Scary stories from Indigenous country

It’s the spooky season! Time for jack-o-lanterns, tons of candy and stories to terrify. Indigenous people have told scary stories for generations to pass on important lessons.

Tlicho Dene author, Richard Van Camp loves nothing more than hearing ghost stories around a campfire and he grew up watching 80's horror movies. Richard is working on a graphic novel about a deadly monster called Wheetago, one of the many creatures that’s tormented Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island since before anyone can remember. He loves the creepy, the chilling and what these eerie stories teach us.

Anishinaabe storyteller, artist and musician Isaac Murdoch shares a Wendigo story that will scare the wits out of you!

Julie Pellissier-Lush is Prince Edward Island’s current poet laureate. When the Mi'kmaq storyteller is not creating poetry, she explores the paranormal. She is working on a book about the spirits that remain after death, still wandering the shores of PEI, including the witch of Port-La-Joye.

Who you gonna call when you hear a bump in the night? Six Nations Investigating Paranormal Encounters, or SNIPE of course. These ghost hunters live for a good scare! But Haudenosaunee group member Artie Martin’s first night out with SNIPE at the Mohawk Institute Residential School left him with chills.

For Dan SaSuweh Jones, a writer and artist from the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, places like cemeteries are haunted for a reason and the stories we tell about them can serve some surprising purposes. He visited Indigenous communities across the United States and gathered stories about their ghosts, witches and supernatural beings.