One of the coolest experiences I’ve had since publishing my book The Gathering Room - A Tale of Nelly Butler, is the opportunity to read books by other authors that I more then likely would not have come in contact with had I not started this journey. I love that I am being introduced to books by local Maine authors. And let me tell you we have an abundance of gifted and talented authors right here in Maine that have produced some quality books! I’m devoting this blog post to one of those really great authors, Christoper Packard.

I first came in contact with Chris early last winter when he was trying to put together a Book Fair in Bangor. One that turned out to be highly successful I might add! He reached out to me to participate but my calendar was already full that weekend so I had to decline. Earlier this year, while I was in discussions about appearing at an event later this summer, Chris’ name was mentioned as also being connected with the planned event. That brought his name back to the forefront of my memory and I reached out to him. He and I have actually now met in person twice. We were both at a recent vendor show and I have to tell you, Chris tops me in marketing and showmanship! His book is titled Mythical Creatures of Maine and Chris dresses in a fine tweed suit, complete with top hat, round rimmed glasses and pocket watch all while sporting his meticulously trimmed beard. He so looks the part of the sideshow barker waiting to tell you the tales of the creatures he has just on the other side of his tent door. It’s fantastic!!

When Chris first told me about his book he explained that he had grown up hearing his grandfather tell stories of fantastical creatures he had seen in the Maine woods. Chris thought they were just stories his grandfather told him, but as an adult he learned that these were in fact true folk stories shared by many people. Some stemmed from Maine’s history with the lumbering industry, but a lot of them were Native American tales told by the Wabanaki tribes in Maine. Chris has a background in biology and science and he set about to research these tales and find the truth about the creatures related in them.

Honestly I didn’t know what to expect from Chris’ book. I knew he dabbled on the edge of things, similarly to how I do with the ghost of Nelly Butler. I knew of the phrase cryptozoology and it’s association with Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster and other mythical creatures. But what I didn’t expect to find was what Chris wrote in the front of the book before he handed it to me. “All of these stories are true”. Oh don’t say that to a historian Chris!

Truth be told I plunged right into the book the night Chris gave it to me. I was eager to learn about what might be out there lurking in the woods. As a child I spent a few summers at the YMCA sponsored day camp located on Chemo Pond in Eddington. I’ve experienced my own fair share of things in the woods that didn’t make sense. Maybe I had run into one of the creatures myself!

Although some of what I began to read seemed like it could possibly be true, my first indication that these were in fact mythical creatures was reading about the Dungavenhooter. With it’s alligator type body I was very skeptical that this could be living in the darkest corners of Maine’s woods. I mean what would it do in the winter? But it was the Dungavenhooter’s ability to knock people down with it’s powerful tail and remain unseen that made me stop and think. How many times have I been hiking through the woods and someone in the group, myself included, suddenly falls down? Could it have been a Dungavenhooter and we didn’t even know it? Blaming it instead on the wayward tree root!

Next came the Hide-Behind, a creature so stealthy that no one has ever seen it to identify what it looks like. You know you have one following you when you get that uncanny sensation that you are being followed only to turn around and there is no one there. Or the Wedge-Ledge Chomper who leaves behind broken rocks on the sides of trails or fresh rock slides on the side of a mountain. I’ve definitely seen evidence of these!

I read each and every chapter in Chris’ book with eagerness to try and figure out the truthfulness of these mythical creatures. The historian in me wanted concrete historical evidence that they existed in real form. And although there were personal accounts from history, like General Merriam’s account of witnessing a sea serpent, the real truth was there to be found if you only pondered it for a moment or two.

I could imagine a group of men in a lumber camp in the winter of 1865. They have worked in the cold and snow all day and are now gathered around the fire eating their meal. There is no TV, no internet, no social media. Their only entertainment is each other. As the men talked of what had transpired that day someone mentions how that dead tree branch fell out of the tree and landed on poor old Joe’s head. A young, inexperienced man who is spending his first winter harvesting the trees in northern Maine asks what would have caused a dead tree branch to fall out of a tree like that all of a sudden. One of the old timers winks and tells the young man it was an Agropelter. A fearsome ape like creature that swings amongst the tops of the tallest white pine in Maine, throwing down dead branches on the lumberjacks below. The flames from the fire would flicker and glow in the young man’s eyes as they got wider and wider as the tale got wilder and wilder. The others seated around the fire doing their best to suppress their snickers.

And just like that a folk tale was born, shared over and over again, first as a joke, then as a re telling of a comical evening when that young city boy thought he was a lumberjack. Until eventually it is remembered by many people. The Agropelter, and the others, are real until the stories stop being told. Then they become folklore, legends, mythical creatures.

A lot of our history is that way too. Stories told over and over until they become accepted. And then once no one talks about them anymore they become forgotten. Look at the tale of Nelly Butler. The description of the ghost itself was not even recorded until nearly 20 years after the fact. How many times had that story been told and re told until it was cemented into the minds of those that had heard it. And now more then 200 years later people every day tell me they have never heard of this story! I’m often asked is the story history or folklore? And I reply could those two things be one in the same rather then separate?

Just as with Nelly’s ghost, all of the creatures in Chris’ book were real to someone at some point in history. Whether that was a lumberjack having a little fun with a greenie or a Wabanaki tribesmen trying to explain the the realities of his natural world based on his belief in the great god Pamola. So they are historical in a sense. Which means that Chris was absolutely correct when he wrote “All of these stories are true!”

If you’d like to purchase Chris’ book, Mythical Creatures of Maine, and I highly recommend that you do, it is available on Amazon.