From unidentified flying objects, I now turn my attention to cryptic and creepy creatures, namely the Canadian werewolf. When did this creature arrive in Canada, and from where? I went looking for some of the earliest accounts of werewolves in Canada, and I was not disappointed.

In Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, an account supposedly dating back to the 1700’s details what has become known as the Lunenburg Werewolf.

In 1755, Mi'kmaq found a young French girl named Nanette, lost during the expulsion of the Acadians. The Mi'kmaq later traded her to a German family outside Lunenburg. There she grew into womanhood and married one Hans Gerhardt, a lad known to have a temper. All was good until their first child was born. Hans seemed jealous of his daughter and the time his wife spent with her. He began sleeping apart and taking nightly excursions.

Around this time, tales of a fierce beast roaming the area at night and killing lambs began. After Hans took too long to return to Nanette during berry picking one day, she grew concerned and returned home to find Hans and their baby missing. A search later found him, feral and drenched in blood, the baby dead. He was arrested and sentenced to death but, before the sentence could be carried out, he committed suicide in his cell by ripping out the veins in his arms with his teeth.

Whether the story is true or not, I can’t say, but I was able to find a ship’s manifest from 1752 which lists one Johannes Gerhardt as being aboard the “Gale” which docked in Lunenburg. At the time, manifests only listed the head of a family, so did 27-year-old Johannes arrive with his family in tow, or was he the Hans of the story? Either way, the timeframe fits.

In the province of Quebec, I was able to find another early werewolf account. In 1767, the Gazette de Québec detailed a report of a beast terrorizing the colony outside of Quebec City. It had first appeared the summer before, but by June of 1767, the creature was spotted using the guise of a beggar to catch its prey. The locals fought the loup-garou (the French name for werewolf) in the fall, but it returned. Shortly after that, the trail went cold and the creature seemed to have disappeared from the area.

The range of the Loup-Garou spreads from Quebec and the French Maritimes, into eastern Ontario and neighbouring US states. There are still accounts of dogmen in Michigan and Wisconsin. Acadians settling elsewhere following the Expulsion (1755-1764) even brought the Loup-Garou with them, giving rise to the Cajun Rougaroo stories.

Did werewolves arrive with early French and German settlers to Canada? For sure, but that doesn’t explain why similar creatures (namely Waheela, Amarok, Shukla Warakin and Wendigo) were already present in Native cultures when these settlers arrived. Did Native Americans get introduced to werewolves from even earlier European immigrants to Canada, namely the Vikings? The Norse have extensive folklore of werewolves, dating to the Middle Ages and perhaps earlier, and they visited Canada’s eastern coasts in the late 10th century.

Maybe werewolves have always existed, spreading with Homo Sapiens during prehistoric times as they migrated from Africa into Europe, Asia, and across the Bering land bridge into North America. Are these all the same shapeshifter ‘species,’ or are there multiple types of what we call werewolves, originating from numerous regions independently?

Where and whenever they originated, it’s clear that Canada is no stranger to werewolves.

Sam M.

Sam M. has a love for all forms of speculative fiction across all media. Possessed of natural curiosity, Sam enjoys learning and new experiences. Each new piece of knowledge or endeavour adds to who she is and how she sees the world. She is a firm believer that some of the most amazing experiences and events could even be in your backyard (figuratively, if not literally).