Detour #666: Monster hunting in the American Midwest
The Bray Road Beast
Are you brave enough to seek out the spookiest monsters on this grisly Great Lakes road trip?
Local monsters are an American tradition. Every state in the Union has its allotment of roadside phantoms or skunk apes, elusive thunderbirds or moth men. The colourful names and hideous faces change, but the spirit of folklore remains spooky as these legends remind every traveler that strange things happen to a lonely human on the road.
While everyone from ghost hunters to “squatchers” to would-be X-Filers pursue a glimpse for the regional mysteries, those search parties multiply come All Hallows’s Eve. How travellers approach these fiction-finding expeditions depends on whether they believe in such phenomena or if they merely seek to sample the local fireside tales.
I focused my bump in the night quest around The Great Lakes – home to 25 percent of the world’s fresh water and 75 percent of America’s best booze-fuelled mysteries. As I headed out to join them, I kept an open mind and a locked driver’s side door.
Since most Americans consider anyone above the Canadian border to be their own sort of mysterious snow creature, I headed a tick south and began my monster hunt in the primitive wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – where the local Bigfoot might be the mayor for all I knew. Just off U.S. Route 45, less than 30 miles north of the welcoming Wisconsin border, The Paulding Light draws regular crowds seeking a glimpse of the paranormal.
Whether it’s the ghost of a dead railway conductor, an evil and child-stealing Will-o’-the-Wisp or some unknown atmospheric anomaly, the Light is the one entity on this list that’s been scientifically documented, though not fully explained. There’s an official state marker telling crowds where to gather as night falls. The single white light rises some 100 yards from the observation spot and hangs in plain sight. If anyone runs to spot its source or catch it, it vanishes.
I saw it. I can’t explain it. I hope someone does someday.
Hightailing it out of the U.P. and heading south into America’s Dairyland, U.S. Route 12 led me to Baraboo, home of the Circus World Museum and birthplace of the Ringling Bros. tour. While circus clowns are terrifying enough to some, the scariest creature around these parts is the Devil’s Lake Monster. Similar in size and description to the aquatic star of Loch Ness, reports of something lurking in the titular water’s brackish depths date back to the oral traditions of the Nakota Sioux.
Beware of the monster in Devil’s Lake State Park Photo Shutterstock
It’s less than a two hour drive down I-90 to Elkhorn and Wisconsin’s biggest cryptid star, The Beast of Bray Road. Described as everything from an impossibly large hound to an upright white werewolf, the beast is seen only at night and usually spotted eating local pets and livestock. The Halloween season marks a high point for Bray Road vigils.
Finally, swinging down around the bottom of Lake Michigan and heading back north along U.S. 31, the final stop on this chilling meandering landed me in Petoskey, Mich. – the rugged playground of Hemingway’s youth and the rumoured home of Luke the Spook.
A mysterious creature similar to the Mothman of West Virginia, Luke is more elusive as his home base shifts between legends. Still, he hangs out in Northern Michigan around various lakes and rivers. Such watery meeting points are great make-out spots for crazy young people, and Luke’s glowing eyes watch them from nearby hilltops.
Native American lore dominates the region, and those legends suggest Luke is a shape-shifting Skinwalker, a Wendigo or Waheela. Locals say a 1950s teen once chased after Luke after it frightened his girlfriend. Felled by a single blow from a clawed hand, that tragic youth carried long scars across his face until the day he died in (narratively convenient) anonymity.
Words John Scott Lewinski Twitter
Illustrations The Ox