Night of The Thunder Growl
Image: Bing AI
Elliston, on the tip of Newfoundland’s Bonavista Peninsula, is no stranger to visitors. Thousands of people pass through the tiny community every summer. Some people go to see the colony of Atlantic puffins that nest on its shores, others to explore the world root cellar capital, still more to see the Sealers Memorial.
These tourists are welcomed with open arms but, once upon a time, the community had a visitor they’d have done anything to be rid of; a visitor so terrifying it sent them into the darkness of night weilding hatchets.
The strange visitor came to be known as the Thunder Growl.
It happened a long time ago, nobody quite knows when but it was back in the days when the area was better known as Bird Island Cove.
Night of the Thunder Growl
It was cold but the ocean around Bird Island Cove sparkled brilliantly in the winter sun. From the hilltops to the horizon there was nothing to see but blue skies and open water.
It was a beautiful day, good for working outdoors and the whole cove seemed to recognize it. It was bustling with activity.
The frozen landscape echoed with the noise of axes against timber. With the ponds frozen it was the perfect time to haul firewood — horses and dog teams could easily forge paths across what, in any other season would be, open water. It made the chore far easier.
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In the woods, not far from town, Peter Chaulk was standing by a small campfire. He raised a mug of tea to his lips. It had been a hard day’s work but it had paid off. Just across the clearing his mare, Lady, was strapped to a sled full of timber.
There was nothing more to do now but tow the wood home and unload it; not that that was easy work. Though shortened by the ice, the journey was still a challenge. He had to guide Lady across the frozen bogs. Keeping the sled clear of fallen logs, frozen stumps and deep gullies required constant vigilance.
It was almost 3pm and the winter sun was low in the sky. The longer he waited, the more difficult the journey home would get.
Nobody wanted to haul wood in the dark if they could avoid it.
Peter looked down at the campfire and lifted the kettle. He kicked snow over the last few embers. In a quiet hiss, they died away.
He hadn’t taken more than a step toward Lady when he heard it; from somewhere just beyond the tree line came a sound.
It was a deep, low growl. It sounded like a huge animal, and it sounded like it was very close.
He didn’t dare move.
Peter gazed into the trees. In the fading light it was difficult to see anything. In every shadow he expected to spot the glint of eye looking back at him or the shadow of a creature stalking, but he saw nothing.
His heart was racing.
It would be better to know what made the awful noise; to take a measure of the threat, than to be left in mystery.
Again, the growl came, this time it seemed closer.
The hair on the back of Peter’s neck stood up.
Across the clearing Lady bucked against the sleigh.
The woods never seemed darker or more still. It was as if whole forest were holding its breath, as if it were caught in the gaze of a hungry predator, a predator that seemed to be circling closer.
This was no time to worry about logs, everything in Peter’s being told him he had to get out of the woods.
He dropped the kettle and, as fast as he could, he unhitched Lady from the sled. He grabbed his hatchet and they were off.
Through the woods they raced, man and horse.
Still, over the beat of hooves, came the growling. Sometimes it seemed to be coming from the left, other times, from the right, but always with him.
It seemed to be chasing him.
He knew, if he were going to survive, he had to find shelter. He had to make it back to town.
Then, suddenly, he burst free of the trees — he was almost home. If he could just make it across the mesh, he’d be there.
Faster and faster, he urged Lady onward. The mesh flew past them and the town began to unfold around them.
The sickening growling kept its pace. It seemed to be surrounding him.
Ahead of him on the lane, Peter could just make out the silhouette of a man — it had to be his cousin David. He seemed to be running too. Peter watched as David burst into the shed only to return, seconds later, holding a bird gun. He put it to his shoulder, pointed to the left, then the right.
As Peter drew closer, David brought his aim to rest on Lady.
Recognizing Peter and the mare, David lowered his gun, “Where is it?” he whispered, his eyes darting back and forth, “Where’s the beast?”
“I didn’t see it but it followed me from the woods. I couldn’t get clear of it,” panted Peter.
David shook his head, “It’s another one that followed you. This one’s been here this last hour.”
“What is it,” asked Peter, “I’ve never heard the like.”
“I don’t know, but there’s not a soul here in the cove who hasn’t said a prayer since it started,” David began.
“Mother thought there was some bear up under the house. She called out to father to get his gun but, when he looked, there was nothing there.
“James Porter swore it was a polar bear down by the shore. He took his gun, went down to shoot it,” David said as he shook his head.
“He followed the sound and… there was nothing. No bear, no nothing. He came right to the edge of the cliff, said the whole place seemed growl at him. It rattled him pretty bad.
“It’s bad Peter, I wonders if it’s not the end of the world.”
As if on cue, another thunderous growl ripped through the growing darkness.
Maybe it is, thought Peter.
The two men parted, each for their homes.
Inside his tiny house Peter found his wife and children waiting in the kitchen. They greeted him as though they’d never expected to see him alive again. He hugged them warmly and laid his hatchet on the table, it had been in his hand since leaving the woods.
All through the night the family sat around the kitchen table. Peter held the hatchet while just outside the door, just beyond the walls and right under the floorboards The Thunder Growl seemed to stalk them — always present and always out of sight.
Dawn came but there was no relief, the Thunder Growl continued its maddening call.
Then at noon, as suddenly as it started, it stopped.
The Thunder Growl was never heard again and the people of Bird Island Cove never discovered the identity of their strange visitor.
It remains a mystery to this day.
Elliston, NL
Deconstructing the Thunder Growl
Most of what is known about The Thunder Growl comes from an account by Rev. Philip Tocque who recorded in his 1846 book Wandering Thoughts. He didn’t witness the event but was told about it during his time in the Bonavista and Elliston areas. His informants told him it occurred about fifteen years prior, suggesting the event happened around 1830s.
Tocque wrote:
About 15 years ago, in the winter season, a very singular and most extraordinary sound was heard in the neighbourhood of Bonavista. It commenced about three o’clock in the afternoon and lasted until the next day about noon. The men at Bird Island Cove were going about nearly all night, some with loaded guns, some with hatchets, and others with whatever weapon they could command. The sound is described as resembling distant thunder. It has also been compared to the growl of a bear, the bellowing of a cow, &c, conveying a deep sepulchral tone. What is most strange and unaccountable is that it appeared alongside of everybody, although at the time some were at a distance from each other of from one to five miles. Men hauling wood at the time thought the sound came out of the ground immediately under the slide or team, and, in, some instances, were so alarmed as to leave the wood behind. Several females thought a bear had got into their chambers, and ran terrified from their dwellings.
Elliston, NL
Nobody knows what the true source of The Thunder Growl was. The grinding of offshore ice has been discounted because, apparently, there was no ice at the time. Prevailing thoughts include unusual atmospheric disturbances or something geologic.
Tocque writes that two days after The Growl the community experienced “one of the heaviest seas ever known.”
Was it related? Maybe.
Regardless of explaination, the night of The Thunder Growl left a mark on the people of the area.
In the book More Than 50% Hilda Chaulk Murray, describes an explosive growth in Methodism in the Elliston area in the 1820s. She suggests that fear of The Growl helped to fuel that (obviously she places The Growl as having visited pre-1830).
“People were terrified,” Chaulk Murray writes, “It’s not unlikely that many sought comfort in the Evangelism of the early Methodists.”
I don’t know.
Who’s to say what comforts you seek… when the night starts to growl.
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Wandering Thoughts, Rev. Philip Tocque, 1846
The Thundergrowl Phenomenon, Newfoundland Weekly, Jan 03, 1931
Trinity, Evening Telegram, October 28, 1922
More Than 50%, Hilda Chaulk Murray, 1979
Elliston, Encyclopedia of NL
Newfoundland: As it Was, and As It Is In 1877, P. Tocque,
