Mitsue Lake (and the surrounding area) gained its namesake from Cree stories of cannibalism that supposedly took place there. The loose English translation of the word mitsue is ‘eating’ and the creek in the area takes its name from this translation.
In a 1992 Lakeside Leader article penned by then fledgling reporter Joe McWilliams, the legend of “Whetigo” is told with its local twist.
“The Giroux brothers, among many others, are convinced the Mitsue names were given because a Whetigo actually went wild and ate people, perhaps many people, in that neighborhood,” the story suggests.
Stories of the native cannibal spirit are abundant in native legends from many different areas. Algonquin, Cree and others all have their Whetigo. Tribal variants of the malevolent native spirit, whitikow and wendigo and wendeego; different cultures use different names for the same monster.
In the winter of 1898, a plains Cree trapper by the name of Swift Runner was residing near Athabasca Landing. It was a harsh winter; cold and starvation claimed the life of one of six of Swift Runners children.
Rather than trekking the 25 miles to a nearby Hudson’s Bay post for supplies, Swift Runner eventually butchered and consumed his wife and remaining children. Succumbing to the cannibal spirit, he had become “Whetigo”
The trapper eventually confessed to the killings and was executed in Fort Saskatchewan. Often associated with famine, hunger, greed and cold, the spirit is known to possess those that resorted to eating the flesh of humans, despite having other food sources available. It is a rare, but real syndrome that is usually a result of “famine cannibalism”, or the eating of humans to prevent death by starvation.
Legend has it that once someone tasted human flesh, the person would become violent and obsessed with eating more of their human brethren, thus becoming “Whetigo” “Whenever a Wendigo ate another person, they would grow larger, in proportion to the meal they had just eaten, so that they could never be full. Wendigos were thus simultaneously constantly gorging themselves and emaciated from starvation,” says a study on Native folklore, suggesting a metaphor for gluttony in extremus.
Though violent and terrifying, stories suggest that the Whetigo is so ashamed by its own atrocities that often it begs to be killed so as to protect the very people it will harm. So insatiable is the Whetigo’s hunger, it is said, that it will chew off it’s own lips. Often, the creature it will travel far into the woods to avoid doing harm to others. A story by Bev Betkowski reveals the following fearsome tale.
“In 1896 a man traveling through the woods near Trout Lake, in northern Alberta, reported having a strange vision of a creature. The encounter apparently drove him mad. He, and his fellow villagers, believed he'd been possessed by a Windigo - a malevolent spirit that afflicts its victims with an insatiable hunger for human flesh.”
As his condition worsened, the man's neighbours locked him in a cabin. One eyewitness, a fur trader from Scotland, said “the man hardly resembled a human being at one point.” Frightened villagers eventually executed the man, buried him and piled logs on his grave to make sure he couldn't come back to life, as he had vowed to, unless a priest came to the village within three days. Strangely enough a priest did arrive - apparently the first ever in that area - and found all the villagers huddled in a shack, fearing for their lives. Nathan Carlson, while doing a thesis for his degree at the University of Alberta, relates the following tale passed on to him by his grandmother.
“In 1887, a woman by the name of Marie Courterielle apparently turned wihtikow. In order to prevent her from committing murder and cannibalism, she was executed by her husband and stepson. Because a gun cannot kill a wihtikow, the family members used an axe. The husband and son were arrested at Grouard, known then as the LSL Settlement. The men were taken to Ft. Saskatchewan where they told the courts they acted in self-defense. The courts had no idea of the history of the windigo, so both were charged with manslaughter and sentenced to six years imprisonment. The son escaped back to Slave Lake and was left unreprimanded, as the community believed he acted in self-defense. The husband served two years before being released. The woman is supposed to be buried somewhere at Slave Lake.”

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