Friday, October 21, 2011

The Legend of the Dogman

While I was driving back from Occupy Bois Blanc Island on Monday, I happened to be flipping through local radio stations and came across this gem of a song:



Just in time for Halloween. Gentle readers, do you know of any other cryptids or spirits haunting our great state?

7 comments:

  1. Dogman! Oh, this legend is a northern Michigan treat. I'm alerting Aubrey.

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  2. They're actually filming a movie about it right now, up here in Benzie County. So stay tuned for that...

    When I was in high school, we used to go out driving around, looking for him at night. It's not just the -7 years, like the song says: at least according to my friends, who have all kinds of reported sightings they can tell you about; one, in particular, says that Dogman hunts, kills, and eats wild deer with his bare hands (paws?). A friend of mine (that some of you refer to as Jesus) told me once* that one of our parents' friends IS the Dogman (in reference to that sighting; it was that he had shot a deer with his bow, only wounded it, so he ran and jumped on the deer's back, killing it with his knife in its chest — Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!).

    Knowing this man, I could almost believe it...

    ***FYI: "Jesus" has since denied every telling me this...

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  3. Also: in reference to your query about other hauntings in Michigan...

    1. I got my cousins a book that has all sorts of weird Michigan legends and spooks...in fact, I think it was this book, titled appropriately "Weird Michigan" http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Weird-Michigan/Linda-S-Godfrey/e/9781402739071?itm=3&z=y (though I'm not positive this is the book, but, if it's not, it seems to have a lot of similar stuff in it).

    2. Another Northern Michigan legend is the ghost at Bower's Harbor Inn, on the Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City. http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/mi/bowers_harbor_inn.cfm

    Before they became millionaires from the lumber & steel industries, a Chicago couple, J.W. & Genevieve Stickney, bought a farmhouse on the property. They got rich, tore down the house, and built the mansion in 1885. Genevieve was reportedly very vain and very jealous of other women, thinking that her husband found them more attractive than her (because she, herself, was very heavyset). At some point, she had an elevator put in the mansion so she didnt have to climb the stairs, and she bought a gilded mirror, which I guess made her look a lot thinner. Apparently, she became so big that J.W. got a nurse to help care for her...and, you guessed it, he had an affair with the nurse. AND, to add insult to injury, when J.W. died, he left his fortune to the nurse, not his wife (she got the house and land). Apparently, she killed herself in the elevator (hanging)...

    *NOTE: I had not heard much of this part of the story until reading this webpage, so take it with a grain of salt. My knowledge of it — just being a local — was that she was very vain and jealous, and I knew about the mirror, and I knew there was an elevator.

    When the mansion was converted to a restaurant in 1959, those owners promptly sold it in 1964, and again it was sold in 1974, and again in 2006 to the current owners.

    All owners have claimed the place is haunted by the couple (though perhaps that is partly to stir up business; at least that's what my dad thinks, having worked there in the 70s).

    When they converted it to a restaurant, they put the mirror (which I think had been in the attic) in the women's bathroom. Women started reported seeing Genevieve's reflection in the mirror, and eventually the mirror was removed because it was freaking people out. Also, the bathroom door would slam by itself.

    Additionally, friends of my parents who worked there say that dishes would crash and break all the time, plates of food would go flying into the air on their own, and the elevator would go up and down on its own, without anyone in it.

    Additionally, (I just read this part, I hadn't heard these before) household objects would be hurled at people by an unseen force, and personal items would go missing and/or turn up in weird places, the basement lights would turn on by themselves, there were strange knockings in the walls — you know, typical ghost stuff.

    My dad, however, who worked there for like like three or four years while he was in high school and college, says this is all crap. Of course, he also doesn't believe in weird sci-fi crap like that. But my mom, who didn't work there but knows a lot of people (besides my dad) who did, is the one who told me the stories. And my uncle and my aunt worked there too (Bower's Harbor Inn is only like a mile down the road from where my grandparents live and where my dad grew up), and they claim that "yeah, weird stuff happened." but they sort of leave it at that.

    As you look for more Michigan legends, happy haunting!!!

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  4. It's also known as the beast of Bray Road, which I just found out in Wikipedia's list of cryptids. Don't click on that if you have anything you need to do in the next hour.

    Many of North Peak's beers are named after cryptids, local and otherwise as well.

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  5. @Aubrey How could some obese older woman have the strength to hang herself in an elevator? Maybe it was all in her arms?

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  6. @GH: yeah, like I said, I hadn't heard that part of the story before I just read that part, so take it with a grain of salt. I knew there was an elevator and that it would go up and down on its own, but the hanging part seems like it was made up AFTERWARD, to enhance the story. Seems far fetched...

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