Canadian Legends & Monsters: The Loup Garou of Quebec – ParaGhoul Paranormal: Discoveries from the Dark
In this episode, we are travelling to Quebec this time! We are revisiting another segment of the Canadian Legends and Monsters. So, turn off the lights, light a candle, and step back with me to the mid-1700’s when a werewolf, also known as the Loup Garou in French, was said to arrive in Quebec.
So this was an interesting monster and legend to look into. Not only was I able to find some scans of the original newspaper from the 1700’s in Quebec, but I also found the link that took the legend back to France. My great grandfather was from northern France, so it was interesting to learn a little bit more about the area.
As far as I could tell, this particular Canadian monster, or more specifically the French-Canadian monster, all stems from a newspaper article that was written in 1766. The article was in the Quebec Gazette on July 21, 1766, to be exact, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s written in both English and French, so I didn’t have to dust off my high school memories for reading and translating French.
This is the paragraph that I was able to find- note, this is a newspaper from the 1700’s, so the way they wrote is quite different than how we do now:
“By accounts from St. Rock, near Cape Mourafka, we learn that there is a Were Wolf wandering about that neighbourhood, in the form of a beggar, which, to the talent of persuading people to believe what he himself is ignorant of, and promising what he cannot perform, adds that of obtaining what he desires. It is said that this animal came, from hence the 18th following, with a deign to pursue his errand to Montreal. This beast is said to be as dangerous as that which appeared last year in the country of Gevaudan (Jay vu don), wherefore it is recommended to the public to be as cautious of him as it would be of a ravenous wolf.”
The thought was that the Loup Garou creatures had come across the water to New France from Europe amongst the early settlers. So, the townspeople were not too surprised that a werewolf had followed them and was trying to attack.
The story goes that they eventually set their dogs after the wolf, eventually thinking that they harmed it enough that it was gone for good. However, the “beast” eventually showed itself again, coming back angry and wreaking havoc. Until the Quebec Gazette suddenly stopped reporting on the wolf. They never said if they defeated it, or if it ran off, or even if they were curious where it went. Apparently, they just stopped reporting on it entirely, which makes you wonder if they found out it was a joke and that someone had been feeding them lies to get their stories into the short 4 page newspaper. Or perhaps they realized it was really just a regular wolf, not the werewolf they had claimed, and life went back to normal.
Listen to the full episode to learn more about this the monster behind the Loup-Garou of Quebec!
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References for this section:
The Quebec Gazette, July 21, 1766, Page 2.
Schmitz, N., & Ma, C. (2021). Loup-Garou. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/loup-garou
Cucco, Kyle. March 8, 2019. The Werewolf of Quebec City. https://thisiscanadiana.com/blogposts/2017/11/1/the-werewolf-of-quebec-city
