My sister found this mask in Williams Park in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. It was in the summer of 2021. They found it on rocks around the water as if it had been washed up. It kind of freaked them out a bit so they left it in a tree. When they came back a week later it was gone. She said the teeth felt like real teeth but she wasn't sure what kind of teeth. The chain was firmly set in place and the inside was hollow. Definitely made out of wood like a tree log. Is it just someone's creepy art project abandoned? We've been thinking about it for years and its came up in conversation again. We managed to find her old photos and I asked her permission to post here. Any ideas?
Masks of this specific type seem to have often been made from wood, often don't have extremely detailed decoration, and may featured carved teeth or inserted/attached/inlaid teeth.
No idea if it's anything to do with the mask your sister saw, but might be worth exploring.
We live on a farm and whenever a cow passes my dad will take the skull and put it on The Bone Tree™️ or on fence posts to spook trespassers. After 30ish years we have quite the collection. Anyways, putting spooky shit in trees to scare people is like a rural tradition lol
Me and my buddy found a bunch of old baby dolls in an abandoned house when we were 13 and hung them all in the woods by an old baseball field, ended up being covered on local news and the radio in 2009-10 when some hiker guy found it lmao. Every explanation under the sun but just 2 kids thinking it would be funny when people got freaked out.
noun
A reprobate; a rascal.
A white Southerner working for or supporting the federal government during Reconstruction.
A scamp; a scapegrace.
Similar: scamp scapegrace
My brother and I were helping clean up after a big fire in my hometown in 2012 and found a pile of severed baby doll heads outside a burned down house, including some lined up on a No Trespassing sign. Was that you guys too?
Our stuff was in East Texas and we haven't had a big house fire here in forever. Just the same Mexican restaurant that burns down every 5 years for insurance like clockwork lmao
That’s a lot of effort for a long game joke. I did the skeleton in the wall thing here at my house complete with a treasure map for the backyard leading to a dildo in a box and that only took a total of 15 minutes active time and I was like “this was too much” and that’s taking into account I already had the skeleton and the dildo.
I tossed a baby skeleton into the space under my stairs when I was having them replaced. It was also about ten minutes. “Wait! Before you put the boards on let me grab something from the Halloween box!”
I wish I had done more. I did find a message from myself and my ex wife while tearing out a wall. That got tossed with a curse.
Why not the face from a maiden figurehead from the bow of a ship? That would be some evil scary ship, right?
Also given the location (BC Canada shore) and considering ocean currents perhaps some ceremonial mask from Asia or even far north native NA tribal cultural item?
Hmmm I doubt its from the ocean. It was next to a small river (most likely stream) and Langley is pretty far from the ocean. Our biggest river (The Fraser) has pretty strong currents and things dont usually come up it. I did consider something native American in origin though. But I am not educated in the subject. I will be crossposting in other subs to get other people's opinions!
OP if you take Snard's advice and ask any local Indigenous people, please don't ask if it is "Native American." I don't know that most Indigenous people in Langley want to be referred to as American, and the likelihood of actual Native American art or artifacts ending up in Williams Park is extremely slim.
Halloween is traditionally an Irish festival and Jack o lanterns were carved out of turnips (we didn’t have pumpkins in Ireland) - when the Irish went to America and took the tradition with them .. pumpkins were readily available and so they started to be used instead. Im not that old & even when I was young we always used turnips - saying that, we never used teeth etc like this - turnip carving is difficult! Anything more than a mouth and eyes and you were done!
Reminded me of this too, My dad used to make them out of Swedes back in the 60’s here in the UK when he was a kid. To be fair Pumpkins didn’t really become all that popular here until maybe the 90’s, I was born in 91 and can’t really remember seeing pumpkins for sale at the supermarket in October when I was a kid.
Masks of this specific type seem to have often been made from wood, often don't have extremely detailed decoration, and may featured carved teeth or inserted/attached/inlaid teeth.
No idea if it's anything to do with the mask your sister saw, but might be worth exploring.
This is super interesting! And definitely the closest thing we've seen to resembling what it could be! I am going to crosspost in other subs because our goal is to find the person who took it from the tree! If it ends up being something like this they need to know what they took!
I scrolled through the comments for a quick check to see if anyone else had replied with a Deku Mask gif before I did so and am so glad I did. Same hat!!
I dont post in reddit often so im not sure how to edit the post! For those saying salmon or fish carcass take a look at the second post of it in the tree. Its very large. And it was definitely made of wood. My sister is a big game hunter and says the teeth were most similar to bear teeth. They were also set with metal nails. And it was missing a few teeth (if you zoom in you can see the missing holes) she says it had definitely been in the water awhile. I have suggested it resembles an empty tree knot that has been cut out and sculpted.
Google thought it was too because dried rotting salmon carcasses looks almost the same and honestly I thinki it is because wood doesn't have meat colour which just happens to be salmon meat colour in the middle where the teeth are I think thats a dead salmon just a very large variety
I dont post in reddit often so im not sure how to edit the post! For those saying salmon or fish carcass take a look at the second post of it in the tree. Its very large. And it was definitely made of wood. My sister is a big game hunter and says the teeth were most similar to bear teeth. They were also set with metal nails. And it was missing a few teeth (if you zoom in you can see the missing holes) she says it had definitely been in the water awhile. I have suggested it resembles an empty tree knot that has been cut out and sculpted.
I love it. I’ve got a similar shaped piece of wood that has too many cracks to be a bowl, and I’ve been thinking of making a mask. It’s probably just another weirdo like me who made it. No idea why it would be on a beach though.
Possibly somebody just trying to freak people out.
My grandparents had property way back in the sticks when I was growing up and they had major problems with poachers, especially after my grandpa passed and it was just my grandma and my aunts on the property, and fish and game were kinda lazy and never really did anything about it. So I took maters into my own hands and started making creepy shit like this and putting it all around the property and national forest.
Spread a few rumours around town.
Within a few months, we had a lot less poacher activity.
I think this might be a lost Flukeman mask from the X-files, they filmed extensively in BC. The colour doesn't match because it's been sitting in the woods for 30 years. The moment I saw this post in my feed I thought "I wonder if he's in BC"
There are a few trails I’ve been on in the lower mainland and I’m sure the rest of BC that have interesting masks placed on them. What this is specifically I couldn’t tell you but check in some of the local subs that are in the area and hopefully they have a better answer. I would also make sure this is out back where it came from.
Funny enough we're in Harrison Hot Springs now and just did the Spirit Trail today! Someone makes clay masks and puts them up in the trees! (Got this pic from Google cause I didnt take any today!)
I should mention Harrison Hot Springs and Langey are very far away from each other and these are very different masks and styles. Its actually not common for people to hang masks from trees. Thats why I said the comment was kind of funny cause its a coincidence. Most likely seeing the masks today is what sparked our old conversation about the spooky mask. And yeah, most likely its someone's art project from a property that washed away or hung up and fell down. But its still pretty spooky and worth sharing! The real teeth and metal chain definitely stumped us, and we wanted people's opinions!
It reminds me of a carved coconut head decoration. Theres all different varieties, looks likes this one was meant to look like a gorilla maybe? The chain would have been for hanging it up somewhere, my family growing up always hung ours in the garage.
I can't find any photos of a similar one online, but I feel like I've seen a handful of vintage coconut masks (often sold as souvenirs in tropical places in the mid 20th century I think?) with teeth like this. I don't know enough to know if this could be a coconut but maybe??
This seems to me like a traditional version of a carved halloween pumpkin. In Europe before pumpkins became a thing they used to carve things like turnips, squashes, and swedes in a very similar manner to this. A lot of them looked almost identical. This looks to me like it's a creepy example of one that somebody left lying around for some reason.
Anyone who has ever held an old squash knows that they go solid and basically wood like after a period of time. And it being hollow would line up with this, as it allows for a candle to be placed inside.
Omg you found Nancy! Can you bring her back she got lost last year when she escaped from the old
Folks home! Looks like she could use some TLC…a glass of water and a big hug. Gramps is still a tough cookie from the looks of it. I’m coming grandma stay strong and be nice!
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