“The Dungarvon Whooper” is one of the most famous ghost stories from Canada. Tales of the Whooper emanate from the area surrounding the city of Miramichi, which is on the Dungarvon River in New Brunswick. The events of the haunting are said to have taken place between 1850 and 1875, a period of heavy Irish immigration to Canada. The most common version of the legend contains distinctive Irish flavorings, including the nationality of the ghost, the economic plight of his ill mother—the years between 1845 and 1852 are known as the Great Famine Period in Ireland—the wailing spirit (a common theme in Irish hauntings), and elements of Catholic belief. Indeed, the name Dungarvon is itself Irish.
Descriptions of the Whooper range from an actual person to some kind of animal often resembling a puma, but it is mainly depicted as an unseen, wailing ghost. One of the earliest and still most recognized accounts of the Whooper is found in Michael Whalen’s 1912 poem “The Dungarvon Whooper,” which is set to the tune of “Where the Silvery Colorado Wends Its Way.” As with most other versions of the story, Whalen tells the tale of a murdered lumber camp cook who is usually identified as Ryan in later chronicles. The dead cook comes to haunt the area with his blood-curdling whoops. Other tellers embellish aspects of the story such as the cook’s demise; he is sometimes said to have been chopped up, cooked in a stew, and served to the camp’s lumbermen. This version was dramatized in a 2006 episode of Creepy Canada.
Though Whalen’s ballad of the Whooper is the best-known early telling of the story, Louise Manny and James Reginald Wilson report that it was just one of many circulating at the time. In many of the alternative songs, poems, and writings of the Whooper, its origin is not discussed nor is the Whooper even the focal point of the story. By contrast, the Whooper simply appears in innumerable writings wherein it is deployed for purposes as varied as fright and humor. One example of humor can be found in a song performed in 1962 by Billy Price, as written by his grandfather Abraham Munn, for the University of Maine’s Maine Folklore Center. The song, full of comic touches, relates a group of fishermen’s encounter with the Whooper, this time appearing as an animal:
We fought like valiant heroes until the dawn of day,
And when he saw that he was beat he was forced to run away.
As he was going to leave us he gave one long last wail,
And I saw him knock down little trees by the wagging of his tail.
Other examples of humorous appearances of the Whooper include “John Thompson’s Hill” in which the Whooper tries to warn others against working with some of the other lumberjacks. With the influence of Whalen’s poem on Whooper lore, however, stories portraying it as an animal have taken a backseat, but they have resurfaced a bit among Bigfoot enthusiasts.
Following Whalen’s lead, most renditions of the Whooper revolve around a murdered lumber camp cook, whose ghost haunts the surrounding area with its namesake howl. The backstory of the ill-fated cook is not given any attention by Whalen. These details would be added by later tellers, who usually identify him with the name Ryan and sometimes Ryan Garvon. Ryan is described as being Irish and small in stature. He is said to be virtuous, abstaining from behavior typical of lumbermen such as drinking and gambling. He is also credited with helping pay the medical bills of his ill mother. This makes his fate much more tragic, but it also speaks to the plight of many Irish at the time. Moreover, as a recent immigrant, Ryan is somewhat of a loner, although he is well liked in most versions. Significantly, Ryan saved all his money and kept it with him on his belt.
One day, as the verses in Whalen’s poem indicate, Ryan and his boss found themselves alone in camp as the crew worked in the field. Ryan mysteriously passes away during this time. As Whalen writes,
In a lumber camp one day,
While the crew were faraway,
And no one there but cook and boss alone,
A sad tragedy took place,
And death won another race,
For the young cook swiftly passed to the unknown.
The campers return to find the body of the young cook and are immediately devastated by the situation: “A tear was in each eye, Each heart is heaved a sigh.” The crew is suspicious, suspecting murder because Ryan’s money is gone: “From the belt about his waist All his money was misplaced, Which made the men suspect some serious wrong. Was it murder cold and dread, That befell the fair young dead?” The camp boss proclaims tragic happenstance: “Well, the youngster took so sick, And he died so mighty quick, I hadn’t time to think.”
Too stricken with grief to press the issue further, the lumbermen give their fallen friend a makeshift burial.
So that on the burial day
To the graveyard far away
To bear the corpse impossible was found.
Then a forest grave was made,
And in it the cook was laid
While the song birds and the woodsmen ceased their song.
Back at the basecamp, the men mourn through the night. Eventually they begin hearing ghastly whoops and shrieks: “All the camp was in affright, Such fearful whoops and yells the forest fill.” They resolve to leave the next morning: “We shall leave this fearful place, For this camp unto the demons does belong, Ere the dawning of the day We will hasten far away.” The wails of the young cook, however, could still be heard: “Since that day, so goes the word, Fearful sounds have long been heard, Far round the scene where lies the woodsman’s grave,” until his spirit is exorcised from its limbo,
Yells that warmest blood to chill,
Sends terror to the bravest of the brave;
Till beside the grave did stand,
God’s good man with lifted hand,
And prayed that He those sounds should not perlong
That those fearful sounds should cease,
And the region rest in peace.
The exorcism of the Dungarvon woods provides a fascinating Catholic embellishment to the Whooper legend. Folklorist Ronald Labelle points out that the distinctly Catholic belief in purgatory helps to explain why numerous ghost stories emanate from cultures deeply influenced by the religion. In the instance of the Dungarvon Whooper, the exorcism is required, in part, because Ryan’s was not a proper burial, nor was his body appropriately blessed. In Whalen’s rendering, the rite gives the story a peaceful resolution, presumably enabling Ryan’s spirit to pass on.
Since that day the sounds have ceased
And the region is released
From those most unearthly whoops and screams and yells,
All around the Whooper’s spring
There is heard no evil thing,
And round the Whooper’s grave sweet silence dwells.
Where Whalen suggests the return of tranquility after the exorcism, others claim that it failed or made matters worse. In either case, encounters with the Dungarvon Whooper reportedly continue to this day.
Depending on the source, other details differ as well. In other versions of the Whooper, for instance, the camp boss kills Ryan, hides his body, and tells the crew that their beloved cook has been called home to be with his mother in her final moments. In the segment aired on Creepy Canada, the boss’s cover-up is taken one step further: he slices up Ryan’s body and cooks his remains in a stew served to the crew. Likewise, some accounts explicitly identify the exorcising priest, usually as Edward Murdoch, although no such church records exist. In explaining the variety of competing theories for the Whooper, Manny and Wilson succinctly note,
Possibly the awful shrieks had often been heard in the woods before the alleged murder of the cook, and were those of a screech owl, or those of a panther. However the story of a murder made a most satisfactory explanation, and other bits of folklore have been added to the tale, like filings to a magnet. (Manny and Wilson 1968)
As with any good ghost tale, new tellers often supply their own garnish to the legend, ensuring the legend will live on.
In the present day, the Dungarvon Whooper has entrenched itself into the local culture of the Miramichi region, the Canadian Maritimes, and Maine. So famous had the Whooper become that a train that ran between Fredricton to Newcastle was named for it. The train made its last run on April 24, 1936. The Whooper is also found in many Miramichi folk songs such as those collected by Louise Manny and James Reginald Wilson in Songs of Miramichi. A cover of Michael Whalen’s “The Dungarvon Whooper” was even a part of Canadian folksinger Zwerg’s album Whims ‘N’ Words released in 2012. And finally, the story behind the Dungarvon Whooper is also routinely reenacted at surrounding theaters to the delight of tourists.
Todd K. Platts
See also Apotamkin; Ballad; Bigfoot or Sasquatch; Ocean-Born Mary; Sam Slick
Further Reading
Colombo, John Robert. 2000. Ghost Stories of Canada. Toronto: Dundurn Press.
“The Dungarvon Whooper.” 2015. Maine Folklife Center website. http://umaine.edu/folklife/programs-and-events/maine-song-and-story-sampler-map/places/dungarvon-river-the-dungarvon-whooper/. Accessed October 29, 2015.
MacKay, Donald. 2007. The Lumberjacks. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books.
Manny, Louise, and James Reginald Wilson. 1968. Songs of Miramichi. New Brunswick: Brunswick Press.
Underhill, Doug. 1999. Miramichi Tales Tall and True. Neptune, NJ: Neptune.