Once there was an old man here who killed two of them. He got one when
it came from the north in the spring. (Wihtikos always came in the spring.)
It was not able to kill just anybody, though, because there were some people
here who were wise to them. They knew to run away to a safe place when the
wihtiko came near. Well, that old man killed two of them.

One time he killed one out at a wilderness lake, and another time over
here at Cold River. People used to paddle there when they went to sell their
furs in the spring. As they were travelling along, the old man sensed one.
“I can feel it! Boy!” he told his companion. “We have to stop for a
while.” He knew it was there and he wanted to kill it. They headed back home
just as the sun was starting to set. They came by way of the river. At the
end of the lake was another river. That old man knew it was there, and he
wanted to destroy it.

Okay, then, I think, “Right here,” he said, “this island.” It was
there. That’s where he said to drop him off. He disembarked. “Right here.
Drop me off right here,” he said. So, he was put ashore on that island. “In
the morning, as the sun rises, there will be a gunshot at the end of the
lake. Then, you paddle over there.” He told him to wait there, so he did as
he was told. “And when there is a gunshot, come paddling out. By that river
put in a stake. Tie up and anchor there. Don’t go ashore.” He was travelling
with his young son, who was not very big. They went over there, and he sat
with him in the canoe, just anchored there. At dawn the gun fired. The old
man who had dropped him off there fired the gun.

He could be seen right there by the river, on a smooth, suitable rock.
He was just standing there and walking around. He started out to get him. He
went straight to the shoreline. And that’s where the old man went and killed
that wihtiko. “We got off at the edge of these high cliffs, where he pulled
the canoe ashore,” he said. He took his son out of the canoe. Then, he said
to him, “Make a fire for tea.” “Don’t you want to go and see it?” he asked
him. The boy said, “I don’t have the courage. I don’t want to see it.” “It is
right there, behind this rock,” he said, “just around the bend by this high
cliff. It is lying there.” His son replied, “Okay, but I don’t want to go and
see it.”

They built a fire and made tea on a nice, level rock with a hollowedout
spot. He made a big fire and put two small rocks in it. No, they were big
rocks. Eventually the rocks turned glowing red-hot. “Pull my jacket over my
head,” he said. “Take it off and take that rock and rub it against me.” Now,
that rock was red-hot. “I don’t want to take it out of the fire,” the boy
said. “Just take it,” he told him. So he took it out, even though it was
glowing hot. “Rub my back with it,” the old man said. When the boy rubbed his
back with the rock, it cooled off right away. “Put it down and take another
rock from the fire,” he told him. After that, the old man said, “I am better
now.” He recovered. I assume he was cold in his back. Rubbing his back with
red-hot rocks cured him.

It is not bad... strong, that wihtiko, because it is not a nice being.
It is not kind. People said it was some sort of a devil. But it was not like
that, those ones from the north. They were not being cared for. They came
from way over there, these Eskimos, from farther away than Brochet. They were
not being looked after long ago. Since then, none has come here. Not once did
one come here again, of those who started to freeze and go crazy and come
over here.

One came over to Flin Flon. A white man killed one there. It walked by
here, that one. I tracked him myself, that wihtiko, but I never did get
close, you know. I only tracked him as I was going to lift my net over here.
Well, one spring I went and took my nets out. The ground was already becoming
bare, but I was using dogs when I went over to the other side of the bush.
Still, I had no trouble riding. Then, over there, out in the open, there were
snowdrifts. There were three footprints there. I stopped and had a look. Boy!
A wihtiko! They were already making tracks. It usually made tracks, people
said. “A bear should not be walking in there,” I thought. It was a wihtiko
that made three footprints there. I stopped and wondered what I should do.
“It is best to go home,” I thought. “But no, I might as well check it out.”
I told my dogs to move. We had not gone very far when the sky cleared. And a
little further on, the sun was suddenly covered by a cloud. It was not a big
cloud, but suddenly there was a big snow storm. Boy! Nothing could be seen.
There was no visibility, so I stopped. Snow was just pouring down. After a
while, the sun came out again and the sky cleared. The snow could be seen and
the storm was over. “That was the one,” my late father told me later, “the
wihtiko. The one you tracked is the one that the white man killed at Flin
Flon. It nearly got there.”

And then one time he went to lift his traps in the spring, as usual.
Already, somebody had been there getting his traps and dragging them out. His
beavers had been dragged out and left in the open, where ravens were ravaging
them. “I wonder who is doing this,” he thought. “It can’t be a bear, because
it would have eaten them, the ones he dragged out. Ah, but wait!” He thought
about it. The next day he went to lift his traps very early. He just went to
watch for it. As he came around a bend, there it stood, with its back to him.
It was a human while he was looking at it. He shot it. Boy, it went to the
shoreline fast. It was gone, but he knew he had hit it. He did not go to
investigate, though. There was no sound from it. “I guess I killed it right
there,” he said. “I was able to kill it because it was thawed out already. I
must have killed it there. I did not go and check on it, though.” And then
he started to kill a lot of these wihtikos. He’s the one that did it. Nobody
ever bothered him again.