leaving only stories and a few preserved footprints. Print casts. Without a body, without clear photographs, without DNA evidence, no definitive identification can be made. But perhaps that's appropriate. Perhaps some mysteries are meant to remain mysteries. Perhaps the value of the traverspine story isn't in solving it, but in what it tells us about the human experience. At the edges of the known world. The people of Traverspine in 1913 lived lives we can barely see imagine today. They existed in isolation so complete that the nearest neighbor might be miles away, the nearest doctor 50 miles or more. They endured winters of soul crushing darkness and cold. They faced daily the possibility of death from exposure, starvation or accident. In such an environment, the boundary between the natural and the supernatural, the known and the unknown, becomes permeable in ways that those of us in the comfortable modern world can't fully understand. What they experienced may have had a rational explanation, or it may have been something science hasn't yet discovered. Either way, their terror was real, their courage in the face of the unknown was real. And the mystery they left behind of strange tracks in the snow, of a grinning creature with a white mane, of sounds in the darkness that might have been speech continues to capture our imagination because it speaks to a fundamental the world is larger and stranger than we think we know. The traverspine gorilla, whatever it was, reminds us that mysteries still exist, that for all our technology and scientific knowledge, there are still dark corners of the earth where the unknown lurks. That the wilderness, if we venture deep enough into it, can still surprise us, still frighten us, still humble us, us with the reminder that we don't have all the answers. And somewhere in the mealy mountains, in valleys where no human foot has stepped in decades or perhaps ever, in forests where the only sounds are wind and wildlife, there might be tracks in the mud near a stream, tracks that don't match any creature in our field guides, tracks that would make us stop and stare and wonder, just as Joe Michelin did on that long ago autumn day when the nightmare began. The whisper on the night wind continues, and the wilderness keeps its secrets sa.