The Snow Wasset (Mustelinopsis subitivorax) is a creature which originated with North American pioneer oral traditions.
Description[]
Known to be a migratory creature which spends its winters in the heavily-forested areas around the Great Lakes during winter before travelling north to summer in Newfoundland, the Snow Wasset is unique amongst animals of this region in that it spends its summers hibernating in a warmer climate and is active only during the winter months of extreme cold.
Physiologically the Snow Wasset is also an unusual creature, growing short legs during the summer which it uses to creep around in order to avoid the light and remain in the shade. Once the first snows come however, it sheds these legs in order to burrow its way north through the drifts in search of hibernating prey. Said to be a vicious predator with an enormous appetite, the Wasset is four times as large as a wolverine but forty times more active; this means that it must eat a vast amount in order to hold starvation at bay.
One story of the Wasset involves a party of white men who encountered a Native American around James Bay. The man was travelling in an extremely unusual canoe which, as it turned out, was actually the stretched-out hide of a Wasset. Also believed to use these hides as sleds, the natives are said to use a multitude of deadfall log-traps which descend on every side simultaneously in order to kill one, as one can never tell which direction the Wasset will flee beneath the snow once it realises it is being hunted.
Further reading[]
"The Snow Wasset" from Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods (1910) by William T. Cox