In the Tetagouche River Valley, not far from Bathurst, there’s a place in the woods where only the bravest dare go. It’s a strange place, with an air of uneasiness that locals say has hung over that part of the river ever since a logger named Pete Martin tied a rope around his neck and jumped off a ceiling beam in the stable of a lumber camp during a raging winter storm. That was around 150 years ago, and the place hasn’t been the same since.
Who knows what drove Pete Martin to such despair? Was it the weather? Had the implacable cold and chest-deep snows of the Northern New Brunswick winter pushed him over the edge? Or was it something else?
During another blizzard many years after the logger’s tragic demise, two woodsmen, exhausted from running their horse teams beside the river, kicked open the rotting door of the abandoned camp and stepped inside.
“Let’s get the horses taken care of before we have some grub,” hollered the younger man, as the wind whistled through holes in the wall where windows used to be.
“The horses will have to wait,” replied his partner, grabbing the canvas bag stuffed with food. “You go ahead; if I don’t eat now, I’ll be eating my supper in hell!”
On the way to the stable, the young man noticed the horses were unusually jumpy; neighing loudly, they tossed their heads wildly back and forth. When he finally got them settled down, he noticed a strange feeling in the air. Something’s watching; he thought as he spread straw under the horses. Just as he turned, heading for the door, a rusted old lantern smashed to the floor.
Outside, the wind screamed through the trees like a banshee.
Nervously, the woodsman returned to the camp and made himself a meal of flapjacks and bacon. Fearing his partner might think him crazy, he didn’t say much about what happened. Full from supper and exhausted from driving the team through the blizzard he collapsed on an old cot in the corner and closed his eyes.
“I’m gonna check up on the horses,” his partner said, noticing the lad was about to fall asleep. “You get some rest.”
When the young man opened his eyes, the fire in the big stove was almost out. In the flickering light of the kerosene lantern, he noticed his companion had not returned.
Nervously he put on his boots, grabbed the lantern and stepped out into the raging storm. Even the roar of the wind could not conceal the banging sound of the horses bucking and kicking in their stalls. As he approached the stable, he could hear the noise getting even louder. His companion, however, lying motionless in a pool of blood under one of the collapsed ceiling beams, could not.
The legend of the Devil’s Dell is well-known in the Bathurst area, particularly around Tetagouche, but it is not widely known elsewhere in New Brunswick. Were it not for the late Maude Smyth, who taught school for many years in Bathurst, the legend of the Devil’s Dell would probably have been lost forever. She was the first to put the story to paper.
According to Smyth after the young woodsman discovered his partner’s lifeless body on the floor of the stall, he spent the night in a state of “hysterical exhaustion.” In the morning, after he managed to get the horses and his companion’s body to another logging camp not far away, he learned he had spent the night in a place called the Devil’s Dell.
Sitting around the big camp dining table drinking coffee, the loggers told him that ever since Pete Martin hanged himself, strange things have happened in that old camp. People and animals have died for no apparent reason. Trappers and woodsmen around here avoid the Devil’s Dell like the plague. They say it’s where the devil lives.
Years later, the same man happened to stumble onto the abandoned camp while guiding a hunting party. Shortly after he realized where he was, everyone in the group heard the mysterious sound of horses hauling a bobsled through the bush, but there was nothing there.
Who knows what causes the uneasy feeling that hangs over the spot where Pete Martin took his life? Maybe it is the devil or the tormented soul of Martin himself. Whoever it is—or whatever it is—woe to that man or woman who ventures to the place in the Tetagouche River Valley they call the Devil’s Dell, especially during raging winter storms when the wind is screaming through the trees like a banshee.
