Adventure on Wendigo Island: A Hilarious Alaska Camping Story

Adventure on Wendigo Island is a funny Alaska short story about two teenage brothers who camp on a deserted island, spook themselves with memories of the legend of the Wendigo, and flee into the night.

The danger is imaginary, but the panic is real. The story follows their campfire confidence, mounting fear, frantic escape, and embarrassed realization.

A funny Alaska short story works best when the danger feels real for just long enough to make the punchline land.

Here, two brothers head to a lonely island for a night of camping, where they let wind and imagination turn into a monster, and row for their lives before realizing how badly they played themselves.

Hear the story told by the author

by Michael R. Dougherty

A light breeze tried to warn us as my little brother Tom and I pushed our small rowboat from the rocky shore into the cold, murky waters of Odiak Lagoon in Cordova, Alaska.

Like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, we were two young teenage boys, looking for adventure.

Oars in hand, we headed straight for a small deserted and heavily wooded island that would be our campground for the night and a place where our overactive imaginations would terrorize and humiliate us.

Once we were on the island, and after a busy afternoon of exploring, our evening found us roasting hot dogs over a crackling campfire and enjoying smores before crawling into our sleeping bags for a good night's sleep.

As we lay there quietly contemplating millions of bright stars overhead, the wind began to rustle through the trees in the distance.

I wasn't paying any attention to the wind… but my brother was.

“Did you hear that?” asked Tom in a somewhat nervous voice. “Hear what?” I asked, still star gazing and only half paying attention.

Again the wind pushed through yonder trees.

“That! Did you hear that?” Came Tom's now fearful reply. “It's just the wind” I snapped. But Tom's rich imagination had already filled him with fear. “It's not just the wind” demanded Tom as a strong breeze pressed closer. “It's coming” he said with a strange, whimper.

Annoyed at Tom I mockingly sneered, “what's coming?”

Then I noticed the wind growing stronger as I waited for my brother's answer. “Do you remember that scary television show?” Tom asked. “The one about “The Wendigo?”

Just then the wind began a menacing dance across the tree tops all around us.

Instantly, my memory transported me back to an evening in front of the family television. Me, my brother Tom and sister Anna were watching an episode of, “The Outer Limits”. The story had us in its grip as we sat there wide-eyed and frozen with fear as an unseen monster, disguised as the wind, charged through the woods with dark purpose, leaving a trail of invisible death.

“I remember” I gasp. The alarm in my voice surprised me.

The wind was definitely taunting us now. It rushed at the trees, shaking branches, rattling leaves and warning us of impending doom.

“The Wendigo sounded just like that” said Tom in a now fear-choked voice. “Yeah” was all I could manage as I listened to the now terrifying wind hiss and dart across the tree tops.

Then, in the dark moonlight, naked branches began to viciously reach out at us. “It's the Wendigo” screamed Tom as he quickly pulled his sleeping bag over his head.

In a brief attempt to be a good big brother, I tried to relieve Tom's fear. “No, it isn't the Wendigo. That was just a TV show. There's no such thing as the Wendigo.” I said it, but I was so scared that I couldn't even make myself believe it now. For I too had fallen victim to the Wendigo's terror as the evil, demented wind now slashed through the trees all around us.

Snickering its hideous snicker and screeching its demonic screech, the Wendigo now held us with a firm grip on our overactive imaginations.

From under the pathetic cover of his sleeping bag, I heard Tom's muffled scream, “it's here! The Wendigo is here!” I shot out of my sleeping bag and stood trembling, ready to meet my doom at the hands of our invisible tormentor. “Let's get out of here” I yelled as the attacking wind hissed all around us.

Tom sprang from his sleeping bag, and we broke camp at the speed of light, throwing sleeping bags, fishing poles, the campfire, and anything else that looked remotely like ours into our small rowboat.

As we spun out of control, grabbing, throwing, and crying, the wind continued to dance its evil dance from tree to tree, branch to branch and leaf to demon-possessed leaf.

Oh the evil, oh the terror – oh the stupidity.

“It's going to get us!” Shrieked Tom as the Wendigo ripped at his back. Then through tear-filled eyes and in a complete state of terror, I screamed and leaped forward, shoving our rowboat from the rocky beach and onto the dark, cold water of Odiak Lagoon.

Suddenly, Tom ran after me crying and screaming “don't leave me!” as he dove head-first into our boat.

Within seconds, we plunged our oars into the water and began rowing so fast that you could have surfed in our wake. Our fear induced, out of breath, jet-propelled rowing took us farther and farther from the terror that had possessed every fiber of our teenage beings.

But with each stroke of our oars into the dark water, we began to catch our breath and the terror that held us in its grip began to subside.

Until finally, our rowing stopped altogether.

Silently, in unison, we both looked back at the moonlit outline of the now strangely peaceful island we had narrowly escaped from just moments ago.

And there, in the silence of the night, the terrible truth occurred to us.

There was no such thing as the Wendigo, and we had acted like colossal, sniveling teenage idiots.

I took a deep breath and broke the embarrassing silence. “I don't believe what we just did.” Then Tom slowly turned away from looking at the island and asked “do you remember that TV show? The one about the Wendigo?”

I didn't say a word because it occurred to me that the whole ordeal was my little brother's fault. So, I did what any normal teenage big brother would do. I gave Tom a dirty look and sneered, “Tom, don't you ever do that to me again.”

And there in the moonlight I saw the countenance of my brother's face turn almost Angelic with innocents as he mockingly proclaimed, “me?” “You were the one who said “let's get out of here!”

I couldn't believe my ears. Tom was the one who had brought up the entire Wendigo thing in the first place. At that moment, I wanted to throw him overboard, but I knew he couldn't swim a lick and if he drowned, I would probably get put on restriction.

So instead, I made my eyes turn into menacing slits and burned my stare straight into my brother's peepers as I growled in my best guttural, demonic voice impression, “shut up and row.”

The look of fear returned to my brother's face as he carefully slid as far away from me as he could on the shared seat in our small rowboat.

And with that, we bid farewell to the island on that dark, windy night. We left it to the Wendigo.

In the Summer months that followed, we returned to the island many times. Of course, we did so only during the daytime and only when the wind wasn't blowing.

And never once, on any of our return visits, did either of us mention our night of blood-curdling terror at the hands of our invisible tormentor.

But my brother Tom and I both know that on windy, moonlit nights, the Wendigo is still out there on that island in the middle of Odiak Lagoon in Cordova, Alaska. And it waits patiently for our return.

The Wendigo waits, with dark menacing purpose.

And I'm absolutely certain that it's really my brother Tom that it wants.

Yours

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“Great stories!” Michael