Monsters of the Northern Woods: Swift Runner and the Legend of the Wendigo

Swift Runner (Kah-Kee-See-Koo-Chin) was a Cree hunter and trapper who lived near what is present-day Central Alberta. He was a skilled outdoorsman who occasionally traded with the Hudson Bay Company and had previously acted as a guide for the North-West Mounted Police.

In the fall of 1878, he set off into the unforgiving wilderness with his family to hunt and trap. Months later, he emerged alone, with a tragic explanation. The truth would eventually come to light, exposing one of the most horrific crimes in Canadian history. Swift Runner claimed to have been compelled to commit his heinous acts by an “evil spirit,” which some have said refers to his possession by the legendary Wendigo, a malevolent creature of Algonquian folklore.

The crimes and the confession

Swift Runner reappeared alone at an Egg Lake (now Manawan Lake) encampment in the spring of 1879. When questioned, he said that his children had died of starvation, and his grief-stricken wife had shot herself. His brother and mother had gone in search of food in February and never returned, he told them. Swift Runner told the same story to missionaries at nearby St. Albert, and they were immediately suspicious. Starvation was not uncommon during the harsh Canadian winters, but Swift Runner did not look like a man who was starving. In fact, the 6’3” hunter looked quite healthy and well-fed. In addition to his inconsistent story and strange behavior, Swift Runner complained that he was suffering from odd, recurring nightmares, which made the missionaries even more uneasy. They eventually contacted the Mounties stationed at Ft. Saskatchewan, relaying that they suspected something terrible had happened to Swift Runner’s family out there in those woods.

Swift Runner was arrested and taken in for questioning, where he maintained his innocence, insisting he’d survived by boiling and eating his moose-skin teepee. Skeptical, the Mounties had Swift Runner take them to his camp to investigate. As they drew close, he is said to have thrown back his head and let out a long wolf-like howl.

One of the first things they found at the camp was Swift Runner’s intact teepee—the one he claimed to have eaten—folded and draped over a tree branch. Next, they located a graveyard of boiled bones. The longer bones had been broken open and the marrow sucked out, while human teeth marks were clearly visible on any remaining shreds of flesh. In the fire pit, sat charred entrails. Eight skulls were located, some of which had been shattered with a tomahawk, presumably to extract the brains.

When he was confronted, Swift Runner stuck to his story, but admitted to eating his family after they died. His oldest son, whom he had not eaten, was buried in a shallow grave nearby. The Mounties collected the skulls and several bones from the scene, before burying the rest of the remains where they lay.

Back at Ft. Saskatchewan, Swift Runner was interrogated for hours, while his family’s bones lay spread out on the table in front of him. There, his disturbing behavior continued. After being asked to identify one of the larger skulls, he stuck his finger in the eye socket and chuckled, “This is my wife.”

He eventually confessed to murdering and eating his family, except for his oldest son, who officials verified did die of starvation. Swift Runner refused to identify the seventh and eighth skulls, repeating that his brother and mother had left before the murders and he didn’t know what happened to them. A few days before his execution, Swift Runner repeated the confession to Father Hippolyte Leduc, giving the man permission to submit it to the press for publication. In the narrative, he recounts his descent into madness. One passage reads:

“I discovered soon that my family wanted to leave me from fear of meeting the same fate as my boy. One morning I got up early, and I don’t know why – I was mad. It seems to me that all the devils had entered my heart. My wife and children were asleep around me. Pushed by the evil spirit, I took my gun, and placing the muzzle against her chest, shot her. I then without any delay took my hatchet and massacred my three little girls. There was now but one little boy, seven years old, surviving.

I awoke him and told him to melt some snow for water at once. The poor child was too much weakened by long fasting to make any reflection on the frightful spectacle under his eyes. I took the bodies of my little girls and cut them up. I did the same with the corpse of my wife. I broke the skulls and took out the brains, and broke up the bones in order to get the marrow. My little son and I lived for seven or eight days on the flesh – I eating the flesh of my wife and children, and he the flesh of his mother and sisters.

In the summer of 1879, Swift Runner was tried for the murders. Some details would emerge that conflicted with his previous confession, including forcing one of his sons to kill his younger brother and admitting to cannibalizing his mother and brother. He even described the former as “a bit tough.” One of the most chilling revelations was that Swift Runner did all this while there was plenty of dried meat hanging in his camp. On August 8th, 1879, he was sentenced to die that December 20th, in the region’s first formal hanging.

Judgment day

On the day of the execution, the temperature was a frigid -40 degrees Fahrenheit. With a noose around his neck, Swift Runner calmly addressed the crowd, even thanking the Mounties who had been responsible for his supervision. He freely admitted to the crime and expressed remorse for what he had done. After he finished, the hangman released the bolt, ending the life of one of Canada’s most infamous mass murderers.

Wendigo possession or Wendigo psychosis?

The Wendigo (also Windigo, Witiko, Weendigo, and many other variations) is a ravenous entity in the belief systems of the Algonquian-speaking peoples, such as the Cree, Ojibwe (Chippewa), and Naskapi. The creature inhabits the eastern forests of Canada, the U.S. Great Plains, and the Great Lakes region shared by the two countries. It is commonly said to have a heart of ice and to be preceded by a foul stench or a sudden chill in the air. Appearance can vary by tribe, but the creature is usually described as a tall, gaunt, humanoid, emaciated and even skeletal in appearance. According to Basil H. Johnston, an Ojibwe scholar:

“The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly 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 Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody ... Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.”

On the other hand, non-indigenous depictions of the Wendigo are often inaccurate and far removed from its origins. A common trope is to portray the Wendigo as having a stag’s skull and antlers, though this rendering is far closer to figures from European folklore such as Cernunnos. The first instance of this appears to be Algernon Blackwood’s 1910 novella The Wendigo, while variations can be seen in countless works of art and in films like Scott Cooper’s 2021 film Antlers. The photo below (right) is the more authentic version of the Wendigo, as shown in the film L’Inhumaine (2021), from Ashinaabe director Jason Brennan.

The Wendigo has an insatiable desire for human flesh and is associated with cold, the North, winter, famine, and starvation. In some traditions, the Wendigo is a malicious spirit which takes possession of humans and drives them to acts of cannibalism. Those who have already succumbed to cannibalism or greed tend to be favored targets. The Wendigo is also understood as a concept, and is seen as a warning against reckless self-interest and disconnection from one’s community. Some indigenous people see colonialism and its inherent brutality as a type of Wendigo.

The nightmares which haunted Swift Runner were about the creature, which the Cree believe is a sign that a person will soon fall under its influence. While in jail, Swift Runner told Mountie Fred Bagley that the dreams had begun after another doomed hunting trip, one he’d taken years before. Deep in the far northern forests, Swift Runner tasted human flesh for the first time. After he and his young companion were unable to find any game, the boy eventually died of starvation and the desperately hungry hunter ate his remains. To the Cree, cannibalism is a grave taboo, one which left Swift Runner particularly vulnerable to Wendigo possession.

The real reason behind Swift Runner's crimes is unknown, but there are theories. In addition to being overtaken by either a Wendigo or simple hunger-driven madness, some have presented a third option: Wendigo psychosis. Wendigo psychosis is a controversial, culture-bound condition that appears to be specific to the Algonquian people. The sufferer experiences anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, and obsessive cannibalistic urges. It is thought to be driven by cultural beliefs, which cause both the person experiencing the condition and those who observe them to ascribe the symptoms to some monstrous transformation.

No case of supposed Wendigo psychosis has ever been studied, however, those who were alleged to suffer from the condition were often killed to prevent cannibalism from occurring. It should be noted that reported instances decreased among the Algonquian in the 20th century, with more exposure to European culture and a less rural lifestyle. Mental health professionals like Charles A. Bishop and Robert A. Brightman dismiss Wendigo psychosis altogether, deeming it a construct of the psychiatric profession.

Whatever you believe drove Swift Runner to murder his family, keep one thing in mind:

Among the onlookers at the execution were his Cree relatives, who had been determined to dismember and burn his body if he managed to escape…the only sure way to kill a Wendigo.

Sources: mysteriesofcanada.com/alberta/wendigo-encounters-in-canada-episode-3-swift-runner/

wikiwand.com/en/Wendigo

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10685673/