Empire Squirrels – [Fearsome Critter]

Description

Empire Squirrels. – [Fearsome Critter] – (Latin: Sciuridae magnus.) – Aka: “Henry”, “Redwood Empire Squirrels”, “Dire Squirrels”, “Bunyan Squirrels”, “Trained packrats”

• About this Critter: “Empire squirrels” are massive squirrels originating from Empire City (North California.)  Ol’ Paul Bunyan hunted these squirrels to near extinction during a trip for Fort Bragg’s annual Lumberjack competition. (I suppose he wanted the bragging rights.)  After the hunt, he decided to spare at least one young squirrel (perhaps he felt guilty) and he brought it back to his camp, The massive lumberman kept it in his back pocket, named it ‘Henry’ and tamed it by feeding it the leftover prune pits from his lunch packs & gigantic acorns as a treat, (achieved from places unknown presumably somewhere in the Big rock candies.) Henry was trained to help the lesser lumbermen carry pauls logs & equipment from place to place.

• Origin & Early appearances: “Empire squirrels” had their earliest name only newspaper mention in 1955 in advertisements for Fort Bragg’s lumberjack contest & Paul Bunyan celebration…

[A Bunyan Cosplayer with a “squirrel gun” rifle as big as him. “Big Squirrels in the [redwood] empire!” an advertisement for the redwood empire logging championships at fort bragg – [newspaper clippings 1955]

However, Shortly before that, Pauls pet squirrel named “Henry”  originated from Paul Bunyan land amusement centre; which opened in 1953 in Brainerd Minnesota. – Today; The statue of the giant squirrel still sits on a big log and holds a similarly large acorn. various statues of these giant squirrels where seemingly inspired or at least based off the previously existing “Camp Chipmunk” lore which had existed since the early 1920s most famously included in “Paul Bunyans Natural History” by [Charles Edward Brown, 1935] which likely took the concept from earlier Seattle star articles from the 1920’s & “The Red River Company’s “Marvelous exploits of Paul Bunyan 1922” & other oral spoken stories. – Of course, north american tall tales of ‘giant rodents’ are fairly wide spread even outside of paul bunyan lore. (see also Lumber Rats, “Flittericks”) – Perhaps the idea of “Vicious Chipmunks” was too frightening for a family theme park; so a “friendly giant squirrel” being one of Paul’s pets seems to have be the next logical next step to incorporate the earlier lore in someway: simlarly their version of “sport the split dog” is much less wolf-like. [below] Incidentally there seem to be a few of these statues at various sizes scattered around the park, the statues come painted in either brown or grey. so it seems to be that paul had multiple giant squirrels, perhaps a horde… – [see various photos below.] – Sadly “Henry” does not appear in any of the early Paul Bunyan books (at least that i could find.) the closest mention to a giant squirrel is the critter known as “Flittericks”(a variety of Vicious exploding-flying Squirrels mentioned in Paul Bunyans natural history by CE brown in 1935 the flittericks  get a single mention in Tony beaver tales [1930] where in they kill pauls “Saw-toothed hound“& in one other similar story where they kill babe the big blue ox.

[tony beaver tales 1930s]

[a photo from Paul Bunyan Amusement Centre, Bernard, MN 1956] – The sign up in front is obscured by a branch & quite hard to read but it likely says: –

“Pauls Squirrel Henry – They say that the reason Henry got so large was the fact that he ate all of the prune pits from Paul’s Lunchbox.” 

[A photo from the parks opening in 1953. ]

[“Henry and sport” postcard for paul bunyan centre. image via cowcard.com]

[henry the giant squirrel statue is slightly smaller than the others above.]

The 26ft tall gigantic Animatronic Paul Bunyan with the reversible dog, Sport and Henry on either side, 2024 – [image source: Brainerd dispatch]

[Giant Squirrels (and trained wood rats) from a 1950 vintage postcard related to the trees of mystery, for a deeper dive; see also LumberRats,]

• Similar critters/Cryptids: There are of course no shortage of other stories of ‘giant’ or abnormally large squirrels & rodents to be found across North America. (Some cryptid giant squirrels are said to live be in Nova Scotia, Canada!) Other stories of giant squirrels are found in various older Mythologies around the world.

• See also: Camp Chipmunk, Flittericks. LumberRats.

[Art Sticker & Bio by Samkalensky part of my fearsome critters collection of stickers follow for many more!]