1994 to 2001, Mendocino County, California

By Conor Izzett

The ghostly, inexplicable sound of a log being sawed in half first drifted into the campsite around 10:30 p.m. All my campers’ eyes were softballs.

Seven summers previous, I was an 11-year-old camper, and unaware of the extraordinarily supernatural qualities of the Eel River Valley, the beautiful surroundings of Camp St. Michael. It was home to Devil Boy, Charcoal Man, the Jake’s Lake Leech, Banshee Boy, and the flagship ghost, Captain Nelson. I would become intimately familiar with Captain Nelson’s ghost before my time there was out.

The story of Captain Nelson is the camp’s oldest. Nelson was in the Merchant Marines. He retired in the late 1940s and bought a large plot of land in the Eel River Valley. He built a small cabin on a cliff, overlooking a bend in the river, and there he lived with his wife.

But as time went on his wife grew ill, and he was forced to sell off most of his land in order to pay for her care. The only folks looking to buy were the logging companies. Soon after, his wife died. His realm had shrunk from hundreds of acres to the land immediately surrounding his cabin, and the loggers had moved ever closer, until they set up camp directly across the river from the Captain’s cliff.

He became a bitter, angry old hermit, and with no one else to thrust his hatred upon, he walked to the edge of his cliff and gazed down on the logging camp littered with saws, tents, the carcasses of trees, and worst of all, men. He stood staring until darkness flooded the valley. The loss he felt pushed outward with ever-greater pressure as the night carried on, until he felt himself screaming, as if something had taken over him.

“GET OFF MY LAND!” he heard himself screaming. “GET OFF MY LAND!”

After that he began sabotaging the loggers’ operations during the night, breaking equipment, killing the loggers’ animals, and always from the cliff screaming, “GET OFF MY LAND!”

By the mid 1960s, the logging industry was pulling out of the area, but that didn’t slow Captain Nelson. He kept on, doggedly, until 1965, a year that brought great rains. By that time, the Captain’s sanity was questionable, and one night, despite the rain, he set out in his Jeep to pick up some supplies from town. The rain was relentless that winter, and the river raged below. The road washed out from under him, taking the Captain into the river. Although the Jeep was found, the Captain’s body was never recovered.

Some say that you can still hear the Captain calling out, “Get off my land!” And if your water ever turns blue, the color of the seas he sailed for so many years, watch out, because Captain Nelson is near.

Now, the kicker is that there really is a cabin. And it’s really on a cliff overlooking a bend in the river. And counselors always tell the story when they happen to be at that particular bend in the river. The cabin is old and ominous, as if it could be anything but to an 11-year-old. That being said, what were the odds that one’s water would turn bright blue?

We cooked macaroni and cheese that night. Although there was a central camp, with a kitchen and a shower house and all that, this was the overnight, a chance for campers to hike down river, and really camp out. The campers cook their own meals, sleep under the stars, and, now this is the part that brings this experience to a head, they wash their own dishes. Another boy and I drew dishwashing duty. The bowls first, then the forks and cooking spoons, and finally the pot.

I put a shot of dish soap into the pot, and then sloshed a bit of water on top. Guess what? Bright, cobalt, blue. I dropped the pot. We both ran.

So goes the story of Captain Nelson. Mine was the fate of many a young camper. Now, the tale of Captain Nelson isn’t really all that scary. In fact, it’s pretty standard ghost story fodder: “And they never found the body, they say you can still hear him,” etc. Were you to read the story in a book, you’d blow it off altogether, and probably consider it a little clichéd. Rightfully so. It takes more to really sell it. An inside man. And that’s where the counselors come in.

Seven summers I am a counselor, and it’s the 35th anniversary of camp, so the official ghost stories have been around for a long time. Over the decades, the retellings and subsequent supporting acts have become more elaborate, and as a result, more terrifying. There was the time that a counselor actually dressed up as Devil Boy, complete with red shorts and muddy face, just like the story says, and ran into a campsite full of campers during a telling of the tale. One kid got so scared that he literally crapped his pants. Things were, to say the least, a little out of hand.

The camp administrators had to take action after one camper refused to return because he was too afraid of Banshee Boy, yet another lost soul/psycho roaming the woods around central camp. Other than Captain Nelson, all scary stories were banned. I was devastated.

It was shortly after the announcement that inspiration struck: a new camp story. The staff was hiking back from the training overnight, a weeklong session for counselors before campers arrive, when I noticed a weathered, rusty ax head on the edge of the trail. Although the logging industry had long since gone, they left behind many materials and tools. It was not uncommon to come across old lanterns, iron cables, even saw blades.

What makes the Captain Nelson story work is that there is a lot of truth in it. There is tangible evidence that points to the story having actually happened, like the cabin. There was a Nelson, he was in the merchant marines, built a cabin, and died an old man. There really were loggers. The clues of a new story were all around me. It was the birth of … the Mad Logger.

The first telling was a little impromptu. I had only come up with the general concept the day before my first group of campers arrived. The events revolved around myself and another veteran counselor, Ethan. I told my campers that Ethan and I had discovered a clearing of cut trees, but with no sign of their removal.

“The cuts were fresh,” I said. “I could still smell the sawdust.” In the clearing was a rusty old two-man saw that we had packed back to camp with us and nailed up to a tree next to the crafts area. “After that, strange things started happening.”

I told them that we began to find pieces of logging equipment everywhere, and eventually, it was clear that somebody, or something, was sending us a message. “A long, double-sided ax, caked in rust, was buried in the kitchen door.” From there it was a short jump to an old man in town telling us the story of a young lumberjack who had been accidentally killed by his fellow loggers in a climbing cleat incident (note that), and of course, “they never found the body.” By the end of the story the kids had turned from a rowdy mob, into a small group of church mice. They went right to sleep.

Shortly after breakfast the following morning, I noticed a group of boys standing around the saw nailed to the tree next to the crafts area. They noticed me, and began whispering. They sent over an investigatory panel.

“Did you really bring that saw back to camp?” they asked quietly. I stared off into the distance for a beat. That saw had been there long before I was a camper. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

This only fueled speculation, of course, and soon the campers were pointing out all sorts of long abandoned logging equipment. Cables, a wheelbarrow, an ax handle. I don’t know how these kids found so many of these things, it’s like they were wandering around the forest will metal detectors. Once the flow of found objects slowed, possibly because everything had been retrieved from the forest, the kids began finding things that had nothing to do with logging. Naturally fallen trees were suddenly the work of the Mad Logger. All things, big or small, obvious or not, were the evidence of the Mad Logger. Kids were swearing they could smell sawdust in the air.

But confirmation of true success came a few days later, when a young boy ran up to me with a watchband he had found. “I think it’s a cleat strap.” I knew I had a hit on my hands. The camp was gripped in Mad Logger fever.

The only group possibly more into the Mad Logger than the campers was the counselors. The story of the Mad Logger had become a full-scale theatre production. Counselors were whispering about it loudly enough for campers to hear, but softly enough for them to think that they weren’t supposed to, as if the counselors were trying to cover up a conspiracy.

“And whatever you do, don’t ask Conor about the Mad Logger.” A common phrase.

One night, some fellow staffers told me that they had a plan.

“Just make sure your kids are in their sleeping bags by 10:30.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

So that night, at 10:30, the ghostly, inexplicable sound of a log being sawed in half began to drift into the campsite. And the kids were incensed. This was an older group, and they were fed up with being terrorized by the Mad Logger. I was trying not to laugh.

“Let’s just go up there and kill him!” said one boy.

“Yeah, he can’t take all of us!” said another. One boy pulled out his extra large pocketknife, as if preparing for a bayonet charge into the woods.

And still the log was being sawed. I envisioned the pack of young boys descending on the two counselors hiding in the forest, overcome by tiny hands and Swiss Army knives.

“Wait,” I said. “I’ll go.” They were all breathless at this suicidal act of bravery. “If I’m not back in five minutes, go get help.” I headed into the woods when the camper with the extra large pocketknife stopped me.

“Conor, wait,” he said. “Take this.” He handed me the knife as though it were Excalibur. It was one of the most honorable moments I had ever experienced. The honor was dashed as soon as I found my two buddies sawing logs in half, giggling.

“My kids are about to charge into the woods and kill the Mad Logger,” I said. “Shut up before they stab you both to death.”

Recently a few of the kids that were there that night became counselors themselves, and they describe the event in much grander terms than even I remember. Even though they no longer believed that the Mad Logger was real, they were disappointed that it wasn’t. I told them not to be. Now they get to put on the show. Now they get to be the Mad Logger.

Back to the blue water. It wasn’t until later in the week, that summer so many years ago, that my counselor confided in me, alone, the truth about the Captain. On overnights, the groups have to get water from the natural springs that feed the river. They purify it with iodine tablets. It’s an old but effective technique. Remember the mac and cheese? Lots of starch in pasta. Iodine plus starch equals blue. The legend of Captain Nelson.

It’s amazing what a few pieces of rusty logging equipment and a basic knowledge of chemistry will do for your storytelling abilities. It takes an inside man.

Conor Izzett lives in Long Beach, where he writes, plays music, and submits resumes. If you know of any good jobs, he’d like you to get in touch with him.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, February 26th, 2007 | Email This Post

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