In 1987 WTCM-FM DJ Steve Cook played a brand new record called “The Legend” on his show. The song told the tale of the Michigan Dogman – a Werewolf, first sighted in the state in 1887. He was inundated with calls from listeners claiming to have seen the beast.
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America is a nation with many, many urban legends stretching back generations; tales of strange, inhuman things lurking out there in the wilderness, or by the roadside, beneath the still black waters, or amongst the vine enshrouded trees. Waiting.
According to Cajun folklore, the Rougarou prowls the swamplands around Acadiana and Greater New Orleans. Sharing many attributes with European Werewolf folklore – the Rougarou is a human who takes on a bestial form as a result of a supernatural curse. In some versions of the tale the curse is self-inflicted by a transgression against the church or God, in others, it is inflicted by a witch. The Rougarou’s curse lasts for one hundred and one days after which time it may be passed on, via a bite, to the next victim.
Rougarou is by no means the only American were-wolf legend, however, and while its roots are unmistakably ancient, the tale of the Michigan Dogman may have much more modern origins.
A cool summer morning in early June, is when the legend began, at a nameless logging camp in Wexford County, where the Manistee River ran.
Eleven lumberjacks near the Garland swamp found an animal they thought was a dog.
In a playful mood they chased it around till it ran inside a hollow log.
A logger named Johnson grabbed him a stick and poked around inside.
Then the thing let out an unearthly scream and came out and stood upright.
These are the opening lyrics of “The Legend” a song written and recorded by Steve Cook, a radio DJ at WTCM Radio in Traverse City, Michigan, USA. Cook played the record on his show on April the 1st, 1987, as a prank. “The Legend” told the fictionalised story of a werewolf-like creature sighted in the Michigan area every ten years since 1887. What Cook was not prepared for, however, was his listeners’ response to the song. Dozens of callers to the show claimed to have seen the beast themselves or to have heard tales of others’ encounters.
Linda S. Godfrey is a Wisconsin-based author and investigator who has been looking into the existence of creatures that fit the description of dogmen, which she calls “upright canines,” since 1991. In a 2017 interview with The Huffington Post, Godfrey told reporter David Sands
“It’s fully canine, walks on its hind legs, uses its forelimbs to carry chunks of … roadkill or deer carcasses.” she said. “They have pointed ears on top of their heads. They have big fangs. They have bushy tails. They walk — most tellingly — digitigrade, or on their toe pads, as all canines do, and that’s something that a human in a fursuit really can’t duplicate”.
Despite having been contacted by over five hundred witnesses, DJ Steve Cook remains unconvinced about the existence of the creature he made famous. In 2015 he told skeptoid.com:
“I’m tremendously skeptical, because I’ve sort of seen the way folklore becomes built from the creation of this song to what it’s turned into … but I do believe people who think they saw something really did see something. I also think the Dogman provides them with an avenue to explain what they couldn’t explain for themselves.”
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