Algernon Blackwood 
The Wendigo 

The Wendigo is a novella by
Algernon Blackwood , first published in The Lost Valley and Other Stories (Eveleigh Nash, 1910).

In the wilderness north of Rat Portage in Northwestern Ontario, two Scotsmen – divinity student Simpson and his uncle, Dr. Cathcart, an author of a book on collective hallucination – are on a moose-hunting trip with guides Hank Davis and the wilderness-loving French ‘Canuck’, Joseph Défago. While their Indian cook, Punk, stays to tend the main camp, the others split up into two hunting-parties; Dr. Cathcart goes with Hank, while Défago guides Simpson in a canoe down the river to explore the vast territory beyond. Simpson and Défago make camp, and it soon becomes clear that Défago senses – or at least thinks he senses – some strange and fearful odour on the wind…




Algernon Henry Blackwood , (14 March 1869 – 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, ‘His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer’s except Dunsany’s.’ and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) ‘may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century’.