A Museum of Unnatural History: Enter the Lumberwoods

A MUSEUM OF
UNNATURAL HISTORY

WELCOME TRAVELERS OF THE HALLOW WOODS—The Lumberwoods, Unnatural History Museum, is a lost and found of forgotten lore, being both a repository of forbidden knowledge and holding cell for the things what trouble one’s sleep. Our museum of unnatural history ventures to explore the known of the unknown and, as occasion permits, the unknown of the unknown. Our museum’s focus is on the unnatural history of North America from the boreal forests of the Great White North, across the amber plains of U.S.A., through the desert valleys of Old Mexico and down towards the verdant coasts of Mesoamerica. Where our specialty lies is in the region surrounding the Great Lakes, les Grands-Lacs. Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario where the old-time lumberjack harvested white pine and spun strange and curious tales with which to frighten newcomers to the woods.

WHY LUMBERWOODS?

Throughout history, diverse civilizations have always told of a mysterious place where myth and reality meet. Even today, one may venture to say they feel as if he or she is entering The Twilight Zone to describe the feeling of the otherworldly melding with our own. However, this nod to popular culture is not without its predecessors. Prior to titular television series’ deput, radio-era programs such as Inner Sanctum Mysteries, The Black Museum or The Weird Circle invited listeners to enter into the realm of the unnatural. Earlier, readers of adventure fiction would have found printed references to the White City of the Monkey God, Shangri-La, Seven Cities of Gold or a myriad of other such “lost places” home to fabulous treasure to say nothing of countless perils, whether in the form of natural hazards or fearsome beasts. As well, in the historical Colonial Era, paranoid witch hunters warned of the incursion of an “Invisible World” where practitioners of magic drew their supernatural power. In museums, housing the work of ancient cartographers, maps can still be viewed emblazoned with the figures of dreadful serpents, hulking giants and the infamous, “Here be Dragons,” which were used to forewarn sailors that they would be entering into the unnatural and the unknown.

Yet, before we built such museums, before our minds pondered the boundaries of dimensions, before we crossed the oceans, before we even traversed the continents, history has it that our ancestors spoke of an unnatural place both marveled at and feared—the wood. One can hardly find any who rank among the greatest of storytellers without a tale to tell of a mysterious encounter in the vast wilderness. Even, Transylvania, the fabled home of the Bram Stoker’s Dracula, king of vampires, means “land beyond the forest.” Moreover, the woods were the setting of the olden fairy tales, where sleeping beauty was laid to rest, where beasts were slain, where historic battles fought, where magical and unnatural beings dwelt, where trees screamed even as people do under the woodsman’s ax. Furthermore, housed in the archives of British Museum, one may find the oldest among surviving narratives. The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, recounts a heroic trek and battles fought though a mystical Cedar Forest. Yes, it is a matter of historical record, the woods were the first among the unnatural places.

In North America too, the lumberjack told of it. He spoke vividly of the dangerous creatures that lurk and countless pitfalls therein much in the same tone as his ancestors did. Except, using the vernacular characteristic of the occupation, the loquacious logger added “lumber” to “woods.” Accordingly, it is from this our museum of unnatural history’s name was bestowed. Having selected it from the first piece in our museum’s collection, the 1910 book Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods by William T. Cox. And, so, the Lumberwoods, Unnatural History Museum, was born.