Lore - Episode 158: A Grain of Truth

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

Oftentimes, the truth is right in front of us, made as plain as day and easy to access. But sometimes it’s lost, and the only way to track it down is through story. But as one island in the Pacific Northwest demonstrates, digging for the truth often comes at a price. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For a very long time, they were just stories, a handful of tales that painted a picture of long ago, passed down from generation to generation among the first nations people who lived along the Pacific coast of British Columbia. Stories of ancestors in the distant past living at the ocean's edge, fishing and hunting and building their lives in partnership with nature. And then those stories became fact. In 2017, archaeologists working on a small island called Triquette made a discovery that brought modern scientific understanding in line with ancient folklore.

It was the remains of a human settlement, complete with fishing tools, spearheads for hunting, and elaborate cooking pits. It was when the charcoal from those pits was analyzed that the archaeologists realized just how significant the site truly was. It dated back over 14,000 years, making it the oldest known human settlement in North America. But for lovers of oral history, ancestral folklore, and the narrative fibers that make us who we are, it's confirmation of something else.

Sometimes the stories we tell actually turn out to be true. In fact, it was the legends about those ancient communities that drew the researchers to the island in the first place, which is something I can't help but get excited about because it shows just how valuable our collective folklore truly is and that if we treat stories with respect and give them the benefit of the doubt, they have the potential to unlock forgotten pieces of our past. And you probably don't need me to tell you that that's a good thing. Oftentimes all we have left of a culture or a period in history are the stories they

left behind. It's as if the cathedral is gone, but the shadows are still on the grass where it once stood. And if we work real hard and follow the clues, we can use those remnants to piece it all back together again. But despite victories like those on Traquette Island, some journeys into history are more dangerous. Because while legends might offer us a window into the past, we have no control over the

things we might learn. Folklore might hold a new detail that could unlock our understanding of who our ancestors really were, but it can also reveal something else, our failures, our flaws, and the less savory aspects of human nature. Folklore contains powerful stories for sure, but it also holds something darker, the truth about who we are. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. It's hard to imagine a richer landscape than the Pacific Northwest, seemingly endless miles

of ocean lined by green forests and dark soil. It almost has a primordial aspect to it, and that beauty has a way of drawing you in. If you look at a map of the west coast of British Columbia, the thing that's most obvious is just how many islands there are. In the grand scheme of things, Traquette Island and its neighbors are minuscule examples of that. But farther south, toward the American border, is the granddaddy of them all, Vancouver Island. It's a place most of us have probably heard of, I'm sure.

At a little over 12,000 square miles, Vancouver Island is about the size of the American state of Maryland, but home to only 870,000 people. But while modern life is centered around the city of Victoria and its surrounding area, there's so much more to the island's story. Obviously, the history of the place stretches far back into the distant past, with various First Nation peoples having lived there. In fact, historians believe that more than 50 unique tribes were scattered across the island before European settlers arrived in the late 1700s.

They were, like the ancient settlements on Traquette Island, communities built mostly around hunting and fishing, and all the aspects of life that came with it. But Europeans changed all of that. In 1774, Spain sent a number of expeditions up the Pacific coast to explore the area, even establishing a small settlement. But four years later, the British arrived when Captain James Cook sailed along the coast, kicking off decades of arguments about which European country could lay claim to the island. In 1792, the British government sent a representative to negotiate with the Spanish.

For a while, it seemed like war would break out between the two nations over the dispute, but in the end, it was the British who took ownership. By 1794, the island had a new name, taken from the name of the man who had negotiated on behalf of the British, George Vancouver. After that, the island acted like a lot of the North American territory controlled by the British by providing natural resources that could be traded elsewhere. About half a century after taking control, the Hudson Bay Company arrived and set up a trading post where the modern day city of Victoria stands now.

And they came with a mission, attract settlers, and grow the population. What drew most of the people to the island early on was a fever that had gripped much of the west coast of North America at the time, gold. And for a while, the gold mining industry was central to the economy of the place. But it was temporary. And there's evidence all over Vancouver Island of that in the form of ghost towns. One good example is Cape Scott. It was settled in 1896 by two Danish fishermen at the northwest tip of the island.

They had originally come for the gold, but that quickly proved to be too challenging for them, and they fell back on fishing, much like the First Nations people who had lived there before them. Over the years, a number of others joined them there, and the community peaked at around 75 families. But this place was about as isolated as you could get. There wouldn't even be a paved road connecting them to the rest of the island until 1910. Combined with the harsh weather and difficult landscape, things began to turn against them.

By the late 1930s, the settlement was all but empty. And then there's Leechtown, situated about 25 miles due west of Victoria. It originally started as the campsite of one man, Lieutenant Peter Leech, of the Royal Engineers, who had followed rumors of gold into the interior of the island. And he was successful, too. Within months, hundreds of other prospectors flocked to the site, turning it into a full-fledged town almost overnight. All of a sudden, Leechtown was born, with half a dozen general stores, a few hotels,

and three dozen saloons. Basically, if it was a business that could benefit from the search for gold, that popped up in Leechtown. And for a while, it worked. But within a year, the gold dried up, and with it, the economy. Today the bones of Leechtown are still there, hidden in the grass and trees of the valley. Visitors can see remnants of old wood caverns, but there's a lot of stuff there that's not original.

You see, back in the early days of the Great Depression, people tried to open the mines back up, and while those efforts failed as well, the machinery they brought in to do the work is still there, slowly vanishing within the forests embrace. But those aren't the only remnants of the past on Vancouver Island. As we've already discussed, sometimes you have to look in places that are more difficult to see with the human eye. Because while the island might not have a lot of communities, it has more than its fair share of legends.

But like the landscape that contains them, those stories are wild and untamed. And if they're true, they are more than a little terrifying. It was the gold that brought them north. Adelaide and Benjamin had made the long and dangerous journey up the western coast of North America, leaving the warmth of San Francisco behind for the lush forests of Vancouver Island. Ever since word of gold had found its way to California in 1858, people had been migrating north in search of a better life and a chance to make it big. This young couple would have been one of hundreds, if not thousands, who were flooding

into the port of Victoria. They must have felt equal parts excitement and fear, to be one of so many others looking for the very same thing. They decided that rather than chase the gold themselves, it would be better to stay in Victoria and open a business that all those gold diggers would love. It was called the Boomerang Inn and Saloon, and as you can imagine, business was very good for a while. But in the fall of 1861, Adelaide became sick with typhus and quickly passed away, leaving

Benjamin alone in a land that was still not quite home. She had left him. But if the stories are true, it wouldn't be for long. In December of that same year, someone visiting the Quadra street-burying ground claimed to see her standing in the darkness. Her pale figure clothed in a white dress, before vanishing into the shadows. Some say her heartbroken husband took that as a sign that she wanted to speak with him, and that he spent years inside Seance rooms trying to do so.

But those are stories that are difficult to prove. In the years since the demolition of the Boomerang Inn, sightings of Adelaide have moved from the cemetery to the location of her former business. And even today, there are ghost tours in the city that will take you there, tell you the story, and leave you with more than a few chills. But Adelaide isn't the only woman in white that's said to haunt Victoria. Those who share the legend of the April Bride tend to do so in a whisper. They say it began in 1936 when a young nurse named Doris Gravelin agreed to meet her estranged

husband Victor for a conversation at night on the beach at the southeastern tip of Victoria. Honestly, could there be a more obvious setup? Doris went missing after that night, although to be fair, so did Victor. A few believed that they'd run away together, but most suspected foul play. Five days later, in late September, Doris' body was found on a nearby golf course. A couple of weeks after that, Victor's body was also discovered there, just at a different hole. Local authorities ruled it a murder-suicide, and then life went on.

But ever since, the story suggests that life did everything but move on. Every spring, for a couple of weeks in April, they say, Doris returns to the location where her corpse was found. Early reports came from random locals who happened to see her, or fishermen passing by the golf course in their boats. Later on, though, as the rumor spread, those witnesses came to include local teenagers who specifically went looking for her each spring. What they found was always the same, too.

The vision of a pale woman dressed in white, standing in the darkness. While most people over the years have made a hasty retreat after spotting her, a few have tried to get closer. According to those stories, Doris is said to have chased them away. Her arms stretched out toward them, as if running to a lover. One last story. In November of 1886, while on a trip to Alaska, the Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver Island, Charles John Saegers, was murdered.

The killer immediately confessed, was tried and found guilty, and then sent to prison. But the Archbishop's body didn't immediately return home to Victoria. In fact, it wouldn't be until November of 1888, two years later, when he was finally laid to rest inside St. Andrew's Cathedral, which was still under construction at the time. When his body came home, though, so did legends. One claims that despite the two years between death and burial, the Archbishop's body had barely decayed, all except for his face, which, as the story goes, had been eaten by

mice inside the coffin. Again, that's the legend, with not a lot of fact to back it up. It helps us understand just how fertile this man's story was for new offshoots and superstitions, but it also explains the events that took place just two years later. Because that's when a second murder took place, this time just outside the cathedral. It seems that a local man named David Fee was attending the Christmas Eve Mass in 1890, and then left to attend a party with friends. Because of that, he was wearing a white coat, which must have helped him stand out against

the darkness of the late evening. But when another man spotted him moving through the yard between the old and new cathedrals, he grabbed his rifle and fired a shot at the pale figure. David Fee passed away almost instantly from the gun wound, and his killer turned himself in a short while later. His reason for shooting a man that he didn't know or have contact with? According to him, it was an act of self-defense, because he thought he'd spotted the ghost of Archbishop Sager's.

Legends are slippery creatures. They can lure us in with pieces of fact dressed in fiction and then drive us to believe the most irrational of things. But Vancouver Island has an older tale to tell, one that's been whispered along the shores there for more than a thousand years. It's not the details that are the most frightening aspect of this legend, though, but what the events of the past two centuries have revealed. Because if we connect the dots and follow the evidence, we are forced to wrestle with

a terrifying conclusion. This story, you see, just might be true. They had talked about it for generations. In fact, the various indigenous people groups of the area each had their own names for it. They were names that instilled fear and became characters in traditional stories that were passed around the island. But even so, it was the description that made it terrifying. Among the Manusit people on the western end of Vancouver Island, the creature's name

literally translates as he who moves by wriggling from side to side. Another First Nation culture described it as like a snake, even adding that this creature had long hair on its back and head and could sometimes even have wings. There's even physical evidence that backs up the stories. Researchers have found a number of petroglyphs, ancient stone carvings that depict a long, thin creature with a head like a snake, a mane of hair, and appendages that look either like wings or flippers, depending on how you interpret the images. And as if that weren't enough, back in 1939, researchers in nearby Washington discovered

a 1700-year-old spear thrower, a device known as an atlatal, that was carved to resemble a man's head with a serpent-like creature on top. And right there on its back are what appear to be wings or fins. Obviously, this creature, its shape, its features have all been part of the folklore of the region for a very long time. When Europeans arrived in the late 1700s, they brought changes to a lot of life there. Obviously, they moved in and took over indigenous land, and they brought new technology and new ways of life to the island.

But they also brought fresh eyes to see and explore the land, and so it's no surprise that they started to notice things that left them wondering. In October of 1791, a trading ship stopped at the western tip of Vancouver Island, part of their fur-hunting efforts. While the crew was on the shore near an inlet, they looked out into the ocean waves and spotted something incredible. They described it as very large, with a long neck, large mouth, and sharp teeth. One of the traders mentioned their experience to one of the indigenous people they worked

with, and the man told them that they had witnessed high-click, a deity described as having the head of a dog and the body of a giant snake. And it wouldn't be the last sighting like that, either. Nearly a century later in 1863, a similar creature was spotted in the Strait of Georgia, between Vancouver Island and the city of Vancouver on the mainland. All through the 1880s, more and more sightings trickled in, and they were all eerily similar, too. Long necks, snake-like bodies, dark skin, and heads that resembled dogs or horses.

But I have to stop us for a moment, because sea creatures are something we've discussed here before. If we just read the descriptions of this particular creature and ignore the rest, we might miss a pattern to the various sightings in North America. And the pattern hints at something more concrete than we'd like to admit. Other mysterious water creatures we've covered include one off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and another in Lake Champlain. And a common description by witnesses of both of those was that they had heads like a horse,

dark skin, and long, serpent-like bodies. So yes, while it's exciting to hear stories about a sea creature off the coast of Vancouver Island, it's all the more incredible when those descriptions line up with sightings an entire continent away. What that all means, though, is still a mystery. But then something happened that gave all of these stories new life. A whaling vessel working in Queen Charlotte Sound to the northwest of Vancouver Island found something inside the belly of a sperm whale.

They had captured it looking for ambergris, a waxy deposit that was used in, of all things, perfume, and that required cutting open the whale's stomach. What they found inside, though, terrified them. It was the corpse of a creature that measured roughly 10 feet in length, with a long serpent-like tail and a head they described as dog or horse-like. But this wasn't 1791, it was 1937, an era with cameras and scientific labs that could do deeper studies. So photos were taken and the remains were sent to a nearby museum.

The trouble was the museum's curator of vertebrates was out of town at the time, so the only person who looked at the corpse was the resident taxidermist, who, however skilled at their job they were, wasn't a scientist. After pronouncing the remains to be that of a baleen whale, they were destroyed, rather than wait for the proper curator to return. Ever since, those who have studied the photographs and sketches of the remains have kept the mystery alive. Most believe that the creature in the photos was not a baleen whale, although they haven't

made a definitive declaration about what it actually was, either. To this day, that's a question that still hasn't been answered. Of course, while we're waiting for a name and classification for the creature, enterprising folks have tried to help out. By the early 1930s, people were already referring to it by a very scientific-sounding name, although no one's really sure where that name came from. All through that decade, newspapers published sighting after sighting, always referring to the creature as a cadborosaurus, named after Cadbur Obey off the east coast of Victoria.

To locals, though, it quickly became easier to just call the thing caddy, and it's stuck ever since. Today, just like the Gloucester sea serpent or champ of Lake Champlain, caddy is a fixture of Vancouver Island. It's part monster, part mascot, and 100% mystery. But it's more than that, too. Because regardless of whether it's an actual undiscovered animal or simply a centuries-old thread in the fabric of local culture, caddy represents the power of story.

And as long as we keep an open mind and our eyes on the sea, there's always the chance that the truth will rise to the surface. But if it does, let's just hope that it's friendly. Our world is constantly changing. Cultures and languages and the cities we call home, all of it evolves over time. Sometimes things get better, like medical science or communication technology, while other times they break down. But through it all, one thing will always be a constant for us, story.

The tales we tell have a way of lasting beyond a moment. Maybe that's because we consider our stories to be precious. Or perhaps it's because we know, deep down, they hold some grain of truth that needs to be preserved. Not everyone can build a time capsule to fill with artifacts from our lives, but story can do all of that and more. At the risk of mixing metaphors, the stories we share are a lot like pearls. They can be beautiful and attractive, but they are largely made up of the material

designed to make that tiny grain of truth at the center more palatable and comforting. Stories can be entertaining and fun, or thrilling and intense, but it's always good to stop and ask, what bit of truth are they hiding? And Vancouver Island is home to many of those types of story. Whether or not the ghost of Doris Gravelin actually appears each April on that windswept golf course along the sea, the story does a fantastic job of preserving an actual event that would have otherwise been forgotten over time. Doris was real, and so was her murder.

So when I read stories about mysterious sea creatures like Catty, I have mixed feelings. Like you, I am thoroughly entertained by the notion that there are undiscovered animals out there appearing just often enough to arouse suspicion and create rumors, but I'm also cautiously pessimistic. After all, tales of sea creatures sound a lot more like legend than fact. As I mentioned earlier, Catty's heyday was the 1930s. While the mysterious carcass was discovered in 1937, sightings appeared in the local paper, the Victoria Daily Times, off and on for years before that.

In fact, the very first time Catty is mentioned in print is in October of 1933, nearly four years prior to the discovery of those unusual remains. But if we dig deeper for the truth, there just might be something at the center of it all. You see, before Catty got its name, and before the newspapers talked constantly about it, there was another article, published six months earlier, that may have started at all. That article wasn't published in the Victoria Daily Times, though. In fact, it wasn't even published in North America.

But six months was more than enough time to allow it to find its way to the Pacific Northwest, and a community that was primed and ready by centuries of folklore. The newspaper article was written by a man named Alex Campbell for the May 2, 1933 issue of the Inverness Courier. It was about something weird and unusual that had been spotted in a local body of water there, a sighting that turned out to be the very first modern report of a creature that is universally known today, and quite possibly the inspiration for Vancouver Island's ever-elusive Catty.

Scotland's very own, Loch Ness Monster. Vancouver Island might be one small slice of the world, but it's disproportionately filled with all sorts of amazing tales. From sea monsters in ghost towns to a whole collection of ladies in whites, there are very few places one can go without bumping into stories from the past. And if you stick around after this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you about one more of my absolute favorites. He dug his fortune out of the earth.

In a lot of ways, it was the same dream that had lured in so many gold prospectors to the hills of Vancouver Island, but Robert didn't dig for gold, he dug for coal. Robert Dunn's Mirror was born in Scotland, way back in 1825. He started out his work life in coal mines operated by the Hudson Bay Company, following the work to Vancouver Island around 1851. As one mine would be exhausted, the team would pack up and move on to a new location, but life was hard and the money wasn't good. In his contract with a company expired in 1854, he decided to stay on the island but

pursue coal mining on his own. He essentially made the leap into freelancing, and with it came all the feast and famine one might expect, but Robert stuck with it for years, hoping for the big break that would change his life. That big break arrived in October of 1869. Robert had taken the day off to do some fishing, but his eyes were constantly examining his surroundings for signs of coal, and that's when he spotted it, a rich, abundant outcropping of black gold.

He quickly went to the local authorities and staked his claim, taking control of a massive stretch of land, and then he got to work. Within four years, Robert's coal company represented 40% of Vancouver Island's entire industry. Two years after that, his output had tripled. A decade later, his annual profit was close to $12 million in American money. To put it simply, Robert was rich. In the late 1880s, he put some of that money to use in the construction of a new home for

he and his wife Joan. His vision was to have his own Victorian mansion, the sort that Scottish nobility back home would have built, and no expense would be spared. When it was completed, the final bill was estimated to have been around half a million dollars, roughly 11 million today. It had 39 rooms, spread across 25,000 square feet of living space, stained glass windows, ornate stonework, and an enormous oak staircase all added a level of opulence to the house that few could match.

And it's absolutely stunning. Just do a search for Craig Durot Castle, and you'll see what I mean. But Robert never lived to see it. He passed away in April of 1889, about 17 months before construction was completed. So when his widow Joan moved in at the end of 1890, it must have been a bittersweet moment. All that beauty in space, but no robber to share it with. But tragedy wasn't finished with the house, it seems. The architect responsible for the home, Warren Haywood Williams, also died before it was finished.

And once the family moved in, that darkness came for them. Two of the couple's ten children, both daughters, passed away inside that house, and their wealth began to slowly fade away. After Joan passed away in 1908, the castle was sold to a developer, who parceled off the 28 acres of land for new homes. One lucky builder won the mansion in a raffle of all things, but almost immediately lost his fortune in a bad business deal. And it was hard for the people of Victoria to watch a story like that play out and not

imagine the place to be cursed. Today, Craig de Rock Castle is a museum, and thousands of visitors walk through its many rooms and climb those beautiful oak stairs every year. But if the rumors are true, tourists aren't the only thing roaming the halls there. Many visitors to the place have reported seeing the ghostly figure of a young woman in the basement of the mansion. They say she doesn't move or speak, but simply stands in a corner, eyes pointed at the cold stone floor.

A few people have speculated that she is Agnes, Robert's daughter who passed away shortly after him. But Agnes died before the house was completed, so how her ghost made it into the basement we'll probably never know. Upstairs, though, on that ornate oak staircase, some visitors have seen another spectral woman. They claim that she walks the stairs between the third and fourth floors, and is typically only noticed out of the corner of their eye. When people turn their heads to get a better look, a ghostly figure is said to vanish.

And look, I know it's easy to want to fill historic homes like Craig de Rock Castle with all sorts of tales and legends. The cold opulence and tragic past of the place almost seems to invite those types of stories in. But whether or not those reports are accurate, or that the tales of haunted basements and staircases are actually true, they certainly help us remember the people who once lived there. And that's the part of folklore that I absolutely love, and gives it a power that few other

traditions can match. Because if we look hard enough at any story, there's bound to be a grain of truth. This episode of lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Megan DeRosh and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both of them. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. And you can learn more about both of those shows, and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.

And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.