WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.480 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.839 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.320 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.399 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:02.679 --> 00:01:05.000 My name is John, and I've been putting off writing 14 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:08.000 this down for a long time. Not because I doubt 15 00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:11.159 what happened. I stopped doubting it about thirty seconds after 16 00:01:11.159 --> 00:01:13.719 that first rock put me face down in the snow 17 00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:16.799 with blood running into my eye. And not because I 18 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:19.680 worry much about what people think of me. I'm seventy 19 00:01:19.719 --> 00:01:22.280 eight years old and I've been past caring about that 20 00:01:22.359 --> 00:01:25.280 for a good while. Now I've put it off, mostly 21 00:01:25.319 --> 00:01:27.519 because sitting down and going through all of it from 22 00:01:27.560 --> 00:01:30.239 the beginning means living it again in a way that 23 00:01:30.319 --> 00:01:33.079 I don't find comfortable, and because I've never been a 24 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:35.760 man who particularly enjoys writing when I could be doing 25 00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:38.879 something else with my hands. But I keep listening to 26 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:42.400 this show. I listen to Backwood's Bigfoot Stories, and I 27 00:01:42.439 --> 00:01:45.879 listened to Sasquatch Odyssey pretty regularly, and over the last 28 00:01:45.920 --> 00:01:48.680 couple of years, I've heard Fred from Alaska come on 29 00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:52.000 and talk about his experiences up in the Northern Bush, 30 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:55.000 and every single time that man opens his mouth, I 31 00:01:55.079 --> 00:01:58.599 find myself sitting forward in my chair because he understands 32 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:01.120 something about these animals that a lot of the people 33 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:03.840 who study them from a comfortable distance have not yet 34 00:02:03.879 --> 00:02:06.959 figured out. Or maybe they figured it out and they 35 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.120 just don't want to say it out loud because it 36 00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:12.319 doesn't fit the version of this phenomenon that their audience 37 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:13.240 wants to believe in. 38 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:16.520 I don't know which it is. What I do know 39 00:02:16.639 --> 00:02:18.280 is that Fred is right, and. 40 00:02:18.199 --> 00:02:20.039 That what I'm going to tell you lines up with 41 00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:23.000 what he says in ways that I find both validating 42 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:27.400 and deeply unsettling. Even now so here it is. I 43 00:02:27.479 --> 00:02:30.360 need to give you some background, because the situation I 44 00:02:30.439 --> 00:02:33.919 was in matters for those who listen to this and 45 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:36.479 try to understand why I made the choices I made, 46 00:02:37.159 --> 00:02:39.520 and why I stayed as long as I did, when 47 00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:42.759 any outside observer might reasonably have argued I should have 48 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:45.919 left sooner. I'd been trapping in the Yukon in the 49 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:50.080 Northwest Territories since I was nineteen years old. I grew 50 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:52.759 up in northern British Columbia, in a small town that 51 00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:56.599 doesn't exist anymore, at least not in any form i'd recognize, 52 00:02:56.960 --> 00:02:59.479 and I learned to trap and hunt and navigate that 53 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:02.879 country my father and my uncle, both of whom had 54 00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:05.680 spent their whole lives working the land in ways that 55 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:09.840 most people today can't really imagine. By the time I 56 00:03:09.879 --> 00:03:12.280 was in my mid twenties, I was running my own line, 57 00:03:12.639 --> 00:03:16.039 my own operation, and I'd gotten my pilot's license, because 58 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:19.240 up in that country, a pilot's license isn't a luxury. 59 00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:22.479 It's a tool, the same as a good knife or. 60 00:03:22.439 --> 00:03:23.599 A reliable rifle. 61 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:26.840 Without the ability to fly, you're limited to whatever you 62 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:30.080 can reach by snowmobile or dog team, and the country 63 00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:33.680 I wanted to work was well beyond those limits. By 64 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:35.719 the fall of seventy eight, I was thirty. 65 00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:36.199 One years old. 66 00:03:36.639 --> 00:03:39.360 I had a wife named Carol and two kids, a 67 00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:41.800 boy of seven and a girl of four, and we 68 00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:44.479 were living in a small house outside of Whitehorse that 69 00:03:44.599 --> 00:03:47.919 needed a new roof and a furnace that actually worked consistently. 70 00:03:48.639 --> 00:03:52.240 We weren't in financial trouble exactly, but we weren't comfortable either, 71 00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:55.479 and the trapping income was the main thing that kept. 72 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:56.599 Us solvent through the winters. 73 00:03:57.400 --> 00:03:59.479 I want to be clear about that because it explains 74 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:02.199 decisions I made later in the season that a man 75 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:05.479 without a family to feed might not have made. I 76 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:07.919 had a trapping cabin about one hundred and forty miles 77 00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:11.479 northeast of Dawson City, up in country that sits roughly 78 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:14.520 in the watershed between the Stuart River and some of 79 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:19.439 its smaller northern tributaries. Its mixed terrain up there, boreal 80 00:04:19.480 --> 00:04:23.240 spruce and birch in the valley bottoms, open alpine tundra 81 00:04:23.319 --> 00:04:26.839 on the Ridges Creek drainages choked with willow and alder 82 00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:30.519 that hold beaver and muskrat in the lower reaches. It's 83 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:33.120 exactly the kind of country that produces good fur if 84 00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:35.480 you know what you're doing, and I'd been working that 85 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:37.680 area long enough to know it about as well as 86 00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:41.800 any man could. I'd built the cabin myself over two summers, 87 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:44.879 hauling materials up in the plain a load at a time. 88 00:04:45.639 --> 00:04:48.360 Eight inch spruce logs chinked with a mix of moss 89 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:52.040 and commercial chinking compound, A heavy shake roof with two 90 00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:55.720 layers of tar paper underneath, a good cast iron box 91 00:04:55.759 --> 00:04:58.800 stove that I'd pulled out of a derelict roadhouse and rebuilt. 92 00:04:59.319 --> 00:05:04.480 A plank floor, two bunks, a table, shelves, nothing fancy, 93 00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:08.360 everything solid. I was proud of that cabin, the way 94 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:10.680 you're proud of anything you build with your own hands 95 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:13.439 out of nothing. And every fall when I dropped down 96 00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:16.160 onto my little landing strip in the meadow below it, 97 00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:18.560 and taxied up to the tie down and cut the 98 00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:21.480 engine and listen to the silence settle in around me, 99 00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:25.680 I felt something I can only describe as rightness, Like 100 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:28.639 I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing 101 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:32.000 exactly what I was supposed to be doing. My trap 102 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:34.399 line covered a rough oval of territory that took me 103 00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:37.040 about four days to run if I pushed hard from 104 00:05:37.040 --> 00:05:41.040 before light to last light. It ran northeast along the 105 00:05:41.079 --> 00:05:44.519 main creek drainage for about eight miles, then curved north 106 00:05:44.519 --> 00:05:46.800 and west through the heavy timber on the backside of 107 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:50.160 a long ridge, then turned south through the open country 108 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:52.800 on the far side, before coming around and back to 109 00:05:52.839 --> 00:05:56.360 the cabin from the west along a series of beaver ponds. 110 00:05:56.839 --> 00:05:59.800 I had sets throughout that circuit, mostly for Martin because 111 00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:02.879 the rices were good that season, but also for Lynx 112 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:06.879 beaver and Wolverine. I had a few large blind sets 113 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:10.519 and strategic locations for wolf, though I wasn't counting on those. 114 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:13.600 They were more of a bonus than a plan. My 115 00:06:13.639 --> 00:06:17.040 Piper Supercub was my lifeline. I want you to understand 116 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:20.399 that clearly. Without that plane, I had no way in 117 00:06:20.839 --> 00:06:23.879 and no way out. I had a handheld radio that 118 00:06:23.879 --> 00:06:27.120 could reach Byron and Dawson under good conditions, but there 119 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:30.360 was no road, no trail that a snowmobile could navigate 120 00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:33.519 in the terrain between me and the nearest other human being. 121 00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:37.519 The plane was everything I kept. It tied down on 122 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:40.959 a flat meadow about sixty yards from the cabin, chalkeed 123 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.680 and covered, and I checked it every couple of days, 124 00:06:43.720 --> 00:06:45.839 the way you check on something you depend on for 125 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:49.120 your life. I flew in on the second of October 126 00:06:49.399 --> 00:06:53.199 seventy eight. The weather was cold and clear, the kind 127 00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:56.560 of yukon October day that looks like a painting. Everything 128 00:06:56.639 --> 00:07:00.319 sharp edged and blue and gold and silent. I had 129 00:07:00.319 --> 00:07:03.720 the plane loaded with enough food for four months, extra fuel, 130 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.839 trapping supplies, tools, ammunition, medical kit. I'd done this enough 131 00:07:08.879 --> 00:07:12.240 times that the packing was efficient. Everything had its place, 132 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:15.879 and everything was accounted for. The first two days were 133 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:19.600 everything I'd hoped for. I ran my near sets, got 134 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:23.360 everything freshened and baited. Found good sign throughout the territory. 135 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:26.879 Martin tracks in the timber, fresh beaver work on the 136 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:30.839 lower ponds, link sign on the ridge. The population was 137 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:35.199 looking healthy. I was genuinely optimistic about the season. I 138 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:37.279 should have paid more attention to what I didn't see 139 00:07:37.279 --> 00:07:41.560 in those first few days. No wolves, no moose, not 140 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:44.319 even tracks, and moose should have been in the willows 141 00:07:44.360 --> 00:07:47.279 along the creek at that time of year. The birds 142 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:50.040 were strange, too quiet in a way that the birds 143 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:53.560 up there usually aren't. I noticed it, but I filed 144 00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:56.800 it without giving it the weight It deserved. The tracks 145 00:07:56.839 --> 00:07:59.199 first showed up on the fifth of October, or at 146 00:07:59.279 --> 00:08:02.920 least that's the first time I noticed them in retrospect. 147 00:08:02.959 --> 00:08:05.000 I think they may have been around earlier, and I 148 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:06.920 just hadn't been in the right place at the right 149 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:09.920 time to cross them. I was coming back from running 150 00:08:09.959 --> 00:08:12.399 the eastern arm of my line late in the afternoon, 151 00:08:12.839 --> 00:08:16.079 following the creek back toward the cabin. The light was 152 00:08:16.120 --> 00:08:18.560 going fast, the way it does up there in October, 153 00:08:18.920 --> 00:08:21.040 dropping off the edge of the world in what seems 154 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:23.839 like minutes, and I was moving with some purpose to 155 00:08:23.879 --> 00:08:27.360 get back before full dark. I came through a section 156 00:08:27.439 --> 00:08:29.839 of open ground near a gravel bar where the creek 157 00:08:29.879 --> 00:08:33.000 bent east, an area of maybe half an acre, where 158 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:36.200 the willows thinned out and the ground was relatively flat 159 00:08:36.440 --> 00:08:39.600 with snow that had fallen three days earlier, sitting undisturbed 160 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:43.480 and smooth, just enough snow to hold a print, maybe 161 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:48.080 three inches soft on top and firmer underneath. I almost 162 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:52.080 walked past them. My brain ran its standard processing sequence, 163 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:55.519 saw a large track, filed it under bare, and tried 164 00:08:55.559 --> 00:08:58.399 to keep me moving toward the cabin in supper. But 165 00:08:58.519 --> 00:09:01.320 something made me stop, some part of me that had 166 00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:05.039 been making decisions in wild country for twelve years, overrode 167 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:08.600 the filing and made me look again. They weren't bear tracks. 168 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:11.720 I followed enough bears to know what their tracks looked like. 169 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:16.080 Displayed toes, the claw marks out ahead, the way, the 170 00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:19.600 back foot oversteps the front. These were nothing like that. 171 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:24.440 These were feet, human feet, or something shaped like human feet, 172 00:09:24.919 --> 00:09:27.080 but scaled up in a way that didn't make sense. 173 00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:32.440 Five toes all forward, a broad metatarsal ball, and a 174 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:35.159 heel that I could cradle in both my hands put together. 175 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:37.440 I stood there for a while, just. 176 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:39.960 Looking at them. Then I pulled off my pack and 177 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.960 found my tape. Twenty two inches tip of the longest 178 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:46.399 toe to the back of the heel, eight and a 179 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:49.440 quarter inches at the widest point of the ball. The 180 00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:53.480 heel itself measured just over eight inches across. The depth 181 00:09:53.480 --> 00:09:56.240 of the impression was shallower than I expected for something 182 00:09:56.279 --> 00:09:59.519 that size, which meant the weight was being spread efficiently 183 00:09:59.559 --> 00:10:03.759 across the foot, which meant the anatomy was doing something sophisticated. 184 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:06.240 I paced the stride. 185 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:08.960 My stride at a normal walk is about thirty inches. 186 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.559 These strides were closer to sixty five, and the foot 187 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:15.320 was angling slightly inward with each step in a way 188 00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:19.559 that suggested a very upright walking posture. I measured six 189 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:22.080 separate prints before the light got too bad to work. 190 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:26.519 The measurements were consistent across all six. This wasn't one 191 00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:29.320 weird track. It was a clear trail of a single 192 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:32.399 animal moving on two feet across that gravel bar at 193 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:35.279 what I estimated based on the stride and the depth 194 00:10:35.840 --> 00:10:39.759 was a walking pace. Whatever made these tracks was not rushing, 195 00:10:40.279 --> 00:10:43.399 It was just walking. I went back to the cabin 196 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:45.440 and I sat by the stove with a cup of coffee, 197 00:10:45.720 --> 00:10:48.279 and I thought about it for a long time. I 198 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:50.360 want to be honest about what I was and wasn't 199 00:10:50.399 --> 00:10:54.200 willing to think at that point. My first actual considered 200 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:57.639 thought after the bare hypothesis collapsed, was that there was 201 00:10:57.639 --> 00:11:01.919 someone out there, some very large person, perhaps a trapper 202 00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:04.159 I didn't know about working country that I thought was 203 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:07.039 mine alone, who had feet the size of a cutting 204 00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:09.960 board and no snow shoes and still wasn't punching through 205 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:12.879 to the gravel. I turned that over for a while. 206 00:11:13.399 --> 00:11:16.440 I knew it didn't hold together. The nearest other trapper 207 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:19.159 I was aware of operated country about forty miles to 208 00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:22.159 my south and west, and nobody had ever mentioned another 209 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:25.519 operation in my area, and no person on Earth has 210 00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:28.799 feet that size, And there were no boot impressions, no 211 00:11:28.919 --> 00:11:32.679 tread pattern, just bare skin on the snow. I went 212 00:11:32.679 --> 00:11:35.399 to sleep, telling myself to pay attention and that i'd 213 00:11:35.399 --> 00:11:38.480 know more when I knew more. I went back the 214 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:40.960 next morning with my tape and my notebook, and I 215 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:44.559 spent two hours at that gravel bar, documenting everything I could. 216 00:11:45.320 --> 00:11:47.519 I drew the outlines of three of the best prints 217 00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:51.480 in my notebook, measured the toe spacing, noted the heel shape, 218 00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:54.879 estimated the depth in comparison to my own track beside it. 219 00:11:55.600 --> 00:11:58.679 I have that notebook still. The pages are brittle now, 220 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:02.200 but the drawings are still clear. On the way back 221 00:12:02.200 --> 00:12:04.320 to the cabin, I found a second set of tracks 222 00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:08.440 on the north side of the creek, heading west, same dimensions, 223 00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:13.440 same stride, same shallow depth. They weren't the same individual 224 00:12:13.480 --> 00:12:16.120 as the first set, or if they were the same individual, 225 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:18.919 they'd come back on a different route because the direction 226 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:21.559 of travel was different and the right rear track had 227 00:12:21.559 --> 00:12:24.720 a slight anomaly, a notch in the outer edge of 228 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:26.799 the heel that didn't appear in the first set. 229 00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:28.679 I've thought about whether it was. 230 00:12:28.679 --> 00:12:31.480 Two different animals or one animal on two different trips, 231 00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:35.480 and I've never resolved it to my complete satisfaction. What 232 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:39.200 I had resolved, to my satisfaction was that I was 233 00:12:39.279 --> 00:12:42.759 not alone out there. The trap losses started on the 234 00:12:42.799 --> 00:12:45.960 eighth of October, three days after I found the first tracks. 235 00:12:46.759 --> 00:12:49.679 I was running my northern sets, a section of line 236 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:52.320 that went up through some older spruce stands where the 237 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:56.039 martin population was densest, and at the third and fourth sets, 238 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:58.759 I found the traps empty in a way I couldn't explain. 239 00:12:59.639 --> 00:13:04.559 Both had been activated. The mechanisms tripped, bait removed, but 240 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:09.159 no animal, no carcass, no drag, no blood from a catch. 241 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:12.039 A wolverine will clear a trap and eat a catch 242 00:13:12.120 --> 00:13:15.279 right there, or drag it off a short distance. A 243 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:18.600 wolverine leaves a mess. What I found at those two 244 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:22.320 sets was almost neat by comparison. The trap was open, 245 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:25.320 the bait was gone, the drag steak was where it 246 00:13:25.320 --> 00:13:29.440 should be, but the chain lay slack. I crouched down 247 00:13:29.480 --> 00:13:31.440 and looked at the ground around the first set for 248 00:13:31.519 --> 00:13:35.639 a long time. Those same track impressions were there two 249 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:38.679 of them pressed into the soft ground on either side 250 00:13:38.679 --> 00:13:42.080 of the trap. Whatever had cleared it had stood over it, 251 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:45.840 one foot on each side and reached down. The trap 252 00:13:45.879 --> 00:13:49.360 had been sprung based on the mechanism by downward pressure, 253 00:13:49.440 --> 00:13:51.960 rather than by something triggering the pan from the side, 254 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:55.840 which is what a martin does downward pressure like a 255 00:13:55.879 --> 00:13:59.200 thumb or a finger, depressing the pan deliberately, the way 256 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:02.080 a person might a mouse trap before deciding how to 257 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:05.559 deal with it. That detail bothered me more than anything 258 00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:09.480 else I'd seen so far. Not the size, not the tracks, 259 00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:13.720 not even the missing animals. That one detail, the trap 260 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:17.799 sprung from above by intentional downward pressure, put something in 261 00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:21.240 a different category for me. It's one thing to encounter 262 00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:24.399 an animal you don't have a name for. It's another thing, 263 00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:27.679 entirely to encounter an animal that's figuring out your equipment. 264 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:31.519 Over the following week I lost two more martin, a 265 00:14:31.559 --> 00:14:34.679 beaver from one of my lower sets, and then on 266 00:14:34.879 --> 00:14:38.639 or about the fifteenth of October, a Lynx links are 267 00:14:38.679 --> 00:14:41.320 wary animals, and they're not easy to trap, even if 268 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:44.080 you know what you're doing. I'd had a good set 269 00:14:44.120 --> 00:14:46.440 working a game trail on the south side of the ridge, 270 00:14:46.840 --> 00:14:49.399 a trail I'd been watching for two seasons, and I'd 271 00:14:49.440 --> 00:14:52.759 made my catch. I could tell from the sign the 272 00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:55.080 ground was disturbed, the way it gets when a lynx 273 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:58.120 is in a trap and fighting it. But the lynx 274 00:14:58.200 --> 00:15:01.000 was gone. The trap was sprung over open, and those 275 00:15:01.039 --> 00:15:03.639 tracks were around the set again. And there was a 276 00:15:03.679 --> 00:15:06.559 single partial impression in the dirt at the edge of 277 00:15:06.559 --> 00:15:09.480 the trail that showed the outside edge of a foot 278 00:15:09.480 --> 00:15:12.759 and two toes, and it was enormous. Stay tuned for 279 00:15:12.879 --> 00:15:14.759 more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. 280 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:15.679 We'll be back. 281 00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:21.320 After these messages, I reset everything and kept going because 282 00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:23.879 what else was I going to do. But I started 283 00:15:23.960 --> 00:15:26.080 keeping a running tally in my notebook of what I 284 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:28.480 was losing, and the numbers were adding up in a 285 00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:32.039 direction I didn't like. My family's winter depended on what 286 00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:34.960 I brought home out of that country. I couldn't afford 287 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.120 to lose a third or a half of my catch 288 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:41.799 to something I couldn't trap, couldn't shoot, and couldn't reliably locate. 289 00:15:42.679 --> 00:15:44.879 I started thinking about whether I needed to move some 290 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.759 of my sets, put them in areas that were harder 291 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:51.600 to access, put more distance between the sets, and whatever 292 00:15:51.639 --> 00:15:55.960 patterns these things were following, which raises the question what 293 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:59.399 patterns were they following. They seemed to know my line, 294 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:03.000 not just generally, as in they'd blundered into a trap 295 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:07.039 by chance, but specifically, as if they'd walked my line 296 00:16:07.159 --> 00:16:10.519 and identified the sets I had set spread over eight 297 00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:13.159 or more miles of territory, and they were hitting them 298 00:16:13.159 --> 00:16:17.120 in multiple locations across that whole range. Either there were 299 00:16:17.159 --> 00:16:20.200 several of them working different parts of my line simultaneously, 300 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:22.480 or one or two of them had a mental map 301 00:16:22.519 --> 00:16:26.440 of my operation that was uncomfortably detailed. I moved four 302 00:16:26.519 --> 00:16:29.600 sets on the seventeenth and eighteenth of October, pushed them 303 00:16:29.639 --> 00:16:33.200 off my established trail system and into less accessible terrain. 304 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:38.080 The losses at those four locations stopped immediately, which told 305 00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:41.360 me they weren't just wandering my area randomly. They were 306 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:45.279 tracking my established roots. When I put sets somewhere new 307 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:48.799 off the pattern, they didn't find them right away. That 308 00:16:48.919 --> 00:16:52.919 was useful information. It was all so deeply unpleasant information. 309 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:57.120 The vocalization started on the eleventh of October, four days 310 00:16:57.120 --> 00:16:59.639 before I lost the links, so they'd been active for 311 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:03.480 a while wile before things escalated into confrontation. I was 312 00:17:03.519 --> 00:17:06.680 inside the cabin working on some equipment after supper, A 313 00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:11.319 good fire going lamp lit comfortable enough, and then something 314 00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:14.000 outside opened up with a sound that had me on 315 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:16.680 my feet with the marlin in my hands before i'd 316 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:20.359 consciously decided to move. That's the thing about a sound 317 00:17:20.359 --> 00:17:22.759 that doesn't fit any category you have a name for. 318 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:27.200 Your body responds to it before your mind has finished processing. 319 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:31.480 It wasn't a wolf howl. I've heard wolves my entire life, 320 00:17:31.480 --> 00:17:34.720 and I know that sound in all its variations. It 321 00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:37.839 was deeper, for one thing, well below the register a 322 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:41.240 wolf works in, with a resonance to it that suggested 323 00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:44.559 a chest cavity much larger than any wolf. It was 324 00:17:44.599 --> 00:17:48.079 also longer, more sustained, and it had a quality that 325 00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:52.240 I've struggled to describe accurately ever since intentional is the 326 00:17:52.279 --> 00:17:56.319 word I keep coming back to. It sounded intentional, like 327 00:17:56.359 --> 00:18:00.480 the sound was being shaped, modulated, controlled, the way a 328 00:18:00.519 --> 00:18:04.279 person modulates their voice when they're projecting it. An animal 329 00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:07.359 making noise out of instinct doesn't sound like that. This 330 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:09.720 sounded like something that knew it was making a sound 331 00:18:09.759 --> 00:18:12.279 and was making it on purpose. It went on for 332 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:15.680 maybe eight seconds, dropped off, and then it came again 333 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:19.039 from a slightly different angle, maybe thirty degrees to the 334 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:22.200 right of the first, which meant either it had moved 335 00:18:22.359 --> 00:18:25.160 very quickly in the seconds between, or there were two 336 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:28.119 of them calling back and forth. In either case, I 337 00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:30.160 stood at the door with my hand on the latch 338 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:32.519 and my rifle up, and there was no way I 339 00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:36.480 was going outside. I'm not embarrassed to say it. Going 340 00:18:36.519 --> 00:18:39.000 out into the dark after a sound you can't identify 341 00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:42.240 as how you end a story badly. Over the following 342 00:18:42.279 --> 00:18:45.200 two weeks, the sounds became more frequent and more varied, 343 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:47.799 and I started to get a sense of the geography 344 00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:50.960 of where they were. They seemed to be based, if 345 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:53.519 that's the right word, in the heavy timber to the 346 00:18:53.559 --> 00:18:56.440 east and northeast of the cabin, in a section of 347 00:18:56.519 --> 00:18:59.319 old growth spruce that I didn't run any sets through 348 00:18:59.359 --> 00:19:02.519 because the dead fall made it nearly impenetrable on foot. 349 00:19:03.400 --> 00:19:06.880 They moved around a lot, covering ground between vocalizations at 350 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:09.599 a rate that was hard to account for. I'd hear 351 00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:12.359 something from the northeast, and twenty minutes later here a 352 00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:15.680 response from the northwest, and there was no reasonable way 353 00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:18.440 for one animal to have covered that distance in that time. 354 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:19.559 Through that terrain. 355 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:24.039 There were nights I'd hear this low rhythmic knocking, something 356 00:19:24.079 --> 00:19:26.920 striking a tree trunk or a log, over and over, 357 00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:30.559 about every five seconds, going on for ten or fifteen 358 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:34.160 minutes at a stretch. There were whistles too, the kind 359 00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:36.400 that sit in a range I've always associated with a 360 00:19:36.440 --> 00:19:41.200 person whistling, not any bird I know. One morning, real early, 361 00:19:41.480 --> 00:19:44.480 still dark out, I heard something directly overhead that I 362 00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:48.960 couldn't place at all, this resonant kind of exhalation, almost 363 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:51.480 like something standing up on the roof taking a long, 364 00:19:51.640 --> 00:19:54.880 slow breath. I laid in my bunk with the rifle 365 00:19:54.920 --> 00:19:57.680 and didn't move until full light. But the night that 366 00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:00.480 sticks with me most from that stretch before where things 367 00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:03.279 got physical, the one I've replayed more times than I 368 00:20:03.319 --> 00:20:06.759 can count in the years since, was around the seventeenth 369 00:20:06.920 --> 00:20:10.279 or eighteenth of October. That's the night I heard the exchange. 370 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:13.480 I was awake. I was awake a lot by then, 371 00:20:14.680 --> 00:20:18.279 laying in the bunk, stove burned down to coals. It 372 00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:21.720 started with that deep call from the eastern timber, same 373 00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:24.880 one I'd been hearing then an answer came back from 374 00:20:24.920 --> 00:20:28.359 a different direction, with a different quality to it, a 375 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:32.240 little higher, a little faster than the first one. Again, 376 00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:37.480 then the second, back and forth, back and forth. I 377 00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:41.079 timed it forty three minutes on the watch on my wrist. 378 00:20:41.839 --> 00:20:43.279 Now I want to try and tell you what it 379 00:20:43.319 --> 00:20:47.319 actually sounded like, because I think it matters. It wasn't 380 00:20:47.359 --> 00:20:49.960 just two animals calling back and forth the way wolves 381 00:20:50.039 --> 00:20:54.160 do or coyotes. There was a texture to it, a 382 00:20:54.240 --> 00:20:57.519 rhythm that kept changing, phrases that seemed to vary in 383 00:20:57.599 --> 00:20:59.640 length and content the way. 384 00:20:59.480 --> 00:21:00.480 Real speed does. 385 00:21:01.319 --> 00:21:03.240 There'd be moments where one of them would go on 386 00:21:03.400 --> 00:21:06.440 for twenty or thirty seconds at a stretch, something that 387 00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:09.480 felt like a long string of organized sounds, and then 388 00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:12.119 the other one would answer with something short, three or 389 00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:15.160 four seconds, and then there'd be a pause, and then 390 00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:17.920 the first one would start up again, like one of 391 00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:21.039 them was talking and the other one was listening, responding, 392 00:21:21.359 --> 00:21:24.319 maybe asking something, and then the first one was picking 393 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:27.839 back up to elaborate. That's the only framework I've got 394 00:21:27.880 --> 00:21:31.119 for it. It sounded like a conversation. I had nothing 395 00:21:31.160 --> 00:21:33.839 to compare it to. In October of seventy eight, no 396 00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:38.279 reference point, no prior experience. Nothing in my mental library 397 00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:40.440 that matched what I was hearing out there in the dark. 398 00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:43.039 I just sat up in the bunk and listened to 399 00:21:43.079 --> 00:21:45.519 the whole thing with the hair standing on my arms, 400 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:48.359 and then I sat there a long time after it quit, 401 00:21:48.920 --> 00:21:51.319