According to the tales of first american lumberjacks, the wapaloosie is a quaint little beast like sausage dog with a woodpecker's feet, moving about the tree trunks like a measuring worm:

In the damp forests of the Pacific coast and eastward as far as the Saint Joe River, in north Idaho, ranges a quaint little beast, known among loggers as the wapaloosie. It is about the size of a sausage dog, but is not even distantly related to the canine family. The wapaloosie, according to lumber jacks, lives upon shelf fungus or conchs exclusively, and he is able to get them with ease, no matter if they are growing on the tip top of a hundred-foot dead tree. It is a pleasure for one of these animals to climb, for he has feet and toes like those of a woodpecker, and he humps himself along like a measuring worm. Even his tail is spiked at the tip and aids him as he mounts the lofty firs in quest of food.

One of the most peculiar features of the animal was discovered only recently. A lumber jack in one of the camps on the Humptulips River, Washington, shot a wapaloosie, and upon examining its velvety coat decided that it would make an attractive and serviceable pair of mittens, which he proceeded to make. The hide was tanned thoroughly and the mittens made with care, fur side out, and as the lumber jack went to work he exhibited them with pride. Imagine his surprise upon talking hold of an ax to find that the mittens immediately worked their way up and off the handle. It was the same with whatever he took hold of, and, finding that he could not use the mittens, they were left in a skid road, and were last seen working their way over logs and litter across the slashing.

"Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods" by William Cox (452: p.25)