[ Author: Spirits; Title: Episode #258 - Paul Bunyan and Indigenous Traditions; Tags: folklore, chat ]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, this is where we dive into mythology, legends, and folklore, learning about a new story from around the world each week. I'm Amanda. My co-host Julia is recovering from a cold, but we're very excited to welcome you to Episode 258: Paul Bunyan and indigenous traditions with Leah Lemm, a fantastic journalist and storyteller whose brand new podcast: Wisdom Continuum is available now. So, without further ado, we'd love to first thank our newest patrons: Katharina, Urður, Derek, Queen Zee, Medusa's Scrunchie, very good, and Marcus. Thank you for your support of the show. You along with fellow patrons like: Uhleeseeuh, Bryan, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Jessica Stewart, Kneazlekins, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi. And our Legend-level patrons of course: Audra, Bex, Clara, Drew, Jaybaybay, Lexus, Mary, Morgan, Morgan H., Mother of Vikings, Sarah, Taylor, & Bea Me Up Scotty. You are the backbone of our show and the folks whose support lets us keep doing this. You also get, because you're very cool and support us on Patreon, all kinds of rewards and benefits. Like director's commentary for every episode, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink cards, custom for each episode that Julia makes that you can download for all 250 some eight episodes of the show that we have done so far. And all kinds of other benefits like physical merch, including. We've done it. We've made a crewneck sweatshirt with muffins butt on it. Zoe... Zoe Polanto writer is such a fantastic illustrator and the person who made our tarot cards which are now sold out by the way, you guys like them a lot and noted. We're going to work on seeing if we can get any more but in the meantime, you can get our Mothman tarot card design on a crewneck on your chest, to have Mothman's butt on your physical form at spiritspodcast.com/merch. It's a big deal, and we hope you enjoy. We've been wearing ours nonstop. They are very comfy, and we hope that you love them just as much as us. So, that is my recommendation for the week, guys. It's wearing Mothman's butt out in the world because the coolest people will stop you and be like, "Nice sweatshirt," and you're like, "I know. Listen to Spirits." So, that's all you got to do. So, in between checking out the Spirits Mothman crewneck and subscribing to Leah's podcast: Wisdom Continuum. What if you're kind of left in the lurch being like, "Oh, gosh. I wish I had more to listen to." Well, we have to recommend Next Stop this week. This is an audio sitcom that Multitude put out last year. It is written by Eric Silver, assistant directed by Julia Schifini, directed by Brandon Grugle and executive produced by myself. And across its 10 episode first season, Next Stop follows three roommates as they go through work and relationships and friendships, growing together as a unit no matter what life throws at them. It is wholesome, it's fun, it is a sitcom, so if those kinds of shows give you, you know, nostalgic feelings and they feel like a warm bath but you're like, "Hey, I would love one without fatphobia or homophobia or... or gay panic or whatever." Next Stop is the one for you. I am so proud of the work that everybody did on the show and you can listen to Season 1 in its entirety at nexstopshow.com or search for Next Stop in your podcast app. So, sending a lot of love to Julia as she drinks her ginger and honey tea. A lot of love to Leah for this fantastic episode. We hope that you enjoy it half as much as we did. So, without further ado enjoy Spirits podcast Episode 258: Paul Bunyan and Indigenous Traditions with Leah Lemm. We are so excited to have Leah Lemm here with us today. When we were talking about what topics to do you're like, "Can I just, like, go off about Timber and Paul Bunyan?" And we were like, "Absolutely you can!" So,--
JULIA: Heck yeah.
AMANDA: --welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. Tell the people who you are and what you work on.
LEAH: Yeah. Boozhoo, I am Leah Lemm, a citizen of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and I'm a Community Story-Sharer. And I'm up in Northern Minnesota, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, among the beautiful timber, the beautiful pine trees, and woods, and rivers and lakes. It is gorgeous. And I spend my time working to amplify Native Voices in any way I can. And usually, those ways are through radio and podcasting. And I have a new podcast that has just launched this month. So... I'm really excited about it.
JULIA: Tell us the name.
LEAH: Yes, it is called The Wisdom Continuum, and we talk about systems from an indigenous perspective for a healthier, more just, more thoughtful future. So, just really flipping the script on what we think of as, you know, our default values as "Americans", and we work to embrace our native values in all their diversity. It's pretty exciting.
JULIA: It sounds great, I cannot wait to listen. And I know that the first two episodes are out right now. So, our listeners can pause this, go subscribe, and then come back.
LEAH: Oh, yes. Thank you. Yes, first two episodes are out. We speak with a great guest surely, Nordrum. She lives up here in Northern Minnesota in Bemidji, and she has a lot of thoughts. And I think one of the biggest worldviews or shifts in thinking that we talk about is this idea of connection and relationships with our environment and our animal and plant relatives and water spirits. And... and just understanding that everything isn't... There's very few inanimate things. Everything has a... has a spirit that we can connect with.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: So, you're saying that extractive capitalism and mowing down forests for profit--
LEAH: Oh yeah.
AMANDA: --perhaps not the sustainable way to treat the world.
JULIA: So, did you grow up in Minnesota? Was that where you kind of like... I want to know about the stories that you grew up with. So, tell me about those.
LEAH: Yeah. So, I grew up in the Twin Cities, graduated from the suburbs of Suburban Indian, and then moved out to Boston for eight years and came home, and started working in radio, which was a fantastic education in the technical and operations side of radio, because I worked behind the scenes.
JULIA: Mhmm.
LEAH: 100% of the time. So, I always give huge props to the technical folks, and all of the folks behind the scenes that make the hosts, and reporters sound amazing.
JULIA: Shout out Editor Eric.
LEAH: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, Minnesota has been my life basically. I always knew that I would return and I did. When I moved back, I moved to St. Paul, our capital. It's not Minneapolis, but St. Paul is a capital. And I always knew I wanted to move up north, my band is in central-ish, northern-ish, central Minnesota. And of course, you know, Ojibwe are from Northern Minnesota, Canada, you know, Wisconsin, we're all over the place. So, North feels like home.
JULIA: Mhmm.
LEAH: So, when we had the chance, my husband, my spouse, and my son, and I to move up north, we took it. And what comes with that is realizing how much of the economy is built on extraction of natural resources, like... like mining, like timber, and things like that. So, a lot of things that are, in a sense, necessary and have been, you'll notice that I live in a log home. So, I do use materials like that to live and I have a computer and things like that with... with metals in them. Understanding that there is a difference between extractive commodifying everything and just wanting more, more, more versus seeing the mountain, seeing the tree as having a spirit and respecting it and working with it in a way that's a bit more sustainable, let's say, than just going in and full bore, just cranking through with your 100-foot axe. Just chopping things down left and right. But yeah, I grew up with Paul Bunyan.
JULIA: Yeah.
LEAH: In Grand Rapids here, we have his Adirondack chair in the center of town. It's just a giant chair.
JULIA: So, how big is it?
LEAH: Well, I mean, people can sit in it and they look like, you know, tiny dolls in... in the chair. And then, just down the road is Bemidji and of course we have the statue of Paul Bunyan. He's very big in town there. Just a little bit south of us in Brainerd is Paul Bunyan land which is an amusement park.
JULIA: Ooh.
LEAH: And I guess I have gone to it.
JULIA: I had to assume.
LEAH: Yeah. And then there is a giant Paul Bunyan there.
AMANDA: It sounds like you can't really opt out of the Paul Bunyan, like, mythos and discourse growing up in Minnesota.
LEAH: No. Like, our phone company, or phone company, I think is Paul Bunyan Communications.
LEAH: Oh my god.
AMANDA: Oh my.
LEAH: It's everywhere. It's ubiquitous, let us say. It's just all around.
JULIA: That's so interesting, because I feel like at least we're... we're Northeasterners. We're from New York. So, I feel like we learned about Paul Bunyan in a very abstract short sense. Like, maybe sometime in grade school as, like, a kind of expansion to the west folktale kind of thing. So, it's definitely not, like, big over here. We are like Johnny Appleseed. I feel like--
LEAH: Oh yeah.
JULIA: --it's more of our folklore. If we're really talking about folklore from our area, but the fact that Paul Bunyan is so huge that there are, like, statues to him there is so fascinating to me, so, can you tell us when you think you first heard the story of Paul Bunyan? Or was it just always around? Like how we all know the classic fairy tales immediately. Like, you don't remember your parents telling you them but you know them.
LEAH: Right. I... I don't think I can say when I first heard of Paul Bunyan.
JULIA: Mhmm.
LEAH: But you know, there's just... there's the Tall Tale books. It's... he's just always been around, Babe the Blue Ox.
JULIA: Mhmm.
LEAH: And things like that. And I never really thought about it very deeply. Until, of course, seeing some artwork of Paul Bunyan done by a friend of mine who made him look like a villain.
JULIA: Hmm?
LEAH: And then, I was like, "Well, that's interesting," because I had dressed my kid up as Paul Bunyan for Halloween once and didn't really think about it, because... it was before I moved to Northern Minnesota. And then I realized, "Ugh, a villain." And then I started thinking about how could Paul Bunyan be interpreted as a villain, you know, as scary. And I was like, you know, that makes a lot of sense thinking about the expansion out west. And of course, the "Building of America," and Paul Bunyan's role in it when it comes to, you know, not just knocking down trees left and right, but also building the landscape. How his... what his footprint or his handprint or something like that became, like, superior, and how he'd straighten river ways, so logs could more easily flow down the rivers, how we created the Rocky Mountains, how he created the Mississippi River. You know, all these things that take away from the eons and eons since time immemorial, of the land that we live on, and the indigenous populations that were here beforehand, because you don't see the displacement of indigenous people. There's no acknowledgement of the land stewardship that was here beforehand, and instead raising up this excess of need, of commodifying, of use of the land. Making it useful for humans, like it's not anything until somebody is here. So, yeah, it's very disturbing to think of it that way. And I was like, "You know what, that's true. It's amazing what art does."
AMANDA: Yeah.
LEAH: Consuming it differently.
AMANDA: It doesn't take much of a perspective shift. Like, even just that word "villain" really tilts everything very quickly into perspective. And I remember specifically learning about Paul Bunyan in a sort of an example of, like, American folklore, which, you know, again, like, one person says one thing and then you're immediately like, "Oh shit, that's really dark," because it's positing that you know, this is perhaps settler folklore, but looking at, you know, the literal and figurative you know, erasure displacement, that a figure like Paul Bunyan, like Lewis and Clark, like all, you know, Johnny Appleseed, like all these myths. Like, Johnny Appleseed didn't invent, like, Agriculture and Land Stewardship in the U.S., like, what the fuck are we talking about? Folklore is so often a tool of the state and a tool of rulers. And, you know, I'm grateful as an adult to be able to start learning and unlearning those perspectives.
JULIA: And it's really interesting to me, because I guess I'm not super familiar with the Paul Bunyan story. So, the idea that his footprint or handprint created, like, superior. In my brain, just the phrase that popped up was creation stories that erase other creation stories. And that is, like, a wild thing that I've never really thought about but something that I feel like white folks in America are very, very guilty of.
LEAH: Yeah, and so now we have these... these heroes, "Heroes." I feel like I'm saying, quote unquote, a lot but...
JULIA: That's fine.
LEAH: These heroes, I say begrudgingly, that are celebrated and where the indigenous people, the Ojibwe, and the Dakota people who were here originally, aren't just not celebrated in the same way. And if... if they are celebrated, it seems like, oh, some sort of, like, liberal agenda, or something like that. That's a... I don't understand why we... we raise up mythical figures that destroy by rule, instead of the people who were taking care of the land here first. It just seems like a real slap in the face, and it is. It feels like it.
AMANDA: It's designed that way. Yeah.
JULIA: I have a theory. May I ...May I posit it to you?
LEAH: Absolutely.
JULIA: I think that creation myths are usually a reflection of the values in which the society or the people that are telling it, like, hold most dear, right?
LEAH: Mhmm.
JULIA: So, for having Paul Bunyan kind of come in and be like, "I'm straightening these rivers so that capitalism and industry can be better." That's what the western expansion of, like, white settlers was all about during that period. And it is in stark contrast to what I imagined the indigenous peoples' values were at the time because the basically raping of the land that the people were doing as they were coming into those lands is, like, specifically goes against the stewardship that the native people were doing. And so, I think that in order to feel like they weren't doing a bad thing, they had to create these new creation stories--
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: --with Paul Bunyan as a central figure.
AMANDA: Yeah. If Paul Bunyan's a hero then so am I, right? Like--
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: --if... if that... if that behavior is lauded then, you know, I have... I have no qualms about doing more myself.
LEAH: Yeah, that makes sense. And, you know, it does parallel manifest destiny.
JULIA: Yep.
LEAH: Just this rugged, just flowing through moving west and whatever happens to the people here, it doesn't matter. The destiny of the settlers to be able to move out West without any repercussions. Just freedom to do whatever it takes, enslaving, assimilating, killing all the buffalo. You know, it just, you know, whatever is on that list of atrocities and human rights violations that happened.
JULIA: Yep, yep. 100%.
LEAH: And people are still working through the trauma of that. So, it's almost like... I mean, it is, like, there is this living trauma that is reopened every time there is a celebration of somebody like Paul Bunyan.
JULIA: Yeah, and so to live on a land where there's, like, literally an amusement park to this figure must be, like, it must be causing generational trauma, or at least, like, reopening that wound like you said.
LEAH: Yeah, I think so. It's really eerie when I think about it now.
JULIA: Yeah.
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LEAH: Yeah, I think that's a good question. And one that I would... I would take to the communities that they're in, that those items are in, because I do think communities know best what they need. And if they involve all the neighbors, tribal, non-native alike, I think people could be more creative than Paul Bunyan.
JULIA: Mmh.
LEAH: So, whether it is... There, I mean, because there used to be really great cooperation between the native folks and, like, the French for traders. Like, there's a lot of, like, commerce and trade and stuff that happened before there were, like, borders and more of, like, the state and regimented, like, government interaction there. So, I feel like each area has their history that's super specific.
JULIA: Mhmm.
LEAH: That has a wealth of available people to celebrate. I mean, specifically for my tribe or something like that, like, we celebrate our past chiefs and stuff like that. So, I could speak to that. But you know, in Grand Rapids, you're relatively new. I'd love to hear from the community to see what they might, who they might like to celebrate in lieu of Paul Bunyan's Adirondack chair, taking up a big old spot in the middle of down. We are also the birthplace of Judy Garland. So, that is a huge deal here in town. So, on that Adirondack chair was sat the tin man for years.
JULIA: Fun.
AMANDA: Really?
LEAH: Apparently. They've been, like, murals around town and there's a Judy Garland Museum here.
AMANDA: What a... what a mashup of problematic American faves, right?
JULIA: Right. I feel like Judy Garland did a little bit less, probably, genocide?
AMANDA: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JULIA: Because she's in jail now.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: No question.
LEAH: It's more of the Wizard of Oz author. I think that's more or like the problem is--
AMANDA: Yeah.
LEAH: But...
AMANDA: Not... not a great guy. Leah, can you tell us a little bit about your or your tribes are your kind of myths that you grew up with and stories about wood timber, your environment. I realized that even using the word timber, you know, commodifies wood and places it in relation to sort of, like, human building projects. And really, like, language goes all the way down in... in having an agenda. I really nerd out over that kind of stuff. So, trees, wood, timber, forests, tell us what you grew up with.
LEAH: Yeah. So, I wouldn't call anything really, like, myth, or anything like that. It's... it's real. It's legit story that's cultural and a way of life. So, I think kind of the main themes as far as... as the woods, and why I'm so attracted to it is that trees are incredibly wise. They have so much inherent value without needing to be cut down, or having somebody come out and measuring how much oxygen they purify. Just hope they like that, I hear that's happening. If there's so much more benefit than what humans can define, and there are some really beautiful conversations around the wisdom of trees and how they have their own families, how they talk to one another, or communicate to one another, which we might be more easily understanding of that, but how their root systems interact with one another, and how they support one another when they're in community. So, understanding that... that trees form their own communities and families and communicate, I think if we started thinking about it that way, we might be less like laissez-faire, is that the word?
AMANDA: Yeah.
LEAH: I mean, it's just like whatever about, like, going and cutting down trees. That's why when we take from the land, there's this reciprocity, that we as Anishinaabe people, in a way, make sure that we honor which is putting down an offering of tobacco in order to, like, go hunting, or fishing, or foraging, or cutting down a tree if we need it, there's always this reciprocity and thanks and being grateful for the taking of the life, the exchange that's going on there. And... and I think there's a lot of lessons in that in being able to be more thoughtful, in how we move forward, instead of just brashley, Paul Bunyan-ing it
JULIA: Gonna use that as a phrase from now on.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Just Paul Bunyan it.
AMANDA: It's really useful.
LEAH: Paul Bunyan it. That's kind of the... the worldview, I wouldn't say it's really necessarily a story.
JULIA: Sure.
LEAH: Or anything like that. But it is a worldview that... that we approach.
JULIA: Yeah. And that lens is incredibly important, you know?
AMANDA: And I appreciate your correction about my use of the word myth too where, you know, that's part of the settler project is framing indigenous cultures and people as past or less or not active, and it's something I'll be taking forward.
LEAH: Right. Yeah. And I thought it was funny. There was, like, a meme. Like, there are a lot of, like, really good native memes out there that were like, "And this ancient European mythology," like Christian, like, showing like a modern church or something like that.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yep.
LEAH: Get this, they--
AMANDA: Yeah.
LEAH: --worship this and, like, treating it like people would treat, you know, our belief system. And it's just like a really good reflection on, you know, flipping that narrative of how you approach talking about other cultures and myths. It was just really funny.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Listen, as a Catholic, my favorite jokes are when people are like, "Yes, these ancient people believe that they literally drink the blood of their Messiah." And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah. We kind of do. You're right, it's pretty funny. It's pretty funny when you think that's pretty fucked up.
AMANDA: My fiance who is Jewish even just says, like, using the word Christian to describe Christian Heaven and Hell is very illuminating to kind of point to the... the dominance of Christianity in, like, mainstream sort of US culture to say like, "Oh, yes, you know, we think that Santa comes, you know, from Christian heaven to, like, give, you know, kids presents or whatever." Just using or like, "Hey, interesting that this, you know, game system that doesn't have a religious agenda, we thought, like, has enshrined, like, a Christian hell in its, you know, mythology that is supposedly being, like, drawn from, you know, just, like, people's minds." It points out and kind of illuminates as having an agenda and having a background, having a point of view, something that, like, the, you know, the state and our schools would really like us to think as... as, like, totally natural and normal, just like the way things were done.
LEAH: Yeah, whiteness as a default.
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: Amanda, now all I can picture is Santa coming down from heaven, like a biblically accurate Angel, and like being not afraid while he's on fire.
AMANDA: Yeah. On fire, lots of eyes.
JULIA: Lots of eyes.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So many eyes.
LEAH: Oh my goodness. That'd be amazing.
JULIA: So, I know that Paul Bunyan is not the only kind of folktale, not gonna say hero, because we're not going to use hero for Paul Bunyan anymore on this podcast, folktale figure, there we go. But it's not surprising that Minnesota thinks so highly of him, given that, like, that was kind of his area and where he "settled." So, I'm very curious to see if there are other folktale figures that come to mind that we should be a little bit more not wary of, but look at it through a more critical lens of that you can think of and besides Johnny Appleseed, who might be an eco-terrorist, we don't know.
LEAH: Right. Because they're... basically make up the American myth.
JULIA: Yeah.
LEAH: Pete. Like who else is there, right?
JULIA: Yeah. I'm trying to think if there is another one that I can think of. I'm sure there's some other ones and we did an episode a while back on these, like, tall tale figures with David Renstrom.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: And I just can't recall. There was one guy who, like, lassoed a tornado at one point, but that's the only one that I can really think of. But it's... it's wild to me that Paul Bunyan has such a strong place in our society that even though it is very much a... almost like a middle America story, I would say that it is permeated into both coasts at this point.
LEAH: Yeah. Didn't they use Paul Bunyan for, you know, advertising and marketing and all of that for timber as well?
JULIA: Yeah.
LEAH: So, it's almost like taking that American figure, folk figure, and then turning it into even more like commercialization.
JULIA: Just all capitalism, baby. Just all capitalism.
LEAH: Right? It's just a self-feeding capitalist beast and reinforcing the name Paul Bunyan.
AMANDA: Tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the brawny paper towel man, it's just supposed to be Paul Bunyan, right?
JULIA: I think he's a lumberjack, but yeah, it's the same vibe. Definitely.
AMANDA: Yeah.
LEAH: Yeah.
AMANDA: I guess as a paper product.
JULIA: Yes. Yeah, it makes sense as a paper product. Now that you say that I'm like, "Yeah. Obviously, it would be a lumberjack.
LEAH: Oh, wow.
JULIA: And he's also brawny, because he's a big strong man.
AMANDA: Listen, it didn't occur to me until five seconds before I said it. So, we're all on the same page.
JULIA: We're all just having a real revelation here.
LEAH: We're having discoveries just as, yeah, we're talking. It's amazing.
JULIA: I... I want to circle back because I know that you were saying, like, you can't speak to the other communities that are kind of impacted by the legacy of Paul Bunyan, but you were talking a little bit about, like, what your own personal choices for who would replace him would be. Can you dive a little bit more into that for us?
LEAH: I think there are a lot of wonderful people to celebrate instead. I know, my tribe, Mille Lacs Band, we've had a great run of chiefs, Margaret Anderson, and like our Cabo, and folks that really led us through claiming our tribal sovereignty and building Xenos. And fishing rights and stuff like that, that I think have really impacted and benefited our tribes.
JULIA: Yeah.
LEAH: And each tribe has their own people too, that they can celebrate. I really like talking about those authentic, specific ways that we can actually honor history without making something up. Right? So, really looking back at accurate history and combining, you know, what we know about our tribes, what we know about neighboring communities and finding common ground, which happens really well, when you start to talk about hunting and fishing and living in the environment. There might not be the same as how to treat things like copper nickel mining, or iron mining or something like that, and oil pipelines, but there is a lot of commonality and love of the land and wanting it to be as beautiful as people remember when they were kids, you know? And wanting that for the next generations.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
LEAH: There is a way that we can get along and even just celebrate the environment. I think that would go a long way to bringing communities together over something that benefits everybody and not something that's so divisive.
JULIA: Like an amusement park to Paul Bunyan. It's so weird. So weird. What a... what a strange choice.
LEAH: I mean, it has fun rides. What can I say?
JULIA: Listen, I'm not gonna... I'm not gonna say, like, all amusement parks are terrible capitalist ventures, but maybe not towards Paul Bunyan, this folk villain.
LEAH: Yeah. I feel like they are better... just better ways to do things--
JULIA: Better options.
LEAH: --for the environment. Even if it's just a big ol' tree, you know, that's like, this is the amazing part about the tree. Let's celebrate the tree. Tree... Tree land.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: All about that.
AMANDA: I would go.
LEAH: Right?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Picturing a really good episode of The Magic School Bus where they go to tree world. I'm all about that. It'd be great.
LEAH: Yeah. I really love birch trees. And their--
JULIA: Oh my god. My favorites.
AMANDA: Me too.
LEAH: --just ability to be everything from their bark. Paper, canoes, earrings. Like, we could have oh, a birch tree amusement park would be amazing. Or like a statue in town to celebrate the birch tree.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
LEAH: And all of its uses. Renewable uses.
AMANDA: Beautiful in all seasons. Yeah. Useful, renewable, beautiful, have like a craft fair of native makers. That sounds amazing.
LEAH: My gosh!
JULIA: Honestly, prettier than the giant Adirondack chair too.
LEAH: This might be a thing. I'm gonna write this down.
AMANDA: Listen yeah.
JULIA: Do it, Leah. Do it up.
AMANDA: As long as we're invited to the opening.
LEAH: Yeah.
AMANDA: Run with it.
LEAH: There's a... an airport 35 miles away.
JULIA: That's fine. We can drive.
AMANDA: We can drive.
JULIA: That's not that far. That's like an hour drive. That's not bad.
AMANDA: I would love to know what kind of stories you share with your son. I know you mentioned his Paul Bunyan costume. What is he interested in? What do you like sharing with him? What do you wish he was interested in that you were interested in as a kid? What... What stories do you find yourself telling as a parent?
LEAH: Kids are amazing, because they have the ability to surprise you left and right. When my husband and I were ready to have a child. I was like, we know we're going to be surprised by our child. So, what is a way that our child could be completely different than us, from us? We're like, "I know he could be a social butterfly." And guess what? He is--
AMANDA: Really?
LEAH: --Mr. Social, Mr. Talkative, he will just, like, we drive down to the Twin Cities. That's about a three and a half hour drive. He will talk the entire time. So, we're lucky if we get to tell him a story, but no, we do. And I think he, like, most kids really like to hear about us when we were kids ourselves. And I'm really lucky because my dad is hilarious. He is old native guy, old Ojibwe elder now living in the woods as well. And kind of a hermit, kind of likes to keep to himself. So, I have a lot of fun stories of when I was a kid with my dad. And my dad would tell us all these stories that would keep us out of the woods, right? Because there are dangerous things in the woods that we wouldn't want to, like, get hurt or whatever without being supervised.
JULIA: Mhmm.
LEAH: So, in order to keep us out of the woods, he invented the story centering around a young girl named Limpy. And she lived down the stream from our house in the woods. And she would walk back and forth to school every day, down the stream, and then back at the end of the school day, but when she got to school, she was also horribly bullied. And so, it was very sad. And so, she ran home but the bullies followed her and set fire to the creek which has a lot of kind of like gunk in it, which was true at the time. And I don't know where it came from, but there was gunk in our creek. They set fire to the wood and the creek, and she was horribly disfigured. And so, it was very sad and when she passed away, she haunted the woods ever after. So, if we ever went into the woods, we would probably meet a charred and burned Limpy in the woods.
JULIA: That's dark.
LEAH: And so, who died after being, I don't know if she died... she didn't die, like, right after but you know, so I tell you what, you tell it was on my kids eight. He's right at the point where he just loves being scared but not, like, too scared.
JULIA: Mhmm.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
LEAH: Right?
AMANDA: Just enough.
LEAH: You know, like, he watched Hocus Pocus with us before Halloween and was... that was, like, the perfect amount of scary, right? Where it's, like, silly but scary. These sorts of stories where a story that you once heard that was real to you growing up adds a little magic for... for other... for your kids down the line. And so, I like to share those stories that my dad told me, and he's got quite a few. They're mostly warnings. They're mostly...
AMANDA: Yeah.
LEAH: I feel like that's every parent's story is like, "Don't... don't do that or something bad's gonna happen."
LEAH: It's all do not go wandering into the woods without an adult. Like, that's basically what it boils down to.
JULIA: A valid warning.
LEAH: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I have a question, and it's how long did you believe the Limpy story to be true or did your father eventually reveal like, "Oh, yeah. I made that up."
LEAH: I don't think he ever said outright that he made it up. I think it just kind of comes with age, kind of like Santa Claus, right?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: It could have been real then. You don't know.
AMANDA: It could have been real.
LEAH: But how do you know? How could you possibly know in this story?
AMANDA: That's what happens to us as adults where we're like, "Oh, that thing I thought was made up is literally true," where my family is like, "Oh, I thought you told me about the relatives that died in a well because he didn't want me to go into wells in suburban New York." And my dad was like, "Oh, no. I have a lot of relatives who died in wells." And I'm like, "Oh my god." like--
LEAH: Wow.
JULIA: How Amanda?
AMANDA: That's the real... that's the real reveal.
LEAH: Whoa.
JULIA: Why does this keep happening to your family members?
AMANDA: It happens to Irish children in the countryside. I don't know what to tell you.
LEAH: Oh. That is stressful.
AMANDA: Right?
LEAH: That is really stressful.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah. Or like, "Oh, yes. This is... this is the... the dark backstory of the aunt you met one time." And it's like, "Oh, God, I preferred the child version where there's some kind of creature that will eat me if I, you know, go into the woods after dark."
LEAH: Yeah.
JULIA: You know, a Kelpie.
AMANDA: The Kelpie. Yeah. Taily-po, whatever.
LEAH: Oh, my goodness. But yeah, so like, now that we live in the woods, I mean, these are stories I have to pass on by... by law, right?
AMANDA: You gotta.
JULIA: Well, so your son doesn't get, you know, kidnapped by the ghost of Limpy. That's--
LEAH: Right.
JULIA: --, you know, you gotta protect him.
AMANDA: Ask grandpa. He told me.
LEAH: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
LEAH: It's true. I mean, we do. We have... we've had bear walk through, we've had fisher raccoons. We're right next to a river. It's just... I mean, it's dangerous.
JULIA: Yeah, gotta be careful.
LEAH: It really is, with or without a charred ghost.
JULIA: I feel like a lot of times we tell these stories to children, because you can't just explain to the child you can't go to the river because it's dangerous. You have to give them a reason why it's dangerous, and children are fearless in that way where it's like, "I won't drown in the river, mom." And so, I think creating this kind of supernatural or other worldly, like, creature or reason that that thing is actually dangerous makes us listen more, I guess. Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah, narrative persuades
LEAH: Y'all, it makes you think twice, you know, when you go out there like, "You know, I would risk a bear, but I will not risk a creepy, like, blackened hand with skin--
AMANDA: Yeah.
LEAH: --falling off it." Like that... That hits different, right?
JULIA: I understand what a bear is. I'm not sure I understand what that is.
LEAH: Right.
JULIA: And that's what it comes down to.
LEAH: Yeah. I like that.
AMANDA: Yeah, I don't have a stuffed Limpy on my bed that I like to hug, but I... I do have a stuffed animal mooses that... that belie the real danger of... of a moose if I met them in the woods.
LEAH: Oh my gosh, moose are just so dangerous.
JULIA: Moose are terrifying.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I feel like everyone's like, "Oh, yeah, it's cute. It's a moose." I've never seen one in person but I've seen enough of those photos where they're, like, next to cars and you're like the thing is bigger than a car. That's not okay.
LEAH: It's very dangerous. I remember I was canoeing in the Boundary Waters when I was 15, maybe? Just, you know, nice afternoon on the water. I was with, like, a you know, like an inner city group that brought us up to the Boundary Waters so we could get the... the experience. Turn the corner there's a moose just, like, eating the grasses in the... in the water there. Just being like that moose is barely, like, longer than the canoe. Like, you could just dunk us and step on us, and that's it. Game over.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: What do you do? You back up?
LEAH: Oh, I just, you know, slowly just not... trying not to, like, alarm the moose. There's so many, yeah, scary things like that. But I mean, they're adorable at the same time.
JULIA: Yeah. And you're like, "Oh, it's fine because, like, that thing just eats grass and stuff."
AMANDA: No, not true.
LEAH: I remember also when I was in the Boundary Waters, you know, we have to portage your canoes between lakes so, you know, the canoe on your back and you walk through. And I was walking side by side with a bear. A nice... a nice black bear, you know, just walking with me. And I'm like, I literally don't know what to do. Like, there's nothing I can do. Like, you know, there are other, you know, people at various points along the trail. I'm like, you know, he knows I'm here. I know he's there. I can't move to the left or right. I can only just... I mean, I could move back, but what's that going to accomplish, but just kind of keep going slowly, you know. And it's, you know, how close we are to nature in reality is... can be very surprising, I think, when you hit the city lines, you know, just beyond the suburbs.
JULIA: Yeah. Amanda and I grew up on Long Island, which the largest animal that you can find on Long Island is a deer.
LEAH: Mhmm.
JULIA: And the largest predator is, like, a raccoon. Like, we don't have, like, any sort of like mountain lion, bobcat--
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: --situation. There's no bears here. So, it's kind of buck wild to, like, know that there are creatures that can actually hurt you in places that aren't here.
LEAH: Mhmm.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I don't know. I don't know how else to describe that, but it's very sheltered, naturewise here.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Even when I go on hikes, I'm just like, "Yeah, nothing's gonna hurt me. Like, the worst thing that happens out here is a deer crosses my path, and they're scared of me. So..."
AMANDA: What we did learn about is the ocean, because, you know, as a... as a Long Island, you know, a very Long Island with a lot of shoreline, and my mom is an ocean lifeguard. So, growing up, you know, reading the tides, learning about rip currents, learning about when sharks are in the water, what seaweed says about what fish are out there, how to see that if there's a lot of birds circling that means small fish are there, which means big fish are there. You know, that is the part of the environment that was most relevant to us. And I feel like there's always a myth about someone's dog who got hit by, like, a hawk. So--
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: --the sky and... and the ocean are two... two places that contain bigger animals.
JULIA: You're like, "An Ospreay stole a Chihuahua." And we're like, "Yeah, all right."
AMANDA: Whatever. Fine. Fine.
LEAH: I do want to say, though, that also the bear are a clan. And so there are family members moose as well. And, you know, these... these relatives of ours aren't looking to, like, looking to kill, you know, hurt us, right? But, you know, without some sort of cause for aggravation, they're not like humans, where humans will just, like, kill for no reason.
AMANDA: Yeah.
LEAH: But they will, you know, if they're spooked, or if they're scared, or surprised, then... then we're in danger. But, you know, if we don't encroach on their living space, then we don't have much to worry about.
JULIA: Yeah, that's... that's fair. And I feel like, at least here, or at least like in, for family members who live in, like, Staten Island and New Jersey, we've encroached so much on the natural territory of animals like bears, that it's a very difficult balance to have, where all of a sudden, you're like, "Oh, there is a bear in my backyard eating my trash. And there's not really anything I can do about that in the moment. I'm just going to let him do what he's got to do and then leave."
LEAH: Mhmm.
AMANDA: Yeah, but I think you're, you know, you intentionally or not ended on a perfect anecdote that you really brought to a wonderful conclusion for us Leah about, you know, you acknowledged the bear, the bear acknowledged you. You both went on with your days respecting each other's space and autonomy and not surprising one another, or veering into each other's path. And here you are telling us about it later.
LEAH: Right?
JULIA: That's the plus.
LEAH: Thank you. Well, this has been fun.
AMANDA: So fun.
JULIA: Yeah, this is great. Thank you so much.
AMANDA: Please remind everybody all about Wisdom Continuum. Links will be in the description, but give us just one more plug as to where folks can find you and your work online.
LEAH: Yeah. So, Wisdom Continuum is online at wisdomcontinuum.com. We're on Instagram and Twitter. Again, Wisdom Continuum. And yeah, we have email as well: wisdomcontinuum@gmail.com. Any ideas? Anything like that? Yeah, that's about it. Oh, yeah, and the podcast can be found anywhere you find podcasts.
JULIA: Perfect.
AMANDA: Amazing. Leah, thank you again. All those links are below. And folks, remember.
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool. Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Alison Wakeman.
JULIA: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @spiritspodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website. As well as a forum to send us in your urban legends, and your advice from folklore questions at spiritspodcast.com.
AMANDA: Join our member community on Patreon, patreon.com/spiritspodcast for all kinds of behind-the-scenes goodies. Just $1 gets you access to audio extras with so much more like recipe cards with alcoholic and non-alcoholic for every single episode, director's commentaries, real physical gifts, and more.
JULIA: We are a founding member of Multitude, an independent podcast collective, and production studio. If you like Spirits, you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude.productions.
AMANDA: Above all else, if you liked what you heard today, please text one friend about us. That's the very best way to help keep us growing.
JULIA: Thanks for listening to Spirits. We'll see you next week.
AMANDA: Bye.