National Park After Dark - Stranded with Windigo: Isle Royale National Park

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

Pack your bags and bring plenty of supplies, who knows how long you will be joining us in Isle Royale National Park. In this episode we are taking you back to the 1800s during the Copper Rush around Lake Superior. When an indigenous woman and her French-Canadian voyageur husband are asked to head to Isle Royale to scope out copper they agree to stay there for three months during the summer, but when no one comes back for them they need to figure out how to survive the harsh winter of northern Michigan. With starvation and the spirit of Windigo lurking, surviving this winter is going to be extremely difficult. For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The windago was gaunt, to the point of amaciation. Its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the windigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody. Its body was unclean and suffering from separations of the flesh. giving off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition of death and corruption. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hello everyone and welcome back to National Park After Dark.

My name is Danielle. And I'm Cassie. I think the first question for today is last week. We heard you were going to Zion and I want to know how your trip went. Did you end up doing Angels Landing? I did see some pictures where you were hiking up there. Yeah, so I guess I did Angels Landing, but I can't completely check it off. It wasn't a true Angels Landing hiker.

I'm a fraud. What does that mean? So I made it up, all the switchbacks and up to the top. And there's an area for people who have not done Angels. landing that you can hang out. It's very open and flat up at the top and right before the chain section begins. And that is where I plopped my ass down and laid on my backpack and waited for my friend to complete the chain section. And I will say I was not ashamed at all to not complete it. There was a lot of people that were doing the same exact thing.

They either had done it before and didn't want to do it again or just flat out refused to do it. And they just were waiting for their friends or family. And I was one of them and I made friends there. We all chatted for 40 minutes or so while my friend completed the chain part. I was happy with myself for doing the most of the hike. The most of the hike was great. I mean, I was not afraid at all. there's no part of that portion of the trail that I think is a deterrent for people who are afraid

of heights like I am. So I encourage anybody who wants to do it to at least do that part because I think it's very worth it. Yeah, I was, I'm stoked you got on the trail because I thought you were just avoiding it completely. And actually, that's really good to know because I haven't done Angels Landing and the reason I didn't do it was because the friend that I was with was afraid of heights and she really didn't want to do it. So we just didn't go on the trail. But if I had known that we could get to a point where she could stop and I could go forward, it would have been a little bit different.

So that's really cool. I'm glad that you got on the trail. Also, on our Patreon, last week, we did post a new campfire story. We do do campfire stories on our Patreon monthly. We did post one last week, and it is a little bit of a scary story. If you are claustrophobic, it's about a man who gets stuck in a cave and the rescue mission. that was sent in for him. If you are interested in listening to that, you can go on to our Instagram National Park

After Dark and go to the link in our bio. Also, you can go onto our website, M-PADPodcast.com, and click the Patreon link there, and you can sign up. And it does have our information. You can sign up. We have two different tiers that are on there right now. There's a $4 a month tier where you have access. And then for a little bit more money, $8 a month, you do get more things.

and there's a description on our website. So you can check that out, but it is up there, and we do have bonus stories on there as well. Awesome. So this is the first week that I know very little about what we're going to speak about. I know where we're going. And you threw out about five different topics. And now we're going a completely different direction because I saw what you posted on our Instagram about a cryptid. And it was nothing that you had had told me.

before. I know. Usually I can't keep the stories to myself and I'm like, you're like, don't tell me until we recorded. I'm like, okay, but what do you think about this entire story that I'm going to tell you? I'm just so bad at keeping secrets. I just want to tell you immediately. It's not a secret because you're going to tell me anyway. I know, but it's so it's a secret for like a week though. I'm ready to hear about some cryptids, which I think is what we're doing, right? Maybe if I'm lucky. Maybe. There are some cryptids involved in this. We are heading to Isle Royale National Park. It is located in the northwestern corner of Michigan. So I was excited to research this national park because I have to be honest and say that I had

no idea. I mean, I knew it existed, but I really didn't know too much about. the park and I got to research it a lot and I got to learn a bit about it. So I'm excited to kind of tell you guys all about it as well. I know very little as well about this park. I know two things. Well, three, where it's located, the Wolf and Moose study that is conducted continuously in this park and that it's one of the least visited parks. And that's it. Yeah. Yeah, it is actually it is the least visited park in the lower 48. The only parks that are visited less than this one are parks located in the most remote parts of Alaska. So there's Lake Clark, there's Kabook Valley, and there's Gates of Arctic. And those are the only parks that have less visitors than I.O. Royal.

This park actually averaged only about 19,000 visitors per year. And then it saw a spike of 25,000 visitors in two 2018. So if you compare this to other parks, other parks have like 6.6 million, 3.3 million visitors every year. So this park has an on average 25,000 visitors each year, which makes it kind of ideal if you're looking for solitude. Yeah. And it actually reminds me one of the bad reviews about Ile Royal National Park was there's nobody here. Like that sounds great. Perfect. Sign me up. You're like, that sounds like That sounds like my ideal location. And this park actually does have a few reasons of why there might be fewer visitors. And part of the reason is that this park is actually only open during the summer.

It completely shuts down during the winter months. It shuts down every November 1st to April 1st because of the severe weather conditions there. It is surrounded by Lake Superior. So there's that lake effect there with the extremely low temperatures and wind chills. And the park regularly reaches the negatives during the winter. winter months, has strong winds and very icy conditions. And there actually isn't a lot of research about the conditions of the park because they're not monitoring it that closely. They monitor the temperatures, but as far as how much snow they get, how much ice they have, things like that,

they really don't monitor it. It's just kind of an abandoned area for the whole winter. It was established as the National Park on April 3rd, 1940, and it consists of Isle Royale. and 450 adjacent islands. Ile is 45 miles or 72 kilometers long and nine miles wide, and it is actually the fourth largest lake island in the entire world. Wait, you said there's 450 adjacent islands? Mm-hmm. In Lake Superior.

When I say islands, not all of these mean that they are these huge islands, an island can be just a small area that comes out. out of the water. It doesn't mean that there are these huge islands, but Lake Superior is huge. Have you been up to the Great Lakes before? I drove by the Great Lakes when I was on my way to Washington or Colorado or both. I don't know. But I haven't actually gone up and spent significant time there. So it is hard to visualize a body of water, freshwater that huge. So to get to Isle Royal National Park, do you access it by boat or plane only? Yeah, so the national park is only accessible by ferries, float planes, and passenger ships.

Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. Hence, the less visited park status. Another fun fact about Isle Royal is it is home to the purest copper in the entire world. A long time ago, there was a volcanic event that happened and it twisted the copper-bearing bedrock above the water line. which allowed all the sulfur impurities to burn away in the open air. This attracted a lot of copper mining on the island as early as 4,500 years ago.

For many years, Native Americans inhabited the area using the land to hunt and mine the copper themselves. The region is now scarred by ancient mine pits and trenches up to 20 meters deep. In 1793, I.O. Royale was given to the United States by the Treaty with Great Britain. However, the Ojibwe tribe, a branch of the large Anishinaabe tribe, considered the island to be their territory. They ceded the island in all of their land to the United States in 1842 under the Treaty of LaPoint, stating that the tribes native to the area could continue hunting and fishing and using the land. Settlers then began mining the areas for themselves for this copper, and this time period today is known as the copper rush. Today we will be talking about a French Canadian voyager Charlie Mott and his wife, Angelique, a woman of the Anas-Shanabe tribe, and their winter spent stranded in Isle Royale National Park because of the copper rush? Never heard of the copper rush.

Is it centralized just to this island? Yeah. Okay. Just to this area. People started kind of walking to this area because it was found to be the purest copper in the world. and it brought in money and people got greedy and kind of historically in history. We find that with either diamonds or the gold rush or anything like that, people flock to that area for money and greed and the same thing happened.

The Anishinaabe people were the third largest tribe in North America, and most of them lived near Lake Superior. They lived in wigwams they built, which were roundish huts made out of birch bark. They used mostly bone arrows to hunt, and they also made their own tools and knives that they would use. Because this tribe lived near Lake Superior, they were very familiar with the harsh winters that would happen every single year. They would grill, boil, and preserve fish to last them for the entire winter. But they would also hunt beavers, rabbits, fox, and other animals indigenous to the area. They didn't believe in wasting any part of the animal and would find uses for everything.

This tribe believed in maintaining respect for all living things and would thank each animal afterwards for their sacrifice. They believed in a system of different layers of the world. The layers consisted of the underwater realm, the land, and the sky. In each of these levels, there was believed to be a master of the species, meaning each species of living beings had their own manateau, also known as a spirit, which controls who gets blessings in their life. A significant spirit within their beliefs is the Windigo. The Windigo is a manateau of humans and is the spirit of winter. The name Windigo roughly translates the evil spirit that devours mankind.

It represents the dangers of selfishness and greed, and it is said to reside in the forest of the Great Lakes region and the central regions of Canada. They are said to be giant creatures with some human-like characteristics, skeletal bodies, with their bones pushing against their gray skin, long yellow fangs, long tongues, claws, and fur. They can manifest themselves as a monster or spirit. It is said to have an unsational craving for human flesh. Under conditions of starvation, human beings can also become or turn into windagoes themselves and become cannibalistic. There is no hope or cure at this point.

The only solution is to kill the affected person. They are known to pray on human beings during the winter months, but also have been spotted during the summer months as well. Windagoes are said to have been human at one point, who resorted to cannibalism and returned into Windegos for all of eternity, now praying on human flesh or manifesting themselves as a spirit and taking over a person's body. Now that we all know what a windigo is, we're going to go into the story of Charging. and Angelique Mott. They were a married couple living in La Point, Wisconsin, which is a town along

the edge of Lake Superior. And this story takes place a long time ago. So in 1845, they were approached by two men from Detroit, who traveled there on a ship called the Alequin, who were looking for copper. They asked the two of them if they would join them to Isle Royal to scope out the island. The two agreed and went along with them. When they arrived at the island, they started to search around for the copper, walking the coastlines and into the forest, they scoured for any signs of the copper there. Angelique, however, went off on her own to look for herself. She wandered along the beach for a long time until she saw something shining in the water. It was a massive piece of copper. Angelique then hurried back and reported what she had found. The men were really excited for this

and wanted to locate it immediately. When returning to the area, they realized that this piece of copper was so large that they would need extra power to bring it off the island. They also realized that Iov Royal was going to be an area with a lot of copper and worth a lot of money. It was at this point that they asked Charlie and Angelique if they would be willing to occupy the island for them while they went and got more people to come out and mine this area. They offered to pay Charlie $25 a month and Angelique would be able to come with him and they would pay her $5 a month to cook for Charlie. Oh. I know.

I read that. I was like, wow. Okay. This indigenous woman who knows how to live off the land and has many skills. They're like, you can cook for a measly portion of pay while you're there. I read that. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Classic.

And it's, it's now, you know, it's like, looking back on it. You're like, what? What? But she may have, it might have been a great opportunity for her at the time. Yeah. So they did agree. They agreed to the terms and they headed to a nearby town to plan and collect supplies for their new journey on the island for the summer. When they arrived in this nearby town, they were planning to get months of supplies for them because they weren't planning to be returning from the island until the fall. While they were there, they met a man named Mendez. Hall, who was the owner of the ship and also the person in charge of getting the copper from the island. Mendenhall told them that there was no need for the two of them to be collecting so much supplies and food for their time on Isle Royale because he had plenty of supplies that he could use back in LaPoint.

Because he was paying for all these supplies because they're paying for them to go to the island. Basically said, we don't need to buy all these. I have supplies. They're back in LaPoint. We'll go there. At this point, they head back to LaPoint to gather these supplies, and when they arrived, they realized that Mendenhall had not been totally honest, and he didn't have nearly the amount of provisions he had claimed earlier on. All he had to offer them was half a barrel of flour, six pounds of butter that smelled very badly, and was more of a white lard, and a few beans. So he was trying to skimp out on costs?

Yes. Okay. I can't even imagine what butter, white lard butter smells like in a barrel. In a barrel? White lard and beans. Imagine having to camp and like I would never bring any of that stuff for my camping food. I just can't. Angelique is probably like, you want me to do what with this?

That's exactly what she said. Angelique sees this and she immediately does not want to continue this trip or accept this job off. She recognizes right away that she does not want to live off of those supplies and that this trip was already not panning out to what was promised initially. So she did not want to continue on until they were given the supplies that they were promised. She expressed all of these concerns to Charlie and he then relayed them onto Mendenhall. So in the midst of this conversation, Mendenhall promised two things. Firstly, he promised that within the next few weeks he would send supplies to them with everything that he had originally promised. And his second promise was at the end of their three months on the island, Mendenhall himself, would arrive to take them home.

Charlie agreed to these promises, although Angelique was still highly skeptical and did not want to go at all. Angelique's mother had begged her not to go, fearing that she would not ever return and not trusting the men to keep their word about the supplies. She decided, however, she could not let her husband go alone. And very against her own will, against her mom's concerns, she joined her husband on Isle Royale on July 1st, 1845. Do you know how old she was or they were? That's a great question. So I do not know how old he is, but I do know that Angelique was 17. 17 years old.

I had a feeling that she was younger, just based on the age that women married back then. But 17 is very, very young. Certainly very young to be out copper mining and surviving on an island with limited supplies and away from your family. But also things were very different back then. But to us, it is very, very young. So when they arrived to the island, they settled into a small cabin that had been built there already, and they began their life on the island. They got into a routine of how their days would go, and they lived a quiet and simple life in this beautiful area of Isle Royale, and they planned to call this place home for the next few months. They had a bark canoe and a net, and each day they would head out into the water, and they would catch their own fish.

and being limited in their supplies, this is what they mostly lived off of when they were there. Luckily, in this area, there is an abundant of fish, and catching them was not an issue, and it wasn't difficult at all. So it actually worked out pretty well. They had these other supplies that they could use, but there were so many fish in the area, and they were catching them so easily that it was very easy for them to find food. living off the land versus the initial concern of very limited and maybe spoiled supplies. Yeah.

However, one day, they were out on their hunt for fish and a summer storm rolled in really fast. The weather picked up and brought in high waves and they capsized out in the water. They were both able to swim to shore, but during so their net was broken and their canoe was dragged out far into the lake, and it was lost. Their only canoe. And their only net to catch fish. So at this point, they were left to live off of the small amount of flour, the butter, and the beans they had until the vessel arrived with their supplies.

Every day they sat out on the beach and they looked onto Lake Superior for a ship to be arriving to bring them food. And every day, no one came. So at this point with no means to catch fish anymore, they were now living off of the small supply that they were. had left, bark, roots, and bitter berries. These days and weeks continued to go by and still no one arrived with any food. This was when they realized that they had been abandoned, and they would need to survive the

entire winter on the island, and there would be no way off until spring. Oh, so the three-month mark has gone. Yeah. He didn't keep his word. No one came. Wow. And they clearly didn't stock up on fish when they had the opportunity. No, because they assumed that they were going to come.

And they, I guess, probably didn't plan for their boat to be gone and for their net to break. They were planning for someone to come back for them. Right. When this realization kicked in for Angelique, this was too hard to bear for her. All she could see for the future months was sickness, starvation, and then inevitably she would die. They would both die. Worst case scenario thinker, that's me. Yeah. Realistic, realistic of what could happen, especially with no food and the winter coming, she was indigenous to the area. She had been there for many, many winters and she knew what to expect. So Angelique and Charlie both kept track of every single day. They always knew what day it was and how long that they had been stranded out there for. Colder weather started to come in and food started to become more scale.

The concerns of starvation grew every single day. Angelique started to dream of her mother often. Her mother would come in her dreams and tell her to keep going and give her clear visions on troubles coming and ways to survive. As the days went on, these visions became more often and more clear. Five days before Christmas, they ran out of food. There was not so much as a single bean left for them to eat. The snow had come down thick and heavy all around them.

And the island was bitter cold and the entire island was frozen and ice. So she had, and I know I'm putting a lot on her, but it's just because, like you said, she's indigenous and has a lot of skills that I'm envisioning the husband does not have, but they didn't do any sort of hunting, trapping, or any, maybe they didn't have the tools to utilize for that. They literally were just gathering bark and berries and that's all that they could do. they didn't have any tools for hunting that they came with besides the net. The net. Yeah, because they were only planning to be there for summer. I keep forgetting that. I'm just like in my mind, I'm like, okay, where's all these supplies that one should have?

Yeah. Charlie and Angelique also didn't have any snow shoes to help them get around the island, and they couldn't dig to any roots because of how frozen everything was. Getting food became a real challenge and starvation was starting to set in. Angelique was suffering terribly from hunger. She would dig as hard as she could around the cabin with no luck to get any food. Charlie was suffering even more than Angelique. He grew weaker and weaker every single day. He lost his will to live, his courage, and even himself.

And one day, a fever set in. Every day his fever got worse and worse, until at last he became. Manick. Sitting inside the cabin, trying to stay warm with the fire going, Charlie suddenly sprang out of bed, something he hadn't done in a very long time. He then went and grabbed a butcher knife and started to sharpen it on a wet stone. I am tired of being hungry. I would kill a sheep.

I must have something to eat. He glared directly at Angelique, his eyes black. Angelique knew in this moment that the sheep he was talking about was her. In this moment, Charlie was no longer Charlie. Angelique feared that the spirit of Windigo was taking over his body, and he was starting to become one himself. That is absolutely terrifying. So scary. Your husband is sharpening a knife staring at you, saying he's hungry and looking at you like your food.

Delirious. Delirious. But still strong. Stronger than you. Very scary. so she watched him closely and carefully all day and all night. He had his knife still clutched in his hand. Not sleeping for a second,

she was certain that he was about to spring up at any moment and kill her. At last, in his exhaustion, he fell back to sleep and she was able to safely get the knife away from him. The next few days his fever continued and his anger continued. He would look at Angelique with dead eyes, seeing her as the sheep he wanted, kill and eat. The fever of Fits eventually stopped and he came back to being himself. He became the loving husband she knew and was so kind. He had no memory of what had happened

the past several days. She didn't have the heart to tell him, so she didn't. She continued to nurse him and try to get him to eat. In the midst of trying to carry him and feed him, she sprained her arm, which made every task so much more difficult. Angelique tried to be strong around her husband and not cry, but seeing his body shrink every single day until there was nothing left, sometimes she could not help but cry in front of him. She watched him suffer and barely living, and there was nothing that she could do. At last one day, Charlie died. He had been so close to the edge of death and for so long,

she could not even tell when he took his last breath. In the Anashinaabe people's beliefs, when a person dies, there's soul begins a four-day journey, and on each of those days they will be faced with temptation of different berries. Their soul must be strong enough to not stop and eat these berries, or they will be stuck where they are forever and never reach the afterlife. Then after they complete the berry challenge, they will come across a river with a slippery log. If the soul fails to successfully cross, they will be swept into oblivion. If they do make it a cross, they will join their ancestors into the afterlife. When a person dies, it is traditional to groom and wash their bodies

and dress them nicely and wrap them in birch bark before their burial. The family will then burn a fire for them for five days while their soul is on their journey to the afterlife. Then offer food and tobacco to the spirit and put birch bark matches into their coffins as a way to ask the creator to light the spirit's path to the afterlife. I love hearing all of these ancient traditions, death rituals. It's just so fascinating. Yeah. It was really interesting to read their beliefs and things that they did. And it's just things I never would have thought of or knew about. So it's really cool. Yeah. It's not native related, but there is a book that I highly recommend to anybody. It's so short, I read it on a plane ride. And it's called From Here to Eternity Traveling the World in Search for the Good Death.

It's by Caitlin Doty and she is a mortician in L.A. and she has done tons of research and travels in the field of bereavement. And she wrote this book about like what you were just describing different cultures, death rituals and what they do. Because we're so kind of narrow-minded as Americans as far as someone dies. You have their funeral, awake, their bear. or embalmed, buried, cremated, etc. Like, it's very standard. So to hear about the different rituals that so many different cultures around the world

have practiced and still do practice today is so very interesting. Everything from laying bodies out for vultures to eat them, to mummifying the body, and then burying them, but every so many years, exhuming them and spending time with them, dressing them, giving them a smoke that happens in Central America and in areas of Mexico. And it's just so interesting. It sounds bizarre. It sounds super bizarre, but also very interesting. I would definitely like to read that.

Yeah. It's really quick. And each chapter is just a very brief overview of different cultures. And like you said, when they had the offering of the matches for light for their journey, it just really reminded me of that. So I would definitely read that. She has two other books, too. But that one is really cool.

Add it to our book club collection of everything that we are suggesting everyone reads. I don't know who's keeping track. But, yeah, add it to the list. Yeah, we have a lot of books we've recommended on here, which I actually really like because I've learned of a couple from you that I want to read. And it's fun to find all these books. Yeah. So if anyone wants to, you know, lead that club, let us know.

All right, go on. All right. So going back to Angelique, Angelique washed Charlie and laid him out in his clothing. But with the ground around them, either frozen or rock, there was just no way to bury him. And she also had no coffin to put him into. This was absolutely heartbreaking for Angelique. She couldn't carry on her tradition. the tradition of her people.

So for three days she sat with Charlie keeping a fire lit for him. With the heat of the fire, though, she was afraid his body would spoil and she could not bear the thought of throwing him outside into the snow. She made the very hard decision to leave the hut and leave Charlie inside. She would head out with her sprained arm and build a lodge for herself and take the fire she had with her. Wow. Committed. Committed, and also I thought about it.

And what love there was there to not only she left the cabin as his burial spot or his temporary burial spot. And she went out in these frigid, horrible conditions and built her own shelter and went and took that off. She was in her own cabin. And because he died there and her beliefs, she couldn't give him the traditional burial that she believed in. She left him there because she couldn't. bear taking him outside. That's commitment both to him and to, it just shows how solid her belief was. What is interesting about Angelique, too, is that her beliefs and she grew up in this tribe,

she also happened to be Christian. So something that I was looking at in the history of obviously the native people's coming, or being there, and then the settlers coming in is that the native peoples in these areas, they actually took on some of the religious beliefs of the settlers that came in, and a big part of that was Christian. And it was something that they formed in their own beliefs. And then they also kept what they grew up with and what their family traditions were as well. So she did happen to be Christian, but these were deep-rooted beliefs that she also had. So at this point, she's now constructing her own shelter?

Mm-hmm. Okay. And she's constructing her own shelter. And remember, she has a sprained arm. So this is really difficult for her to do. But she is able to do it. And she has the fire with her. And she feels that this fire is almost company for her.

It seemed alive. It was bright and cheerful. And it almost put this spirit in. to her. Some nights, the sky would light up with the northern lights, which Angeloic called dancing spirits of the sky. So these were what were keeping her company at this point, were these spirits dancing in the sky and her fire. And she would also go back to the cabin occasionally to sit with Charlie and visit him as well. Just anything to keep her mind busy and occupied. Yeah, she's completely alone on this island, so those were some things that she found comfort in.

And her starvation was really getting to her, and she knew that it was wrong against all of her beliefs, but she couldn't help but think about consuming Charlie's body for nutrients. She couldn't help but think how easy it would be to just make soup out of him and have food, food that would last. but she was so very afraid that the windigo would take over her body the same way it had done Charlie and that she would end up eating him. Angeli believed in Christ and she would pray to him every day throughout her hunger to help her. Of everything that was happening and everything that was going on,

she was afraid of the windigo the most and she prayed about him the most and fought the hardest against it. So she was praying every single day that the windigo would not take over her body and consume her. Because remember when we talked about him earlier, he is associated with cannibalism. And if she was to eat Charlie, she firmly believed that she would become a windigo herself. So that was one thing that was deterring her,

other than the fact that she would be cannibalizing someone she loved, that it was just kind of putting that barrier up, just the fear of being taken over by this. entity. She was so afraid of the spirit that she was just praying. She could be strong enough not to have to resort to that. So one night she was having these thoughts more than ever. She had been without food, without any food, except for bark, for more than a week. She sat and prayed to God that he would bring her something to eat so she would stop having the urge to resort to cannibalism. That very next morning, for the very first time, she saw her,

rabbit tracks. It almost took her breath away. Her blood started running through her veins like fire, and the will to keep fighting was ignited. She ripped a lock of her hair from her head and started to make a snare out of it and set it. What? Right? I read that and I'm like, she pulled her own hair out to create a snare, to catch and kill a rabbit. The innovation. The survival skills. The survival skills. this woman had. I mean, I don't know if that's a traditional method or if she just came up with that on the fly. But either way, that's incredible. Yeah.

And the best part about that is she caught one that very same day. What? What? I mean, great, but wow. Yeah, she caught one that very same day. and in all of her hunger, she did not even wait to cook it. She tore this rabbit skin off and ate him raw. Okay.

Wow. Just really getting in there. I mean, I can't blame her. I would probably do the same exact thing and I don't even eat meat. But in that situation, honey, you bet I'm eating anything that walks. Yeah. It's like, I'm starving. I'm eating it.

So it was another week until she caught another. rabbit. And she continued to build these snares with her own hair, catching about one rabbit per week. That's good. One rabbit a week. And she's pulling hair. Like, she's literally pulling her hair out for this. And she's catching one rabbit a week, just enough to be surviving. The time was passing very slowly for her. And she started trying to sleep as often as she could and as much as she could to one rest her body, but also just to pass time. It got to the point, though, where her body just would not sleep. And when she would stay still for too long, her limbs and her joints would become stiff, and it would make it almost impossible to move them afterwards. So she decided that the

best thing for her to do was to just keep moving, and she found herself walking around the island all the time. In early March, during one of her walks along the shore, she did get a stroke of luck. found a canoe that had been washed up ashore and was broken. She was able to mend it well enough to where it was usable for the water. The canoe also had a sail on it, which she was able to cut up and made the strips into a net. She felt like all of her prayers had been answered with this, and she felt like she was finally saved. She felt like she was going to be able to go home and that she was going to see her mom again. Spring was coming, birds were returning to the area, they were chirping, and she was

now able to sustain herself with fish. This was a huge deal for her. She really felt at this point that she actually had a chance. She was going to get off the island. She was going to survive. So on one morning in May, she was on the shore cooking fish that she had caught from that morning and she suddenly hears a gunshot and then another. Angelique jumps up and starts sprinting towards the sound. Her heart was beating out of her chest. And as she's running, her knees give out and she falls to the ground. Another gunshot. She got up and kept running.

She made it just in time for the crew to reach the shore. The very first man off the boat was Mendenhall. He greeted her and put his hand up to shake her hand. And she did. Where is Charlie? He asked. He is sleeping. You can go up to the hut to see him for yourself.

She replied. The crew all ran up together. to go see Charlie. When Mendenhall entered, he could see that Charlie was dead. The men then began removing his clothing to look for any signs that Angelique had murdered him. Upon removing his clothes, they found his skeleton body, and they could see very clearly that he had died of starvation. I can imagine she's also not looking so hot, so why did they just, like, shake her hands?

Like, okay, where's your husband? Is there any concern for her? Or? How is my thought, too? like, oh, you've been here all winter high and shake your hand. I haven't seen you in forever. You're still here. And also, we're going to double check and make sure you're not a murderer.

Right. Like, okay. So at this point, Angelique, she enters the hut herself. And Mendenhall turns to her and he immediately begins to cry. He started to explain to her that he had sent men to. to them with supplies, and he had no idea why they had never come. Oh, okay. So he made an attempt.

Angelique did not believe him at all. She was very skeptical, and she did not believe a word he was saying. She knew that he had the power to send people, and no one arrived, and she had been there all winter. She wasn't buying it. But she didn't say a word. She just took it for what he said, because, she just wanted to get home. She didn't want to risk anything. She didn't want to say anything.

She just said, okay, take me home. Smart move. So they boarded the ship together and they brought her back home where she was reunited with her mother. The crew members, when they got back, told Angelique that Mendenhall's story of sending a ship was not true and it was assumed that they didn't come because of money, because it would have cost money to send them supplies. And also, he would have had to pay them. He would have had to pay them to be on the island. He was paying him $25 a month, her $5 a month. And then also they had access to the copper.

So it was thought that he decided that he didn't want to pay them and would just come back the following spring to get the copper. So his plan all along was just to leave them and hope they died. so he didn't have to pay out. Yeah. Wow. That was the skeptical. That was what was said they thought would have happened.

So this story might have ended in 1846 when Angelique was rescued from the island. But it is not over. There have been sightings of Charlie Mott and his ghost on the island to this day walking around searching for food. So visitors see him. So visitors on the island, if you are visiting Iowa Royale, you might see a ghost walking around the island. He is very thin and in search of food. And it is said that Charlie Mott has never left the island since he died there. Angelique does write about her entire story, and I did read it.

And it's where I got this entire story from. And she describes in her own words what this whole endeavor was like and how horrible the starvation was. And she really talks about it. And there is actually also a movie. So the movie is called Abandon Angelique's Isle. And it is about her whole journey there. It caught my eye and I did watch it because the woman who produced the movie is Native American herself. and she really wanted to highlight a woman, an indigenous woman, because there's really not a lot of history on indigenous women or indigenous people, but especially indigenous women and how strong they were.

And this whole story of her survival on this remote island with no, with literally no supplies. And she managed to survive this whole endeavor. She really wanted to highlight that. She did make a movie about it. I did watch it. I do have to say that there are some things that she does change in the story from what Angelique says. There are some differences, but it is on there. You can rent it.

If you, I don't remember what I rented it on because I just talk into my remote and then it pulls it up. So I don't know what it's on, but you can rent it for $4.99 and watch it if you'd like. So do we know anything about her after? this, did she go on to remarry or other than carrying men on her back in competitions, do we know what she did? The only thing that I could find documented on her life afterwards is that she did live until 1875. That is just, that story's wild for a lot of reasons, but the thing that stood out to me

the most is her ability to overcome the basic biological. cravings that you have when you're starving, it goes against, of course, everything that we know. And, you know, I don't know any culture that... I know cultures that do practice cannibalism, but I believe, and I'm probably wrong, but I believe it's mainly for religious reasons and religious practices.

It's not just you're killing people and eating them, just on a random day. But just the complete control that she had and faith that she had that drove her to, I guess, just not eat her husband. Like, I just, you know. Certainly her beliefs were stronger than her need of food. I mean, I wouldn't say her beliefs were stronger than her need to survive, but they were certainly incorporated in her need to survive.

and she wasn't willing to sacrifice her beliefs for what she needed to survive. And she found another way around it. I can't get over the hair snare. I just can't get over it. How do you even think to do that? The survival skills this woman had just amazing. And maybe it was something. Maybe it was something that was passed down as a means of survival in her tribe or her

people. Maybe it was like a common practice and to us now just learning about it. It's blowing our mind. So great job. I think next week, I feel a Zion episode coming. I just feel like I should do it some justice. Oh, we're getting a preview this week. Maybe. Who knows? We'll see what I'm feeling. I don't know. Now I'm counting on it. Yeah. So thank you guys for tuning in again this week. And we We hope to see you next Monday. Yeah. And we love, I feel like we haven't been saying it too much recently, but we love listener stories. Send us some stories of your own in national parks.

We would love to hear them. We got one recently about a bear. And they're just so fun to read. And we really enjoy them. So if you have some type of story, whether it's survival, whether it's something you've found in a park, whether it's a story of someone else that you. you know in a park, whatever. That's all I have for you guys today.

So have a wonderful week, and we will see you next Monday. So in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye, guys. Bye. Just really speed up and sit still. I can't fucking sit still. I know you can't.

I know you can't. It's so hard. Just for like 30 seconds. And then for like the next hour. Okay. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average.

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