By: Aaron Bennett. 1996

In the late 1700's is when it all began.  A small group of voyageurs were camped somewhere in Northern Michigan.  The men were tired from a long days journey.  To make themselves forget about their aching limbs they sat around the fire drinking brandy and playing cards.  Soon it grew very late and only two men were still up.  They were two hardy voyageurs named Gilles and Philippe. The fire had burned down to glowing embers so the two men went to gather more wood.  Philippe found it hard to find dry wood even in the light of the full moon.  He wandered farther into the woods and came upon a wild dog that stood upright.

"La loup garou, la loup garou" he screamed to Gilles. The loup garou is the French word for werewolf and a name all Frenchmen fear. Philippe kept himself calm and unsheathed his hunting knife that hung from his belt.  He wrestled with the loup garou and finally succeeded in cutting off its ear.  He went back to the camp to tell the men what had happened to him.  He found Gilles there with a bandage on the same ear that he had cut off of the loup garou.

On a cool summer morning in early June of 1887 the Dog-man was seen near a lumber camp in Wexford County where the Manistee River runs.  Eleven lumberjacks were working in the Garland swamp where they found a dog.  Having not much to do, they chased it around.  The dog ran into a hollow log to escape the loggers.  A logger named Johnson took a stick and poked around inside the log.  The dog let out a hellish scream.  It ran out, stood upright and let out a scream that was more man than dog. The loggers came back to camp all white as ghosts.  They loggers didn’t say much at all.  They packed up all their belongings and were never seen again.

In 1897 near Buckley, a farmer was found.  He was slumped on his plow with his team at hit side.  There were large dog tracks all around, too big to be a coyote or a dog. Was it the Dog-man?  No one may ever know. The doctor who did the autopsy said it looked like he died of fright.

In 1906 an old widow had a dream, of dogs that circled her house at night. They looked more like men than dogs and howled at the moon with human screams.  She would awaken to have dog tracks all around her house and claw marks on the shudders and doors.  The local newspaper said she was crazy and that she planted the dog tracks and scratches herself. A few months later she died 0f a heart attack, there were dog tracks all around.

In 1917 a local sheriff was making his rounds.  He came across a wagon.  The four-horse team lay in the ditch with their eyes opened wide. There were dog tracks all around. The veterinarian who looked at them said that it looked as if they had died of fright.  The driver was never found.

In Bower's Harbor in 1937 a pack of wild dogs had been seen stalking. A schooner captain said he and his crew had seen them.  He said that they stood upright and screamed. His story was never recorded and his ship never seen again.

In 1940 Robert Fortney of Cadillac was out hunting with hit dogs one night. They came across a pack of vicious wild dogs.  Not wanting to injure hit dogs he shot hit rifle into the air to scare them off.  One of the wild dogs, after hearing his shot, stood up and grinned.  Robert froze knowing that his coon-rifle might only wound the dog and make it angry.  He remarked later that that had been the scariest moment in his life.

In 1957 near the town of Kalkaska a priest awake one morning to find claw marks on the old church door.  The local newspaper said that they could only have been made by a dog. The dog would have stood seven foot four.

In 1967 a Volkswagen van full of Hippies were camped out in a forest for the night.  They were awakened in the night by scratches on the window.  They looked out outside to see what it was, and there was the Dog-man looking in grinning.  They reported the incident to a park ranger named Quindellin.  He thought nothing of it, they probably just got high off of some bad LSD and hallucinated.

In 1977 there were screams near the town of Bellaire. It could have been a bobcat or a coyote or even the Dog-man, no one could be for sure.  Animals had gone missing and no one seemed to now why.

A farmer near the town had noticed that every morning his chickens were growing less and less.  He tried putting up a stronger larger fence but the things that were taking his chickens still got through.  He finally decided one night to put an end to it once and all.  He loaded his shotgun and waited in the hen house until a long time after dusk.  He finally decided that whatever it was wasn't coming that night.  Just as he was about get up and leave, sure that he had out smarted it, a pack of wild dogs came.  They stood on their hind legs and easily broke through the fence. The farmer jumped out of the henhouse screaming.  He shot at the animals and was sure he had hit one in the leg.  At he watched the pack run away he thought that that was the end of it.  A few days later a trapper found a large almost man-like dog with only one hind leg.  The trapper said that the dog had died of starvation when left by the pack when he couldn't catch his own food.  But the trapper never heard the farmer's tale.

In July of 1987 a group of park rangers came upon a cabin near Luther. There was a half played game of solitaire of the table inside, and large dog tracks all around.  The body was never found.

Somewhere in the north woods darkness there roams a beast that walks upright.  Some say it's just a wild dog. Some say it's a werewolf or the Dog-man.  Whatever it may be, it's out there.  If you listen not too very hard on a cool lonely night you just might hear the Dog-man's mournful cry. If you happen upon a wild dog who walks upright, chances are it's the Dog-man, and if you aren't so lucky you just might not live to see the morning's light.

Bibliography

Cook, Steve. The Legend. Recorded by WTCM radio. Traverse City. 1984.

Jones, Evan.  Trappers and Mountain Men.  American Heritage Publishing Co. Inc..  New York. 1964.

McHargue, Georgess.  Meet the Werewolf. J.B. Lippincott Company. Philadelphia and New York. 1976.

Reader's Digest.  American Folklore and Legend.  Reader's Digest Association, Inc..  New York and Montreal.  1978.