Speaker 1: As far back as I can remember. As a child,
my grandpa and dad taught me how to hunt. I
was an only child that knew it would be up
to me to carry on the family hunting tradition. My
grandpa owned some land way up in the mountains, away
from everyone and everything. On this land sat an old
cabin that was built by my great grandpa back in
the early nineteen hundreds. It took about an hour to
travel to the nearest house or store, so this was
a well kept private area that no one ever visited
except the three of us. There was no electric or
phone service at the camp, being as it was so
far out in the woods. One learned to be careful
because if something happened while at camp or hunting, then
you were on your own. There was no way to
get any help. When I was fifteen years old, we
had planned a hunting trip up to the cabin, but
I had come down with the flu and could not
make the trip, so my grandpa and my dad left
home to make that four hour drive to our hunting camp.
Mam and I told them that we loved them and
wished them the best of luck on their weak hunting trip,
and off they went. Three days later, we get a
call from the county police that something bad had happened there.
We were told my dad was in the hospital and
in very bad shape. Mom asked, what about Grandpa? Is
he okay? They did not know anyone else was with
my dad, so my mom told them about the camp
and the police were dispatched to go find my grandpa.
Mama and I jumped in the car and drove that
long trip as fast as we could. Once we got
to the hospital, we found out my dad had had
a stroke and they found Grandpa at the cabin. He
was covered with claw marks and his chest was ripped open.
He was either dead from his wounds or he had
had a heart attack before the animal attacked. Somehow, my
dad was able to get in the truck and started
to drive down the mountain to get help, but he
did not make it all the way to town. Someone
found him pulled over on the side of the road
and took him to the hospital. After a couple of days,
my father came to enough to explain what had happened
that led to the long investigation. Both men were out
in their deer stands hunting when my dad hears the
most awful roaring, growling sound down in the woods where
Grandpa was sitting. He heard yelling but could not make
out what he was saying. Then a gunshot and more
yelling came from my Grandpa. He then heard sounds from
some kind of a wild animal. My Dad got out
of his stand and ran to Grandpa. Dad was yelling
where are you as he was scanning the area with
his gun to his shoulder, trying to figure out what
had happened. He could not see Grandpa and did not
see anything moving around. It was totally silent when he
got there. Dad made his way to grandpa stand to
find him lying in some brush and he was bleeding
very badly. He picked Grandpa up and headed to the
cabin with him over his shoulder. When he reached the cabin,
my father collapsed. He had had a stroke. He knew
the only way to get help was to try and
drive out of there. During the investigation, the police found
where Grandpa was sitting, his rifle was broken in half
and the barrel was bent almost into a U shape.
Grandpa also had a handful of hair in his fist,
and they never found out what kind of animal that
this hare came from. There was also a blood trail
leading down into the thick swamp, then went up into
a tree and then vanished. They took samples of the
blood but could not find any kind of match to
tell what it had come from. There was a big
man hunt put in place for days, but no one
found anything other than that blood trail. Eventually it was
classified as a bear attack. Only bad thing about them
closing this case as a bear attack is there are
no bears in this part of the country. Once we
got Dad home, he told me the sounds he had heard,
and from the claw marks on Grandpa and the gun
being destroyed like that, he firmly believed it was a bigfoot.
There are many rumors from other folks up in those
hills saying that they had sighted them before and hear
some creepy sounds in the woods at night. My dad
made me promise to never go back up to the
cabin and to stay away from that place. I have
never been back up there since, and we all really
missed my grandfather. Dad and I have never had too
much in common, so we've always had a hard time
finding things to do together. I never cared too much
about hunting, but it seems to be the only thing
my dad has interest in, so I pretend just so
we can have some bonding experiences. Deer season in two
thousand and nine is when this all happened. I was
just out of college and was lucky enough to get
a new job, but it wasn't starting for a couple
of weeks, so we decided to go for a week
long trip to Tennessee, where my dad had leased some
land right on the border of a large park. Dad
said he had a place picked out for us, about
a ten minute hike from where we usually park the van.
When we go there, my Dad would be using a
tree stand and I would be in a blind. Since birth,
I've had a bad knee that makes it impossible for
me to climb ladders. We like to hunt together, so
we were going to place my blind about ten yards
from his tree stand. We had walkie talkie hooked up
to an ear piece so we would be able to
talk throughout the hunt. My first day we were there,
it was just setting up blinds in his tree stand.
His stand was a type that had a platform and
was completely separate piece from the latter. Neither of us
ever set that type up so it took a little
longer than we wished for. We also put up ribbons
along the path to be able to find our spot
easier at night. On our way to and from the spot,
I noticed several broken limbs up high. I didn't think
anything of it at the time, but knowing what I
know now, I can't help but think that they are related.
On the second day we were on our trip, we
left for our hunting spots an hour and a half
before the sun came up. I was in the blind
and could hear my dad getting all that up, but
that wasn't all I could hear. I also heard something
large stomping around the other side of the ridge. At
the time, I just thought it was a really loud
deer getting an early start. Even though it was a
good distance away. I could hear the loud breathing. I
could clearly hear that it was sniffing loudly, and the
wind was blowing past us in that direction, so I
knew it was winding us. My dad came through across
my earpiece, asking if I could hear it. I told
him I could, but I doubted that it would come
this way, since it seemed like it was already winding us.
The loud noise continued for another thirty minutes or so,
and then it faded away. The third day is when
everything happened. It started off like a normal hunt. We
got there before sunrise and heard the little animals creeping
along the floor. As soon as the sun came up.
We had two squirrels in between my day and I
playing for about an hour to keep us entertained, but
overall we had no real action for the majority of
the day. Around four pm, the woods went silent. I
know you were thinking, oh, the woods went silent, cliche again,
but it is a cliche for a reason. The woods
went absolutely silent. My dad came over the headset and
asked if I could see anything, to which I replied no.
After about ten minutes of not a single noise being made,
I started to see something behind my dad's tree. It
was a dark figure, way too dark to be a deer.
I couldn't tell what it was because the movement in
the shape was all wrong. I told my dad that
I could see something, but I couldn't make it out.
The closer it got, the better I could see it.
The body was so dark that it was almost black,
while the head was a dark red color. It was
working its way toward us, but not in a straight line.
It would walk one direction, ducking behind bushes and trees,
and I will only see it in small spots when
it would change directions and work its way more diagonally
toward us. My dad kept asking me what it was,
but I quit answering. I didn't want the words bigfoot
to be my answer, but that's all I could think
it was. As it kept getting closer, I noticed something
else strange. I couldn't hear it at all. I have
no idea how such a big creature could be absolutely quiet,
but it was when it was around thirty yards directly
behind my dad. That's when I could see it in
its entirety. It was massive, and it was definitely a male.
It was around eight to nine feet and probably four
feet across the shoulders. It was making its way directly
towards my dad's tree stand. I could even see that
it was looking right at him, without looking in any
other direction. My dad was still coming across my earpiece,
asking if I saw a deer, but when my eyes
opened up large, he started to get worried and I
could hear his anxiety over the headset. I'm not proud
of this, but I couldn't speak. I couldn't think of
what to say, and I was terrified. Everyone wants to
see Bigfoot, but I can promise you, once you've seen
one this close, all you want to do is go home. Finally,
my dad figured out that it was making its way
right for him. I saw the creature bend down and
pick something up. It was a limb that was laying
across the leaves, probably around five feet long. I had
no idea what it was about to do with it,
but I still couldn't speak. I wanted to warn my dad,
but I couldn't say a word, and my hands were
shaking so much. I don't think my mouth had shut
for five minutes. As it came around my day dad's tree,
he finally saw it. He screamed, and for the first
time in my entire life, I saw my dad afraid.
Bigfoot had the limb in its hands and swung it
like a bat. At first I thought it was swinging
at him, but it swung the limb just below his feet,
smashing the limb and the ladder instantly. The ladder was
a light aluminum, but it was still strong enough to
amaze me with the amount of force it would take
to completely break the ladder in two pieces. It took
the tree stand so hard that my dad dropped his gun,
which is just as well, because I honestly don't believe
that a slug would bring down this monster anyway. Luckily
he had the type of deer standing platform and the
ladder are separate pieces, Otherwise he would have fallen directly
on top of the creature. The bigfoot then screamed. It
screamed so loud that it took away my breath. It
wasn't even facing my direction, but the scream was so
loud I could feel it through my core. I can't
even imagine what it was like for my dad, who
was five feet away from its mouth. It then walked away, slowly,
looking like it had a lot of confidence. It didn't
care that it could be seen anymore. It was not
hiding or trying to be quiet, just walking away slowly.
I can't tell you why it did that, or why
it didn't try to hurt him. Maybe it was just
a territorial thing. We stayed put, not talking, for another
hour before we decided to leave. I had to help
my dad down since he didn't have a ladder. It
was tough to get him down because of my leg,
but he made it to the ground without getting injured.
The walk back to the van was slow, with us
looking in all directions the whole time. We never heard
or saw anything else after the entire ordeal, I'm pretty
sure that I never noticed him looking my way or
acknowledging my blind Ever, the worst part about it is
my dad could have seriously been injured, but I never
warned him. I was just so scared, and I'm embarrassed
at how bad I let him down. I also noticed
that I never smelled it. I always hear about how
bad they smell, but even me being so close, I
never caught a whiff. I asked my dad if he
smelled it, but he just said he didn't want to
talk about it. In fact, he wouldn't talk about any
of it and swore me to secrecy. It's a shame
that people are mock for just being witnesses of something
like this. Maybe if people had a safe way to
talk about it, people would be able to share their
experiences more. I've never been inside the woods since, and
I never planned to go again. My dad still goes hunting,
but he only hunts on small properties now behind the farm.
Speaker 2: Being a cab driver in a small Ontario city just
under one hundred thousand people means that you get out
of town calls fairly regularly, drop off in pickups a
half hour away or coming up to three hours away,
maybe one every other month. Once a year or so,
at least one driver will get a call five hours
or more away. You wouldn't believe the company record, but
that's another story. I've been lucky enough to get a
handful of long distance calls over the seven years that
I've been a cabby. The office knows that, unlike most
of the other drivers, I enjoy the long rides, especially
the part of the trip when I'm alone, just me
and the music. I've also been lucky in that the
customers on those long trips have been mostly pleasant, and
the entire ride with each was uneventful except for the
last one. That is. Dispatch got a call around four pm,
one hour afternoon from a woman that had to get
home as soon as possible due to a family emergency,
but the RV that her and her husband were using
to tour the province to mark their recent early retirement
had broken down and the garage couldn't get the part
for at least another day, so a cab was her
only choice. I won't say where she was going beyond
it being near the northwest corner of Algonquin Park. With
her address programmed into my GPS.
Speaker 1: Off we went.
Speaker 2: We chatted for the first half hour or so, and
she explained that her father had fallen from his roof
while fixing some shingles and it hurt himself badly. She
didn't have all the details, but what she did have
had her worried. She asked if I minded if she
nodded off, because she was going to be too busy
to sleep once she got home. I assured her that
it was quite all right, so the rest of the
trip was made in silence except for the radio. Of course,
it had been a hot August day, but by eight
thirty in the evening it was very pleasant, with a cool,
light breeze that had blown away the day's humidity. My
customer had woken up once we turned onto the fire
route that led to her house. A washboard section of
dirt road will do that. At around the four mile
mark halfway. It turned out to be we both saw
a large black blur across the road at the faintest
edge of my high beams. That's a good sized bear,
I commented, a nervous little uh huh was all I
got is a reply. I didn't inquire any further, assuming
that bears frightened her. That's understandable. She had enough on
her mind as it was. If you've ever driven on
an interior fire route, you know that you can't go
very fast on a lane and a half wide if
you're lucky. But also because of the abundance of wildlife,
so I wasn't surprised in the least, and I was
kind of expecting some. Not giving it another thought, I
continued on to the customer's house. I helped her with
her luggage and wished her father the best, and then
got back in the van and I left. Going back
up the fire route, I looked for a good spot
to pull the van over, at least partially off the road,
because nature was calling rather insistently. I know what you're asking.
If you're on such a backwoods dirt road, why are
you bothering to get out of anyone's way? Well, I
figure that my customer wasn't going to be far behind me,
and besides, the company I worked for drills it into
us park out of traffic's way when picking up or
dropping off people so that they aren't deluged with any
more complaints than they already get. Really, though, it's just
a polite thing to do anyway, it took quite a
while to find a suitable spot, so when I did,
I wasted no time turning the van off and getting
out and over to the passenger side to take care
of business. Feeling greatly relieved, I decided to have a
smoke and soak in the piece and quiet for a
few minutes and stretch before the four and a half
hour return home. Pacing slowly back and forth along the
passenger side of the van, I noticed that my footsteps
through the twigs and lee litter were unusually loud, so
I stopped and listened to absolutely nothing. There weren't even
crickets chirping. It was weird. Finishing my cigarette, I turned
to circle the back of the cab and drop the
butt onto the dirt, keeping my eyes down on it
to make sure I stepped on it to grind it
out as I lifted my eyes. There was enough of
a full moon shining through the tree canopy for me
to see two gigantic hairy feet just back from the
opposite side of the road. I froze. Those weren't palls,
These were definitely toes. A jolt of excitement shot through me.
I'm seeing a real life sisquatch, I thought. Cold fear
soon followed. I didn't hear it coming. The van was off,
everything else was eerily silent, and I had not heard
a thing. I slowly raised my eyes and saw calves
as big as my thighs, and then thighs at least
as big a round as a car steering wheel. After
noting that it was a mail, I stopped when I
was looking straight ahead into a hairy stomach. It's funny
what can go through your mind during times of stress.
I kept seeing clips from nature shows about gorilla behavior
in the wild, hoping that these could be at least
somewhat applicable. My curiosity and excitement beat out my fear,
forcing my eyes to continue upwards. A barrel chest led
into shoulders over four feet wide. As my eyes crept higher,
they came to a long chin resting on a little
to no neck. Finally our eyes met I saw his
thin lips part as he let out a long, low growl.
My heart dropped into my stomach. Just then, a car
came over the hill about fifty yards back to my left,
illuminating the whole area. The sasquatch took a step back,
turned to look at the approaching car, finished the one eighty,
and walked back into the dark of the bush in
a few long strides, disappearing entirely. I couldn't turn my
head away from the direction that the heavily muscled harry
back had went until the car slowed to a stop
in front of me. The passenger side window glided down,
and I leaned over to see my customer. She had
a very concerned look on her face as she asked,
are you okay? My brain seemed incapable of getting my
vocal cords to work, so I just nodded, follow me out, okay. Again,
I just nodded. My body seemed to be moving on
autopilot as I straightened up and finished the circle around
the van, jumped in and started it up, pulling out
behind her. When she passed, I followed her out the
country road She stopped just short of the pavement and
got out and walked back to the cab. Are you
sure you're okay, she asked, after I rolled down the window,
finally able to speak. I nodded and I said, yeah,
I think so. Thank you so much for showing up
when you did. I don't know. You're very welcome, she
cut in, But I really have to go. I'd love
to discuss this with you, but I don't have the time.
I have to go see my father. With that, she
turned and walked back to her car, and off she went.
I didn't follow right away, taking the time to set
my GPS for the shop and to light a cigarette.
To my surprise, my hands weren't shaking at all. That
changed as I was putting the van into gear. An
inhumanely loud howl split the air, sounding no more than
one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet away. My
blood almost stopped flowing as the transmission dropped into gear
and I stomped on the pedal, throwing dirt and gravel
out behind me in a rooster tail. I can take
a hint. People find as zen in their own ways.
For me, it's driving long distances alone usually it does anyway,
this time not so much. I played the experience over
and over during the drive back to the yard, making
sure to secure every detail that I could to my memory.
I am five foot eleven, and a level gaze had
me looking directly into its stomach. I figure his height
to be somewhere between eight foot six nine feet tall.
His weight had to be at least five hundred pounds.
He wasn't proportioned quite like a human. The car headlights
gave me a good enough look, albeit short, to see
that his arms were longer than hours, with his fingers
reaching past mid thigh. The nails, and they were nails,
not claws, were jagged, like he spent a lot of
time digging in rough terrain. The hair was dark, almost black,
seeming longer on the shoulders and arms than elsewhere. His
barreled chests slowly expanded and contracted with each enormous breath.
The lung capacity must be staggering. His face was dark
skinned and hairless, giving me a good view of his
thin lipped, wide mouth, broad flat nose, and deep set
eyes under a prominent but smaller brow ridge than I expected.
I have the impression of him having a cone shaped head,
but I can't say for certain. His turn and walk
into the darkness was amazingly fluid and graceful, even while
taking strides twice as long as mine. By no means
was he a lumbering giant. After giving it a lot
of thought, I decided that he never really meant me
any harm. My initial dread at the imagined reason for
his stealthy approach was muted when I realized that if
it did want to hurt me, it could have done
so before I even knew it was there. I think
that it only growled like that because I made direct
eye contact with him. It remained as motionless as I
had been, but I don't doubt that it was checking
me out and must have come to the conclusion that
I wasn't a threat and would not challenge him. His
almost nonchalant manner he had when the car arrived left
me thinking that he was quite familiar with the comings
and goings around the area, and my customer was very
familiar with him. By the end of the drive, I
decided that I wouldn't tell anyone what happened except for
my family. Well, I might have told one of the
other drivers at the very worst, he would think that
it was a good story. As for my customer, I
was tempted to get her phone number from the office,
but ultimately decided against it. She had problems of her
own and probably wouldn't want to answer a million of
my questions. Imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks later,
when I got into work, there was a message waiting
for me. The office manager said that the customer had
called to thank us for getting her home safely, and
that since I had been so concerned about her father,
that she wanted me to know that he had been
touching go for a week, but he was doing much
better now. She had asked for my phone number and
had understood when the dispatcher told her that he could
not give the phone number out, but she insisted that
he give me her number and to call her when
it was convenient. We've since become good friends and we
actually talk often. She has given me permission to write
up her stories, so you'll probably be hearing from me
a few more times at least