Unsolved Canadian Mysteries · Unsolved Canadian Mysteries

Bonus - Elf Sightings In The Arctic

·31 min·2 clips

Anthony Roach says a short figure in seal-skin pants and an orange sweater walked into the cabin near Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

1. Unsolved Canadian Mysteries uses the Christmas Patreon special to track reports about “elves in the Arctic.” 2. Kenton DeYoung hosts with Christina Kuzzi and Dylan Fuhrman, and Kenton says he researched the topic deeply enough to feel less certain about it. 3. The episode asks whether Norse, Inuit, and modern accounts describe the same small people in northern Canada. 4. Kenton starts with Eric the Red, who left Iceland after homicide and founded the Greenland colony. 5. Leif Eriksson travels from Greenland, converts to Christianity, and ends up in Vinland after a storm or navigation error. 6. Kenton says the Norse saga sources were written about 300 years later, which raises questions about what was actually observed. 7. Leif Eriksson’s group encounters “Scraglings,” described as short, threatening, and tangled-haired with broad cheeks. 8. Kenton says some researchers connect the Scraglings to the Thule people and to other Indigenous groups in the Vinland area. 9. The show places Vinland in Canada, with possibilities including Labrador, Baffin Island, or another coastal location. 10. A 2008 study is cited for linking the Scraglings word to a Greek term for “Pygmies.” 11. Christina compares the description to Greek Calicazari, which she calls small creatures and “the opposite of elves.” 12. Kenton says a 1569 world map marks pygmies near the north pole, which he treats as later visual evidence for the same idea. 13. The episode moves to 1630–1631, when Captain Fox and his crew are said to have found stone burial sites on Southampton Island. 14. Kenton says the reported bodies were adults under four feet high and were buried with stone weapons and bone bows. 15. He links that report to a 1977 Baffin Island wooden statuette of a man with a cross on his chest. 16. Kenton also reads a difficult old diary quote about the bodies, which he says suggests an unusually small population. 17. The discussion then turns to a 1911 account republished in 1930 about explorers north of the North Pole. 18. In that story, a dog is sent into a hole, a small man emerges, and 26 more little people come out to eat fish and socialize. 19. The episode’s tone is chatty and skeptical, with repeated jokes, interruptions, and side comments about dogs, fish, and Reddit. 20. People who like Arctic folklore, Norse history, and weird Canadian reports will get the most out of this, while listeners wanting a tight, straightforward mystery may skip it.

As heard by us

A shaggy Christmas mystery that leans on folklore, banter, and a very strange mountain legend.

This Christmas Patreon special wanders into shaggy northern folklore, following a story about little men in the Mackenzie Mountains and the old accounts tied to them.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a Christmas Patreon special about little men in the Mackenzie Mountains, with Kenton, Christina, and Dylan trading notes.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Unsolved Canadian Mysteries