Camp Monsters - The Hodag

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

In the quiet Northwoods of Wisconsin, a local taxidermist builds a bizarre, mish-mash creature to spark publicity and boost tourism. But when his odd creation mysteriously disappears, he suspects theft—until he uncovers the shocking truth of what really happened…This episode is sponsored by Mountain House. Shop Mountain House's amazing products in store or at REI.com. Take the Camp Monsters Listeners Survey.

REI Co-op Studios Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, sneaking into this little dusty museum at night. Awkward mannequins in old uniforms lean toward you in the bright, narrow beam of your flashlight and cast long, black shadows behind them. Faces from old black-and- white photos loom intently, staring at you. Animals taxidermied generations ago squirm and writhe again as the strong light moves across them, their glass bead eyes glittering with, almost with life. And there are sounds. Sounds that don't come from the creak of the lonely floorboards under your feet.

Little sighings that you tell yourself are just the old building settling down for the night, but... then come noises across the ceiling. Noises like footsteps on the floor above. They move in a pattern just like footsteps, all the way to the top of the stairs out in the lobby, like there's something out there. Someone coming down right now. You hold your breath in frozen silence, but no one comes. There's no one there. Just your imagination, your nerves. You shake those thoughts away, shake your head in the darkness, and you get moving again.

There's nothing here to scare you, nothing real anyway. You just need to get what you're looking for. Grab it and get out of here. It's not a big place, this little country museum. You weave in and out between the displays. Your flashlight throwing jerking jumping shadows in front of you and

you're telling yourself that stillness returns when you pass that there's nothing jerking and jumping up behind you finally there it is the big display case the centerpiece and pride of this gawky little curio house you smirk at the hokey diorama that's been arranged in there, the shiny wax foliage, the plaster-painted rocks and grass, and you look around for the famous, phony, stuffed creature that this sleepy little museum is known for. The hoedag. You know it's in there. You paid your admission just this afternoon to look at it. Its frozen, fake-fanged snarl on its frog-eyed face.

Silly, too-large claws digging into that papier-mâché log. You see the log in there. See the phony claw marks on it, but... But no sign of the sewn-up creation. No hint of the hoedag. The display case is empty except for scenery. You walk around it to be sure, but there's nothing there. They must...

No, they wouldn't move it anywhere or lock it up. The stuffed hoedag isn't that large, but it's big enough that it would be too awkward to lug around every night. Plus, that might burst the many stitches it must have taken to taxidermy the hoax together. You must have knocked into something behind you, in the dark. That's your first explanation for the sound. You must have knocked into a lamp or something, and it's rattling around its base on a tabletop, trying not to fall. But it goes on too long. Longer than any lamp could rattle without crashing to the floor.

And somewhere in the middle of it, you realize that it doesn't really sound like a rattling lamp. It sounds much, much more like a low, percussive growl. It couldn't be. But it must. And you begin to turn around. Turn toward the darkness behind you. You've never heard a growl quite like that before. Except on the Camp Monsters podcast.

How's this for an autumn night? Way up here in the north woods of Wisconsin, autumn comes early and winter is just behind. You can feel it in this sharp, clean air. They say we might even get a dusting of snow tonight, but the sky is clear for now. And look at that low moon rising, so huge and orange over there, reflecting a shaky trail across the lake. And the fire lights up the tree trunks behind us, before the cold darkness of the woods

swallows it up. Well, it seems less like the firelight's reaching out than that the darkness is reaching in, towards us. And the fire's just barely managing to fend it off, for now. Smells like reinforcements, though. Nothing better than comfort food to warm up a chilly night.

Mountain House makes the best-tasting comfort food meals around. This one I'm having is new for 2024. Mountain House's Kung Pao Chicken. Kung Pao Chicken. Fun to say, even more fun to eat. Who said trail dining can't taste like takeout? But Mountain House meals are a cut above, made only with clean ingredients, meaning no artificial flavors or preservatives. And with Mountain House's unprecedented 30-year taste guarantee, your Kung Pao Chicken will taste just as good

decades from now. Don't try that with takeout. Seriously, don't. So whether you're way out in the wilderness or just looking for a low-prep, no-clean-up dinner at home, Mountain House has the meal for you. Don't believe me? Go to REI.com or stop by your local REI today and try some. You're just a little hot water and a few minutes away from feasting. Mountain House. So simple to make, so satisfying to eat, so good, you won't believe it until you try it. In fact, here, finish this Kung Pao chicken for me while I tell the rest of the story. Anyway, if you were to order up a movie set for a campfire story, you couldn't come up with a better one than this. If you've never been to the north woods of Wisconsin, you should come check it out.

And what better town to base your adventures out of than Little Rhinelander, Wisconsin? Ha, ha, oh, you've heard about Rhinelander, huh? That old story about the hoedag, right? Well, sure. Isn't that a lot of fun? Nothing to really disturb you when you're out in the woods, though. Just an obvious fake put together as a publicity prank in the 1890s by a local businessman and promoter named Gene Shepard. Gene stitched the hoedag together like an oversized doll,

with a face like an ox with dentures and the body of a bulldog with leathery spikes coming out of its back, and these ridiculously large claws glued onto its paws. Gene claimed to have captured the creature, and he staged a couple of photographs of local people holding the hoedag at bay with pitchforks and things. Then he put it on display for decades in a wing of his big house that he'd converted into a sort of local museum. Well, the hoedag may have been silly, but it served its purpose. It got a bunch of chuckles out of local and national media, and it attracted more visitors to these beautiful north woods. To this day, it's a sort of a mascot for the area. The Rhinelander High School sports teams are all the hoedags, and there's a big statue of it in front of the Chamber of Commerce. The hoedag was statue of it in front of the Chamber of Commerce.

The hoedag was a light-hearted kind of prank from the start. And it's stayed that way ever since. Mostly. Well, no. No, you can't go and see the original hoedag, the creature that Gene Shepard first stuffed, it disappeared

a long, long time ago. Some say there was a fire at Gene Shepard's house in the little museum downstairs where he kept the hoedag model. That's what some people say. But there is another story about what happened. Noises woke Gene up that night. For a few moments he lay in the darkness, blinking and listening, and trying to remember where he was. He was in his own house. That's right, he was in his own house, in Rhinelander. Another stifled noise sounded from downstairs, a noise like something moving

stealthily around. Gene struggled to sit up, and the struggle reminded him of another thing. He was old now, old. It must be 1916 or 1917 even. Well, that would make him 60 or 70 something. Well, old anyway. Sitting up now, Gene listened to the sounds downstairs, and he tried to force his mind to do an inventory of what it could be. He didn't want to make a mistake.

He'd been making enough of those lately. Was there anyone who might be moving around down there at this hour? There was no one staying with him right now, was there? He couldn't think of anyone, but he always woke up kind of befuddled these days, had a hard time remembering. Another flurry of sound came from downstairs, louder now. Is that the cry of a person or an animal? Then a scrambling commotion. Well, anyway, there was only one way to be sure of what was going on down there. Finding his footing along the dark hall and down the stairs would have been very dramatic by candlelight.

But Gene had had electric for years, one of the first in town to bring it in. So now, with the click of a button, lights sprang on the length of the hall and right down the stairs. It was still a bit of an adventure getting down them at Gene's age. He kept a firm hand on the railing and he moved slowly, careful of his footing. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to listen, but the commotion he'd heard before was gone. Though there was another sound now, a rhythmic clacking behind the closed door beside him. Gene turned that way,

and he gripped the handle of the big rolling pocket door that led into the little museum room he'd had built on the side of the house years ago, when that Hodag stunt had proved so popular. People still found their way out here just to see it. Gene took a deep breath, leaned on the handle, and rolled the heavy door open. And as soon as he did, something struck him. Cold, crisp, dark night air hit him square in the face, smelling of frost and fallen leaves and the chimney smoke of the town. That sort of air shouldn't be in this stuffy, dusty room. Something was wrong here. He made his careful way over to the button on the wall, pressed the lights on, and turned to the suddenly bright room. The drapes above one window were billowing

out in the gentle night breeze. The tremble of the curtain rings made the clacking sound that Gene had heard through the door. The window was open. And on his slow way across the room toward it, Gene glanced into the hoedag display as he passed. And there was no hoedag. No hoedag in in the Hodag display. Gene's Hodag was missing. And suddenly, it all began to make sense to him. Ha!

There was life in his wily old mind yet, once a little emergency like this woke it up. Quick as a halfback plunging into a mass of linemen, Gene remembered. The big game was tomorrow. High school football. To Gene it seemed like a cross between mud wrestling and a barroom brawl, but the kids were all wild about it. Rhinelander was playing their big rivals, Antigo High. No doubt the theft of the hoedag would be seen by the Antigo crowd as a great prank to play.

Well, a lifelong prankster like Gene could appreciate that, even if he was the butt of this joke. Gene crossed to the open window and saw that it had been pried and forced wide. Someone had come in that way, sure, in and out. But there was something else. Gene bent low over the windowsill, shuffling to one side so that more light fell on it. When he was sure of what he saw, he instinctively turned and looked back toward the empty hoedag display. Well, but now there couldn't really be any connection between the two. It didn't make sense that there could be any connection between the stolen hoedag and the deep, jagged gouges lined up on the windowsill. Gouges like a set of long, sharp claws might make, as some wild creature leapt out through the open window.

Now, there must be some other explanation. After all, Gene had put that Hodag model together himself, sewn it carefully out of a mess of taxidermied animals. There wasn't any way that... that... There was a crashing in the brush across the yard, in among the trees along the Pelican River that ran behind Gene's house. A crashing and then... And then a low, terrible growl. Well, there could be a thousand good explanations for that, of course. Coyotes or a stray dog.

Maybe even a black bear or... And then Gene had a thought. A memory, really, of a story his uncle had told him years ago when Gene was a young man. A story he hadn't thought of in a long, long time. Uncle had told him years ago, when Gene was a young man. A story he hadn't thought of in a long, long time. It was a ridiculous thing to remember just then, but... But all the same, it made Gene feel frightened and shaky, sick, old and tired. It was all Gene could do to creep back up to bed, leaving everything downstairs just as it was. Lights on, window open, hoedag display empty.

Gene made it to his bedroom, closed the door behind him and crawled back under the covers, pulling them up as high as he could over him like a frightened child. And his sudden exhaustion pulled him down into sleep. Gene knew exactly how his dreams were going to start. They were going to start with that story his uncle had told him so many years ago, the one that had frightened him so much. But where would his dreams end? Gene was afraid.

And then he was young again. The autumn of 1871, it must be, and it was night, and though he couldn't see it, he knew that he was lying on the shore of a big lake looking out at little points of fire that bobbed way out on the water fires out on the lake little drifting fires

hovering low over dark water that rippled in the reflection of the flames they were torches, Gene knew. That was how the people fished up here, by torchlight at night in boats. The torchlight drew the fish up to the top of the water where they could be speared and netted and dragged aboard. Gene knew that was what he was looking at,

but it seemed unreal to him. The little drifting lights seemed like they didn't belong to the night. Like they were distant signals from another world, reflected in the darkness. Gene watched the lights and listened to his unseen uncle talking. That was the reason he felt so strange, these stories that his uncle told. His uncle had spent wild decades making his living as a trader in these woods, and whether he'd gathered or lived

or just plain made up the stories he'd told, they seemed like terribly old stories to Gene. As old as this lake and these woods. And on a night like this, in a place like this, every story the old man spoke seemed not just possible, but inevitable. True in a way that young Gene could feel more than he could express. One particular story that his uncle told that night scared young Gene more than any of the others. It was about a young trapper at the height of the fur trade

who was seized by a terrible greed and driven to all kinds of crimes in pursuit of more and more and more furs, until one winter night, around a meager little campfire, when the pelts that weighed down the young trapper's baggage began to move, began to stir back to life, intent on rebellion and revenge. Because everything once alive retains life within it, Gene's uncle explained.

And if it isn't treated with respect, strange and terrible things happen. But even as the pelts sprang to supernatural life around him, the trapper couldn't bring himself to take to the woods, to leave this treasure and furs behind. So he tried to fight back. A caravan of passing traders, Gene's uncle swore he was one of them, found what remained of the young trapper the next spring in an unspeakable state among an enormous quantity of spoiled and rotting furs the lesson his uncle took from the horrible scene was the obvious one to tread carefully to take only what was needed and to treat all living things, and the relics of living things, with the respect they deserved.

In the dream, Gene could hear his uncle, but the only thing he could see was the torchlight floating away out on the lake. Just one single torch now. It drifted further and further from him. And just as his uncle finished the horrible description of finding the greedy trapper, that torch that Gene was watching snuffed out. The dream changed completely and Gene wasn't under blankets anymore. In fact, he wasn't even Gene anymore. No, he was someone else now. And he was somewhere else too. He was standing all alone in cold, quiet darkness. Standing in the shallows of a river.

Listening hard because... Because something else was in the woods too. Something that was... Haunting him. And in the dream, Gene realized who he was now. Whose eyes he was looking through. He was the burglar, the young prankster, the one who tried to steal Gene's hoedag. He could remember the whole night now.

Breaking in through a window of the house Gene recognized as his own. Looking for the hoedag and then finding it, but not as he'd expected. Not as a silly stuffed statue, but alive and chasing him. Back through the jimmied window, and then a desperate, losing race through the moonlit trees down here to the river. And there was no escape. No hope of escape now. He felt river water swirling up to his knees. The water wasn't very cold, but his teeth were chattering together and his body was filled with the shivering, freezing emptiness of terror. His eyes were wide and he was staring up at the steep, brush-covered bank.

It was up there. Somewhere. The Hodag. There it was. Moving hoedag. There it was. Moving through the brush. He couldn't see the hoedag directly, but it moved so powerfully that the branches jerked and twitched in the moonlight as it charged down toward him. He backed into the water. Deeper and deeper.

Up to his waist, up to his chest. But he didn't dare risk turning and trying to swim, didn't dare turn his back on the thing. He felt sure it could out-swim him anyway, just as it had outrun him through those terrifying woods behind the old man's museum. The branches stopped twitching on the riverbank.

The hoedag had reached the water, but he couldn't see it yet. Wouldn't see it until it came out of the shadows and into this cold, unreal moonlight. He held his breath, listened hard, heard the river swirling around him. Was that the splash of paws coming out from the shore? And then, there it was. He saw it stepping out from the shadows. Moonlight glinted in the Hodag's round, protuberant eyes, and off its smooth, impossible horns. Its lips peeled back from a set of bright teeth that looked almost human, but far larger. And the growling began again. A low, deep, hammering, threatening sound.

For a moment the hoedag stood motionless near the bank, staring at it. Water lapping its stubby, powerful legs. And then it launched itself into the river and began swimming, almost as quickly as it had run on land. There was no hope. no hope of escape. He turned and took a few desperate, flailing strokes downriver, and then he felt teeth sink deep into the flesh of his side, and strong jaws begin to thrash him back and forth through the frothing water. Gene woke up, hopelessly tangled in bedsheets, damp with his own cold sweat.

His mouth was dry and his old head was pounding. Light was leaking through the blinds that covered the window, and when Gene lifted a trembling hand to rub his waking eyes, he was relieved to recognize his own old arthritis-twisted fist. He'd been too many different people in too many strange places in his dreams last night. Had any of it been real had he heard someone downstairs and gone down there

had his hoedag really been missing no no it was all a dream of course maybe he was coming down with something early fever dreams he he must have been in bed all night, dreaming the whole thing.

But still. He dressed as quickly as he could. He made his way slowly down the stairs, his old heart skipping beats in anxiety at what he'd find. Nothing, of course. That's all he'd find. Nothing out of place. He kept telling himself that. But when he reached the bottom of the stairs, and the heavy door that led into his little museum, he stopped and listened for a long, long time.

And then, finally, he licked his lips and pulled the big door open. Well, it had all been a dream. The bright electric lights in the room were on, revealing the familiar bulk of his ho-dag creation right there in its display case, frozen in its long-accustomed snarling pose. But it was a little funny that Gene had left the lights on when he went to bed last night. He was always so careful to switch them off. He thought sure he remembered doing it last night, too. And something about the air in the room wasn't right either. There was a touch of morning frost to it, like a window was open. Then there came a gentle clacking sound, and the curtains of the window across the room

bellied out a little in the breeze. Gene's path toward the window took him right past the hoedag's display case, and as he drew closer to it, he couldn't help but notice the difference. Because never, never in his long life of what he'd told himself was harmless hoaxing, never had Gene ever daubed the the Hodag's teeth and muzzle with something that was so obviously blood. The local newspaper had a lot of news to cover over the next few days. They were accounts of the big game between Rhinelander and Antigo, and of Rhinelander High's tremendous victory in the high-scoring affair, 12-6. Then there was fairly sensational coverage of the accident that had befallen one of the Antigo fans the night before the game.

Chased into the river and mauled by an unknown creature that the newspaper speculated must have been a black bear. The young Antigo High student was lucky to have been found floating downstream by early morning fishermen. He was rushed to the nearest doctor, and it was hoped that the student would make a full recovery, though his wounds were nasty, and the shock had been sufficient to confuse and exaggerate the student's memory of the attack. In the midst of all this exciting news, the announcement that familiar local character Gene Shepard was closing his little museum for good barely warranted a headline. Mr. Shepard blamed his advancing age for necessitating the closure

and mentioned to the reporter that his famous hoedag creation had recently been damaged in a small electrical fire, that he had buried it with appropriate honors. So that's the other story of what became of the original hoedag, Gene Shepard's famous hoax. And of course, the inevitable legend grew from that story, that no grave could hold the misshapen creature, and that the hoedag haunts the remoter parts of the Northwoods yet. But I think it's safe to assume that that story has been cooked up by those who followed in Gene Shepard's

well-trod footsteps. Promoters, willing to use any old tale to draw more curious visitors to the wonders that these Northwoods have to offer. I think it's safe to say that there's no harm in searching for the hoedag if you want to. No harm in searching. Although there's no telling what will happen if you actually find it on a dark night like this. Who knows? There may be many mysterious things waiting to be found out in these wild Wisconsin woods. But there's no mystery about where to find lightweight, delicious Mountain House adventure meals. Just go to REI.com or visit your local REI and check out all the meals that Mountain House offers. Hmm, storytelling sure works up an appetite.

I think I'll try this chicken tikka masala. Or the lasagna with meat sauce. Or the Mountain House veggie chorizo breakfast scramble. I just can't decide. But that's okay. I can eat whatever meal I want now and save the rest for later. Even way later. Because Mountain House meals have the longest proven shelf life in the industry.

Mountain House has been proudly making their outdoor adventure meals since 1969, right here in the USA, in Little Albany, Oregon. Mountain House. So simple to make, so satisfying to eat. Oh, and the best part? No dirty dishes. Before we get a preview of next week's story, I have a quick favor to ask. We've created a Camp Monsters listener survey that'll only take about five minutes to complete. This survey will help us get to know you, the loyal Camp Monster listener, and it'll give us insight into how you'd like to experience the show in the future. So help us out. Head to the link in the show notes to take the quick five-minute survey today, if you haven't already.

It would mean the world to me and the Camp Monsters team. Oh, and if you have a hard time finding the links in the notes, just email podcasts at rei.com and they'll point you in the right direction. Thanks. Next week will be the very last episode of this season of camp monsters how's it gone by so quickly we're gonna head south from here way south out into the steamy dreamy bayous of louisiana where the only thing thicker than the swamps are the old stories that come out of them and one of those legends in particular has been prowling around our campfire for a long time.

Fairly howling to be told. An old story with a new twist. The one about the Rugaru. I hope you'll join us one more time this year around the campfire. If you enjoy the stories that we tell here on Camp Monsters, but you've already left a great review wherever you listen to podcasts, consider taking a second to email podcastrai.com and let them know how much you like what you hear.

That's also a great place to send any suggestions for future episodes. So many of the stories we tell have been inspired by messages from listeners like you. Thanks for spreading the word about the Camp Monsters podcast. It's your support and word of mouth that's kept our campfire circle growing, and kept us bringing these stories to you.

And we hope to keep doing that for many years to come. Using every tall tale trick in the book to lure more listeners to our podcast is something that our producer Jenny Barber and senior producer Hannah Boyd take pride in. Taking tickets and giving tours of our dusty little curio house of creature stories are our executive producers Paolo Motola and Joe Crosby. Meanwhile, stitching a marketable product from the flea-bitten, half-rotten scraps of audio that I provide him is our sound designer, Nick Patry,

who hails from Wisconsin and happens to be a direct descendant of the Hodag. Even though I can't find the text in the document, Nick also says that I'm contractually obligated to add, I write and host these stories, and legend has it that my name is Weston Davis. This seems like as good a time as any to mention that the stories we tell here on Camp Monsters are just that, stories. Sure, some may be drawn from the yellow pages of old northern Wisconsin newspapers, but it's up to you to decide whether the journalists in that distant past were more or less rigorously truthful than journalists are today. Thanks for stopping by the campfire tonight. We hope to see you again next week for one more episode of the Cat Monsters Podcast.