The Dungarvon Whooper
In the forests of New Brunswick, lumbermen heard a terrible whooping scream in the night, and it was said to belong to a cook buried in the woods.
What was reported
The legend of the Dungarvon Whooper comes from the logging camps along the Dungarvon River, in the Miramichi region of New Brunswick. It's said that in the 1860s a young cook who joined a lumber camp was killed there, and was buried in the woods because the snow was too deep to carry him out.
From then on, men in the camps heard a horrible whooping, screaming sound in the night, so frightening that the camp was abandoned. A priest was said to have been called to bless the place. The legend was so well known that a local passenger train was named the Dungarvon Whooper.
Explanations offered
The story fits a long tradition of lumber camp tales, told around stoves in the long northern winters. Naturalists suggest the screams could be owls, lynx or other animals, whose calls carry a long way in the frozen forest at night.
- When
- Told since the 1860s
- Where
- Dungarvon River, Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada
- Witnesses
- Lumbermen and New Brunswick 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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