Hunter becomes the hunted

WAUPACA/PORTAGE COUNTY LINE — When Tim Tautges headed to his deer stand on a crisp autumn day near the Waupaca–Portage County line, he expected to see a trophy buck.
The land was a hunter’s dream — a mix of hardwoods and clearings, carefully managed for wildlife.
Tautges was a guest on what he called “the promised land” of deer hunting.
When the woods suddenly fell silent, the moment turned from peaceful to primal. What he saw next was the opposite of any hunter’s dream.

The woods turn quiet

To be clear, Tautges isn’t easily shaken. At six-foot-five, the seasoned outdoorsman is used to the woods’ sounds — and its silence.
As the sun dipped below the tree line, the chickadees, juncos, squirrels and a flock of turkeys beneath his stand suddenly fled.
“It was eerie, even the sound of the wind through the pine needles stopped. I knew something was coming,” said Tautges.
He figured it was a black bear or a wolf — both had been seen on the property before.
“I stood up in the stand and started looking around because I thought, well, this is kind of odd. I looked over my left shoulder and there was absolutely nothing there.
“I turned and started slowly coming back toward my right and out of my peripherals, that’s when I saw it up on the ridge, to the right of me, peering out from behind a tree,” said Tautges.
“I didn’t want to look further, but its gaze drew me to look at it, and we locked eyes. It was as if my soul got sucked out of me,” said Tautges.
It paralyzed him.
“I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t look away.”

A creature beyond belief

Tautges described it as enormous — a nine-foot-tall werewolf-like figure standing on two legs, with long front arms and gangly forelegs, long hair, a visible rib cage and powerful hind legs.
Its fangs were showing and it was drooling, breathing “super heavy,” which he said he could hear from 50 yards away.
Its eyes were the most prominent feature.
“Oh my God, they were awful,” said Tautges. “They were yellow. I could see those eyes like they were a highlighter in the darkening woods. And I couldn’t take my eyes off them — like it had me in a trance almost.”
He said they locked eyes for what felt like an eternity as the creature peered from one side of the tree to the other.
“I could hear him breathing, and he was like 50 yards off,” Tautges said. “It was a heavy breathing — sputtering and spattering. You know, it was disgusting.”

A desperate escape
He finally broke free from the gaze. “Then he — the wendigo, or whatever it was — turned and ran. He cleared, God, he cleared 300 yards of buckthorn and blackberry brush, stuff nothing can run through that fast, in about three seconds,” said Tautges.
“I just stood and watched it, knowing there’s no creature God created that can run that fast. It made a cheetah look slow.”
From there, he said, it trotted down a hill and up through a cornfield like a streak of lightning.

Once the creature disappeared, Tautges regained movement — but his body shook violently.
“I was so terrified — I jumped out of my tree stand,” he said.
He left his new bow and arrows hanging in the tree. He said he never felt the ground as he hit and rolled and ran a considerable distance in the opposite direction without looking back.
“I think that’s the fastest I ever ran,” said Tautges. “It was probably three-quarters of a mile back to the barn.”
He ran past his hunting partner Rob who had seen only a black streak and shouted, “What was that?”
Tautges didn’t stop to explain.

Years of silence
Once he reached the barn, it took him more than a half-hour to calm down enough to drive.
Tautges left his bow in the woods for days and later had Rob retrieve it.
He didn’t return to the land for the next 15 years.

In the ensuing years, he said he consulted tribal elders from the Oneida and Menominee nations, seeking insight into what he had experienced.

Seeking understanding
Tautges said an Oneida elder told him the creature likely spared him because he was “clean-hearted” and warned him never to return to provoke it.
“He said it searched me to make sure my bloodline never did harm to its family,” reported Tautges.
A Menominee elder offered a different view: “Well, if he left you alone, then you’re probably good to go back. But, know that it’s his grounds, right? Respect them,” the elder told him.

Tautges, a Christian who lives by strong moral principles, said both conversations stayed with him.
Fifteen years later, he has since returned to the land and harvested several deer.
“I’ve come to terms with it,” said Tautges. “If he wants me, I guess he can take me. But I respect that he didn’t take me that day.”

Cultural context
In Algonquian Great Lakes traditions, including those of the Menominee, a winter cannibal spirit often called the “windigo” (spelled several ways including wendigo) warns against greed and starvation.
Among Haudenosaunee nations such as the Oneida, different figures fill that cautionary role pointing to similar teachings about danger, community and survival, told in distinct languages and stories.

A memory that lingers
“I don’t really like to talk about it,” said Tautges. “It gives me goose bumps to think about it. And I know people will laugh and say I’m crazy, on drugs or something like that.”
Tautges was not under the influence of any substances. He is not a drinker, he does not smoke or do drugs and he stands by his story.
“I know what I saw,” he said. “I’ve been an outdoorsman all my life. I know what wolves are. I know what bears are. I know what fishers and wolverines are,” he said. “This was a freaking werewolf — it was 100 percent for sure.”
When shown illustrations and depictions of various Wendigo—Tautges pointed to one in particular associated with the Beast of Bray Road, an alleged wolf-like creature observed in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. It was first sighted in 1936 and its description matches the wendigo-like creature Tautges encountered, including the glowing eyes and moving as a biped.