THE TOTE-ROAD SHAGAMAW

From the Rangeley Lakes to the Allagash, and even across the border into New Brunswick, loggers tell of a strange animal that has long puzzled woodsmen. Many a camp has been stirred up when someone reports bear tracks nearby, only for another to insist they are moose tracks instead. The debate often grows so heated that fists fly, for to accuse a seasoned woodsman of mistaking one for the other is no small insult.

Only a handful of old timber cruisers and rivermen know the true explanation. One of them, Gus Demo of Oldtown, Maine, had spent forty years hunting, trapping, and logging in the northern woods when he stumbled upon the mystery himself. At first he came across what were clearly moose tracks. Yet after following them for about eighty rods, the tracks abruptly shifted into those of a bear. Another eighty rods, and they became moose again. The pattern continued with uncanny precision.

Puzzled, Gus pressed on until he finally caught sight of the creature. What he saw explained everything: its front feet were those of a bear, its hind feet those of a moose, and it moved with careful pacing, each step measuring exactly a yard. Then, without warning, the animal stopped, glanced around, and pivoted on the spot. In a blink it flipped over and began walking on its front feet alone, perfectly inverting itself, yet still keeping the same measured stride.

Gus quickly realized that these flips occurred at section corners, the very points marked by surveyors in the forest. From this, he concluded the beast—known as the shagamaw—must once have been a naturally imitative animal. By watching surveyors, timber cruisers, and trappers walk their lines through the woods, it had taken on the habit itself. Gus even claimed the creature could count, though only up to four hundred and forty, which explained why it inverted itself once every quarter of a mile.