October … The nights grow longer and darker. It’s time for Hallowe’en, time to gather around fires and tell ghost stories.

And that is exactly what RCGS Explorer-in-Residence Adam Shoalts has in store for us in this episode. He joins us to talk about his new book, The Whisper on the Night Wind. It’s a wilderness tale of the supernatural, an investigation into a century-old legend of a strange, demon-like creature that haunted the remote fur trading posts of Labrador. This creature, known as the Traverspine Beast or Traverspine Gorilla, was described in detail by multiple eye-witnesses over several years. Armed with those accounts — and a travel companion trained in mixed martial arts — Adam set off in his canoe, up roaring Labrador rivers and into the ancient, mist-shrouded Mealy Mountains, in search of this legend.

The resulting story is a fantastic, fun and chilling tale, a look, as he puts it, into “the strange and scary things that lurk in the darkness, beyond the flicker of the firelight.”

This episode’s #CanGeoSoundscape comes to us from Chris O’Brien in Etobicoke, Ont. It’s the autumn sound of waves lapping on the rocky shores of Troy Lake, north of Kingston, Ont. Tag us @cangeo on Twitter or Instagram with video or audio of your favourite Canadian sounds and it may appear on a future episode.

Our spooky music for this episode came to us courtesy of Liam Seagrave (@pianogeist).