Artist’s rendering of Wapaloosie
The Wapaloosie is a fearsome critter of the lumberjack stories of North America. It lives in the damp forests in the North of Idaho by St. Joe River to the Pacific coast. It is the size of a sausage dog and has the feet and toes of a wood pecker. Its tail is also spiked which helps it to climb up trees. The Wapaloosie feeds only on mushrooms that grow on trees and it has become very agile at climbing much like a squirrel.
Sightings
Illustration of Wapaloosie
A lumberjack story tells of how a hunter once shot a Wapaloosie and on investigating the corpse, decided to make a pair of gloves with the Wapaloosie‘s skin. He tanned the skin and made the gloves with great care with the fur on the outside. But when he put them on to show it to his friends the most bizarre thing happened. When he picked up his axe, the gloves naturally moved by themselves to the top on the axe blade. The man dropped his axe in horror but discovered that whatever he picked up his hands would climb to the top, because they could no longer find a tree. He then discarded the now useless gloves, and the living Wapaloosie gloves were last seen climbing up the logs in the forest.