Boulder Woman

Interviewer: When did you first hear it?

Informant- I heard it when I was first there (Camp Ta Ta Pochon) in 1982, but it goes back for years, way before my time. When they would take the kids up on a hike, there is this abandoned cabin. All that is left is this stone chimney and its made out of boulders and it looks like a chair and they would say that Boulder Woman would sit in that chair at night. Sometimes she would come down to the cabin at night and throw little rocks at the cabin and scare the kids in there.

Interviewer: So was she like a real woman or made of boulders?

Informant: She was a real woman and they would they called her Boulder Woman because she lived in some place in the mountain and she would sit in that abandoned cabin that the only thing left is the chimney. They way it was designed is it looks like a chair and its still up there.

Interviewer explains the variations she has heard

Informant– It can either be boulder man or boulder women, you can pick, that’s the thing. Boulder Man or Boulder Woman would come down at night to the cabins and scare the kids or maybe haunt them somehow. . . Just throwing rocks from up above. Not on the “wilderness” side, on the “civilization side” with the A-frame[cabins].

Interviewer’s notes: The legend is interesting because the origin seems to be from within the camp itself, due to the unique and specific circumstances of the remnant chimney. The multiplicity and variation has been within only a small community of people which has made for only subtle changes from person to person. Perhaps the most notable variation is whether is indeed Boulder Man or Boulder Woman, an interesting twist, perhaps influenced by feminism, which can create gender polarization. As a passive participant, the informant can only relate motifs, though not a specific narrative or origin story, which in part allows for the gender fluidity.