La Chasse-galerie, the Flying Canoe
Stuck in a winter lumber camp, homesick men made a deal with the Devil to fly home for New Year's Eve in a canoe. The rules were simple: don't swear, and don't touch a church steeple.
What was reported
In the legend of the chasse-galerie, a group of lumberjacks working deep in the forest on New Year's Eve long to see their sweethearts, hundreds of kilometres away. One of them knows a way: they sell their souls to the Devil, who will fly their canoe through the night sky, so long as they don't say God's name or touch a church cross along the way.
They paddle through the air over the frozen rivers to the village of Lavaltrie, dance all night, and fly back before dawn, dodging steeples, while the steersman, who has been drinking, nearly ruins them all.
Explanations offered
The story mixes French legends of a cursed hunt in the sky with the life of Quebec's woodsmen. The writer Honoré Beaugrand published the best-known version in 1891, and a flying canoe is now a symbol of Québécois folklore.
- When
- Told since the 1800s
- Where
- Lavaltrie, Quebec, Canada
- Witnesses
- Québécois folklore
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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