Big Fish

Papa was a very big story teller like his grandfather. He told us many stories over the years. I never questioned any of them. Reality gets very dull sometimes, so it's fun to think of UFOs, mythical creatures, ghosts, sasquatches and dinosaurs in the water. I've come to accept that I don't know everything. The universe is too vast and complicated for the human mind to fully comprehend. I always believed Papa felt the same way. He kept himself open to the possibility of these things. He often said, "You just never know."

Papa liked to wait for the right moment to tell his stories. Often it was when we were around the campfire at night, or laying down in the tent by the old house at the farm while the wind wailed around us. He told me many times about the ghost in the old house at the farm. He said his grandpa saw the ghost of a long-dead relative in the livingroom. He also told us how Pop-Pops would put salamanders in people's shoes. This was obviously passed down to Papa because there were three times when we found salamanders in our shoes at the farm. Papa told us it was the ghost of Pop-Pops playing tricks on us, but looking back on it now I think it may have been Papa himself who did it.

He also told us about the UFO. He said he was camping with some friends one time. They were laying around the fire in their sleeping bags, looking up at the stars. There was a light in the sky that was darting back and forth. It would cross the entire sky, bounce back and move around in strange shapes. Papa said they all looked at each other, didn't say a word and went to sleep. He believed it was a UFO. He said there was no aircraft or shooting star that could move around like that.

 

Papa's grandpa passed down stories to him about hooshers and wendigos. He said hooshers were very slim, tall creatures that stood behind trees and made sounds that went like, "Hooooosh!" He said they had voices like the wind and that you would never be able to see them because they would move around the trees, or go from tree to tree very quickly. Wendigos were either bears or wolverines possessed by evil spirits. He said you could tell them apart from regular bears and wolverines because they had silver-tipped hair that took the form of a stripe down their backs. He also said you could feel their presence because it would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Wendigos were dangerous and you would never be able to escape from one.

He told us a story once about him walking through the woods. He was all alone and was looking for a fishing spot along Old Man River. He came to a clearing in the forest where there was an ancient Indian burial ground. He described the birds going completely silent once he stepped into the clearing and how the hair on the back of his neck was standing up straight. He said a feeling washed over him that told him he needed to leave that place immediately and never come back.

Papa never made it to Scotland, but if I bet if he had he would've had stories to tell about the Lochness Monster. He did, however, speak of Ogopogo in Okanogen Lake. He never admitted to seeing such a creature, but he said the natives believed in it and that was enough to convince him as they know things that we don't.

Sasquatches were something that really interested Papa. We spent hours watching documentaries and TV shows about them together. He had many books about sasquatches. One of his favourite stories turned out to be a hoax, but even that didn't destroy his belief in them. Papa travelled to the Seattle area three times in his life. The last two times I was able to go along with him. He said there used to be a lot of sightings in the Washington area, especially around Mount St. Helens. According to him, sasquatches lived and thrived in the lava tunnels before Mount St. Helens errupted. After the natural disaster occurred, there were less and less sightings. While on vacation with him down there, we camped around in some very densely wooded areas. Papa told us very seriously to watch out for sasquatches. He even entertained the idea that sasquatches were dropped on Earth by alien spaceships.

Papa believed in ghosts more than anything else. We used to watch a TV show together called Creepy Canada. It covered all kinds of local ghost stories. It came on right when I got home from school. Papa would have dinner waiting. We would sit in the livingroom, watch Creepy Canada and eat dinner. For a while it was the highlight of each day for me. I looked forward to it. Many times he told me that once he passed away, he would try to come back and visit his grandkids in spirit form. I have not yet seen or heard from him since his passing, but I like to keep an open mind because you just never know.

Submitted by: Amber Copeland, Granddaughter