Culture

February 12, 2024

The Death Shout: A legend from the Pennsylvania Wilds

A legend in the PA Wilds says that when a Native American warrior was killed in battle, he would cry out a “Death Shout” which was heard in the afterlife and warned his predeceased friends that he was coming. Writer Lou Bernard shares the story of the Death Shout as told by Henry Wharton Shoemaker, a Clinton County writer and folklorist. Shoemaker wrote, “There were many strange stories clustered around the ‘Death Shout,’ some of them beautiful, others painfully sad.”

February 2, 2024

Groundhog Day: The history of our favorite prognosticating whistle-pig

Each year, thousands of people flock to Punxsutawney on February 2nd, braving cold temperatures on a cold winter morning to see their favorite groundhog: Punxsutawney Phil, who predicts either an early spring or six more weeks of winter. If you ask anyone around Punxsutawney whether the tradition is real, they’ll give you a sly smile and tell you they’re a true believer. But whether this rodent really has mythical weather-predicting abilities or not, how did this strange tradition come to be?

January 10, 2024

New Year’s Resolutions that the PA Wilds can help you accomplish

A New Year’s Resolution is all about hope for the upcoming year. Whatever you’re trying to accomplish in 2024, there are places in the PA Wilds that can help you achieve it.

January 4, 2024

A Ray of Wilds Sonshine

The Wilds Sonshine Factory is a unique destination on several fronts, primarily for their signature product line – distilled spirits made from sunflower seeds, but also for the Factory’s push on educating visitors on some of the region’s outdoor resources that have tattooed this region in the PA Wilds for generations. Writer Ray Hunt took a "Hooky Day" to visit the Wilds Sonshine Factory and learn about the inspiration behind it.

December 12, 2023

Life on a Christmas tree farm

After returning from duty in World War II, my father started a Christmas tree farm on his family’s former dairy farm in Kane, PA, in the Allegheny National Forest and Surrounds Landscape of the Pennsylvania Wilds region. There were years when he focused on a big wholesale shipment of trees to Piggly Wiggly grocery stores in the south and southwest. Then the focus became local retail sales with the experience of customers going out in the fields to cut their own tree and drag it back through the snow to their cars.

December 5, 2023

Santa Claus in Tioga County

There have been a lot of important people from the PA Wilds. Several governors grew up in this part of the state, for instance. And plenty of important people have visited the area. And in one notable year, this included Santa Claus. And he visited a boy who would grow up to become the governor.

October 30, 2023

Ghosts of the PA Wilds: The Flatwoods Monster visits Elk Country

The Flatwoods Monster is not the easiest creature to categorize. Is it a cryptid? Is it an alien? Nobody’s sure. It was seen in Braxton, West Virginia on September 12, 1952. But the Flatwoods Monster made a quick appearance in the Pennsylvania Wilds, too. The headline hit the front page of the Renovo Daily Record on September 15, 1952: “Drurys Run Folks Spot Flying Saucer.”

October 23, 2023

Ghosts of the PA Wilds: Haunted cemeteries in Cook Forest

There are legends of haunted cemeteries in Cook Forest. There’s at least one. I am speaking here of Crybaby Cemetery, in the southern part of the Cook Forest and the Ancients landscape of the PA Wilds. The cemetery is said to be one of the most haunted spots in Clarion County. Visitors describe the sensation of being watched, and people passing by mention hearing the sound of children crying in the night, particularly on a full moon.

October 16, 2023

Ghosts of the PA Wilds: Dark skies and headless ghosts

A lot of ghost stories come about through old legends, handed down through the generations. Some are further documented, with a certain amount of proof in the form of paperwork - obituaries, newspaper articles, and so on. And in the Dark Skies landscape of the PA Wilds, there’s a ghost that’s both. This one has old legends and modern documentation. What it doesn’t have is a head.

October 9, 2023

Ghosts of the PA Wilds: Hanging Around in Wellsboro

The Hanging Tree is a tall elm that stands just outside the Tioga County Courthouse, in the Pine Creek Valley and the PA Grand Canyon landscape of the PA Wilds. People say that it’s haunted, because it was used to hang criminals back in the 1800s. It sits on Main Steet, just across from the Green. Is there any truth to the story? Most of the citizens of Wellsboro say there is not, at least not as far as the Hanging Tree is concerned.