Speaker 1: Today, I want to tell you about a journey that
Speaker 1: I've been on for most of my life. Ever since
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I've heard tales of Bigfoot and
Speaker 1: wild men while spending time with my friends and family.
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Speaker 1: my interest in encryptids and other things strange only deepened.
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Speaker 2: Now, what are your reporting? I got a screen going
Speaker 2: on here. Something just killed my dog. Something killed your dog?
Speaker 2: My dog. We're flying through there, over the tree. I
Speaker 2: don't know how it did it? Okay, damn, I'm really confused.
Speaker 2: All I saw was my dog coming over the fence,
Speaker 2: and name it dead once you hit the ground. I
Speaker 2: didn't see any cars. All I saw was my dog
Speaker 2: coming over the fence. Made What are you reporting? We
Speaker 2: got some wonder or something crawling around out here? Did
Speaker 2: you see what it was? It enough here? Look, I'm
Speaker 2: new the window now and I don't need anything. I
Speaker 2: don't want to go outside. It's hello, hit the boddy
Speaker 2: out here? What quent on out there? I thought of
Speaker 2: a bench about text nine. I don't know easy an
Speaker 2: out there? Yeah, I'm walking right, heady h.
Speaker 1: I remember the sound of the engine first, that struggling
Speaker 1: wine as my old Cessna one eighty five Skywagon fought
Speaker 1: against the bitter February winds. The aluminum frame rattled and shook,
Speaker 1: but she held together like she always did. That plane
Speaker 1: and I had been through a lot together in the
Speaker 1: eight years since I'd bought her second hand from a
Speaker 1: retiring bush pilot and yellow Knife. I'd named her Claire,
Speaker 1: after my mother, who died when I was fifteen. Mom
Speaker 1: had always loved the idea of flight, though she'd never
Speaker 1: set foot in a plane. Too expensive for a trapper's wife.
Speaker 1: Back then, the vast expanse of the Northwest Territories stretched
Speaker 1: out beneath me, an endless sea of white punctuated by
Speaker 1: the dark green of pine and spruce. I'd been making
Speaker 1: this trip twice a year since I was nineteen, flying
Speaker 1: out to my father's old trapping cabin, deep in the
Speaker 1: back country, where the rivers ran unnamed, and the only
Speaker 1: maps that mattered were the ones etched into my memory.
Speaker 1: My father had died four years earlier massive heart attack
Speaker 1: while checking his trap lines. Found him three days later,
Speaker 1: frozen solid, half covered by fresh snow. After the funeral,
Speaker 1: there'd been talk among my uncles about selling the cabin
Speaker 1: and the trap lines. Family tradition are not They said
Speaker 1: that life was dying, the fur market wasn't what it
Speaker 1: used to be. Go to college, they said, get a
Speaker 1: real job. I'd nodded and agreed, then took the next
Speaker 1: season's earnings and bought Claire instead. My name is Thomas.
Speaker 1: I was twenty five that winter, though the weather and
Speaker 1: isolation of northern Canada had aged my face beyond my years.
Speaker 1: My father had been a trapper, as had his father
Speaker 1: before him. The mercers had been taking fur in these
Speaker 1: woods since before Canada was a country. It was in
Speaker 1: our blood. And despite what my uncle said, I made
Speaker 1: a decent living, not rich by any means, but enough
Speaker 1: to sustain me between seasons with some carpentry work back
Speaker 1: in yellow Knife. More importantly, I was my own man
Speaker 1: out here, no boss, no time card, just me and
Speaker 1: the wilderness and the steady rhythm of the trap lines.
Speaker 1: The cabin came into view as I crested a ridge
Speaker 1: nestled against the edge of a frozen lake, surrounded by
Speaker 1: a dense wall of trees. The small clearing I used
Speaker 1: as a landing strip was just visible through the light
Speaker 1: snow that had begun to fall. I circled once, checking
Speaker 1: for obstacles or animal tracks, then lined up my approach.
Speaker 1: Landing a bush plane on a makeshift snow strip is
Speaker 1: always a gamble. Too soft and you sink, too icy
Speaker 1: and you can't stop. That day, the snow was just right,
Speaker 1: about eight inches of powder over a firm and base.
Speaker 1: The skis touched down with a gentle hiss, and I
Speaker 1: cut the engine, letting momentum carry me to the edge
Speaker 1: of the tree line. The silence that followed was absolute,
Speaker 1: the kind of quiet you only find in the deep
Speaker 1: wilderness in winter, where sound itself seems frozen. I sat
Speaker 1: there for a moment, letting the stillness wash over me,
Speaker 1: purging the last remnants of civilization from my system. This
Speaker 1: was where I belonged, This was home. I reached over
Speaker 1: to the passenger seat, where my worn leather satchel lay,
Speaker 1: the one constant companion on all my trips. Inside was
Speaker 1: my journal, a tradition passed down from my grandfather. A
Speaker 1: trapper's mind gets funny in the isolation, he told me once,
Speaker 1: Writing keeps you tethered to yourself. I'd been keeping detailed
Speaker 1: records since my first solo trip, weather conditions, animal sign
Speaker 1: trap yields, and the occasional stray thought or observation. The
Speaker 1: journal was nearly full. Now I'd have to start a
Speaker 1: new one soon. The date was February twelfth, nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: I noted it in the journal, along with the temperature
Speaker 1: from the plane's gauge negative twenty four degrees celsius, wind
Speaker 1: direction northwest, and sky conditions scattered clouds, light snow, routine, normal,
Speaker 1: everything as it should be. I unloaded my supplies methodically,
Speaker 1: fuel for the generator, dried food, ammunition, trapping equipment, and
Speaker 1: the small luxuries that made the isolation bearable coffee, whiskey,
Speaker 1: and a stack of paperback Westerns. The cabin was about
Speaker 1: fifty yards from the landing strip, and I made several trips,
Speaker 1: trudging through the snow with heavy loads, my breath clouded
Speaker 1: in the frigid air, the temperature hovering around fifteen below zero.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until my final trip, arms loaded with the
Speaker 1: last of my gear, that I noticed something was wrong.
Speaker 1: The snow around the cabin had been disturbed, not by
Speaker 1: small animals I knew those tracks well enough, but by
Speaker 1: something large, something that walked on two legs. I set
Speaker 1: down my gear and approached cautiously, my hand instinctively moving
Speaker 1: to the thirty six rifles slung across my back. The
Speaker 1: tracks were unlike anything I'd ever seen, and I'd spent
Speaker 1: my life in these woods. They resembled a man's footprint,
Speaker 1: but were nearly twice the size, eighteen maybe twenty inches long.
Speaker 1: The stride length was enormous, easily twice what mine would be.
Speaker 1: In the deep snow, a chill that had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the temperature ran through me. I'd heard stories,
Speaker 1: of course, every trapper in the North Country had tales
Speaker 1: told around campfires about the wild men of the woods,
Speaker 1: the Sasquatch, the wind to go. Old Jim Blackfoot, a
Speaker 1: Cree elder who sometimes traded with my father, called them
Speaker 1: the shadow people, beings that lived in the spaces between
Speaker 1: the known and unknown world. I'd always written them off
Speaker 1: as the product of isolation and too much whiskey. But
Speaker 1: standing there, looking at those massive impressions in the virgin snow,
Speaker 1: doubt crept in for the first time. I knelt down
Speaker 1: to examine one of the prints more closely. The snow
Speaker 1: had drifted slightly into the depression, but the outline was
Speaker 1: still clear. Five toes no notable arch with a deep
Speaker 1: heel impression, remarkably human in shape, just vastly larger and
Speaker 1: fresh made within the last day. Judging by the lack
Speaker 1: of complete infill from the light snowfall. I followed the
Speaker 1: tracks around the perimeter of the cabin. Whatever had made
Speaker 1: them had circled the structure several times, pausing at the
Speaker 1: windows as if peering inside. Then the tracks led off
Speaker 1: into the woods to the north, toward the higher country,
Speaker 1: where the game was scarcer and the terrain more rugged.
Speaker 1: The rationale part of my brain searched for explanations. A bear, perhaps,
Speaker 1: though it was the dead of winter when they should
Speaker 1: be deep in hibernation and didn't walk exclusively on their
Speaker 1: hind legs for such distances. A moose, No, the shape
Speaker 1: was all wrong, some kind of hoax out here, hundreds
Speaker 1: of miles from the nearest town. Impossible. I shook off
Speaker 1: the unease and went about opening up the cabin. It
Speaker 1: had been battened down since my fall trapping season three
Speaker 1: months earlier, and a thin layer of dust covered everything.
Speaker 1: I fired up the wood stove first, then the small
Speaker 1: generator that powered the lights and radio. Within an hour,
Speaker 1: the cabin was warm and felt like my own again.
Speaker 1: The cabin itself was solidly built. My grandfather and father
Speaker 1: had constructed it in the late nineteen fifties using local
Speaker 1: timber and stone. It consisted of a single large room,
Speaker 1: with a loft sleeping area accessed by a wooden ladder.
Speaker 1: The main floor had the wood stove, a small kitchen area,
Speaker 1: my father's old desk where I kept maps in the
Speaker 1: log books of our trap lines, and a sitting area
Speaker 1: with two handmade chairs. The walls were lined with shelves
Speaker 1: of supplies, tools, and my father's small library of books,
Speaker 1: mostly practical guides to wilderness survival, animal behavior, and trapping,
Speaker 1: but also a few dog eared classics. My father had
Speaker 1: been a reader, something unusual among the men of his
Speaker 1: generation and profession. I went through my usual routine of
Speaker 1: checking the cabin's condition. The roof hadn't leaked, the cash
Speaker 1: of emergency supplies beneath the floorboards was untouched. The stone
Speaker 1: chimney drew well. Everything was as I'd left it, except
Speaker 1: for one thing. The small carved wooden bear that always
Speaker 1: sat on the mantle was now on my father's desk.
Speaker 1: I was certain I'd left it on the mantle I
Speaker 1: always did, a small superstition of mine. Perhaps I'd moved
Speaker 1: it during my last visit and forgotten. I replaced the
Speaker 1: bear on the mantle, then unpacked my supplies. The light
Speaker 1: was already fading, winter days were short this far north,
Speaker 1: so I decided to settle in for the night and
Speaker 1: begin setting my trap lines. In the morning, I cooked
Speaker 1: a simple meal of bacon and beans, had a finger
Speaker 1: of whiskey, and read a few chapters of a Louis
Speaker 1: Lamour novel I'd brought along normal routine. The strange tracks
Speaker 1: outside gradually faded from my thoughts. That first night passed uneventfully.
Speaker 1: I organized my supplies, oiled my traps, and planned my
Speaker 1: lines for the coming weeks. The strange tracks remained at
Speaker 1: the back of my mind, but I pushed the thought away.
Speaker 1: The wilderness played tricks on a man's mind if he
Speaker 1: let it. I'd learned long ago to focus on the practical,
Speaker 1: the tangible. Everything else was just distraction. I awoke before dawn,
Speaker 1: as was my habit. The temperature had dropped further overnight
Speaker 1: and frost had formed on the inside of the windows.
Speaker 1: I stoked the fire, put coffee on to boil, and
Speaker 1: prepared for my first day of setting trap lines. The
Speaker 1: sky was just beginning to lighten as I strapped on
Speaker 1: my snow shoes and loaded my pack with traps and bait.
Speaker 1: I carried my rifle at the right. Not because of
Speaker 1: the mysterious tracks, I told myself, but because of wolves
Speaker 1: and the occasional rogue bear. My main trap line followed
Speaker 1: the frozen creek that fed into the lake, winding through
Speaker 1: dense forests before climbing into more open, rocky terrain. I'd
Speaker 1: been working it for years and knew every bend, every
Speaker 1: good spot for Martin, mink, beaver, and the occasional wolverine.
Speaker 1: The morning was crisp and clear, the kind of day
Speaker 1: that reminded me why I love this life despite its hardships.
Speaker 1: The snow sparkled in the early light, and my breath
Speaker 1: plumed in front of me. As I worked my way
Speaker 1: along the creek. I set my first traps methodically, a
Speaker 1: series of conna bears for Martin near a natural funnel
Speaker 1: in the terrain, then some leg holed traps baited with
Speaker 1: fish scraps for mink along the creek bank. I was
Speaker 1: about two miles from the cabin setting a conna bear
Speaker 1: trap for beaver near a small dam when I heard it,
Speaker 1: a sound so out of place in the winter forest
Speaker 1: that at first my mind couldn't process it. Long mournful
Speaker 1: howl that started low and rose to a pitch that
Speaker 1: made the hair on my neck stand up. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a wolf. I knew their voices as well as I
Speaker 1: knew my own. This was something different, something I'd never
Speaker 1: heard before. The sound echoed across the valley, bouncing off
Speaker 1: the distant mountains, making it impossible to determine its source.
Speaker 1: It lasted for nearly thirty seconds before fading away, leaving
Speaker 1: only the soft whisper of wind through the pines. I
Speaker 1: remained crouched by the trap. Every sense heightened my breath.
Speaker 1: Shallow minutes passed. Then from a different direction, came in answer,
Speaker 1: the same unearthly howl, but deeper, more powerful. The two
Speaker 1: voices called back and forth three times before silence reclaimed
Speaker 1: the forest, two of them. The thought sent a surge
Speaker 1: of adrenaline through my system. I finished setting the trap
Speaker 1: with shaking hands, gathered my gear, and headed back toward
Speaker 1: the cabin at a pace just short of running. About
Speaker 1: halfway back, I stopped abruptly. There in the snow, crossing
Speaker 1: my own tracks from earlier that morning, was a fresh
Speaker 1: set of the massive footprints. They came from the direction
Speaker 1: of the ridge to my west, cut directly across my
Speaker 1: path and continued eastward toward a series of rocky outcroppings.
Speaker 1: Whatever had made them had passed this way after I
Speaker 1: had within the last hour or two. The implications were
Speaker 1: clear and terrifying. It had been following me. I raised
Speaker 1: my rifle and scanned the forest around me. Nothing moved
Speaker 1: except the occasional puff of snow falling from an overloaded branch.
Speaker 1: The forest was deathly quiet. No birds, no squirrels, as
Speaker 1: if every living thing was holding its breath. With my
Speaker 1: heart in my throat, I continued toward the cabin, no
Speaker 1: longer bothering to be quiet. Speed mattered more than stealth.
Speaker 1: Now every few yards I would stop and listen, then
Speaker 1: scan the trees around me. Nothing for more sasquatch ot
Speaker 1: to see. We'll be right back after these messages, but
Speaker 1: the sense of being watched was overwhelming. The rest of
Speaker 1: that day, I stayed close to the cabin, setting traps
Speaker 1: in a tight perimeter and gathering firewood. I told myself
Speaker 1: it was efficient that I'd expand my range tomorrow, but
Speaker 1: the truth was I didn't want to venture far, not
Speaker 1: after what I'd heard and seen. As dusk approached, I
Speaker 1: built up the fire in the wood stove, and made
Speaker 1: a simple dinner of beans and salt pork. The windows
Speaker 1: of the cabin were dark mirrors against the night, and
Speaker 1: more than once I caught myself staring at them, half
Speaker 1: expecting to see a face looking back at me. I
Speaker 1: cleaned my rifle, meticulously loaded it, and kept it within
Speaker 1: arm's reach. I decided to make an entry in my journal,
Speaker 1: trying to capture the howls i'd heard in words. I
Speaker 1: described them as neither human nor animal, but something that
Speaker 1: exists in the space between, like the cry of something
Speaker 1: that once new language but has forgotten it. As I wrote,
Speaker 1: I noticed my hand was shaking slightly. I poured myself
Speaker 1: a generous measure of whiskey, hoping it would steady my nerves.
Speaker 1: Sleep came fitfully that night. Each creak of the cabin's timbers,
Speaker 1: each whisper of wind, had me sitting upright, straining to hear.
Speaker 1: But the hows didn't return, and eventually exhaustion claimed me.
Speaker 1: The next morning dawned clear and cold. A fresh dusting
Speaker 1: of snow had fallen overnight, covering yesterday's tracks with a
Speaker 1: clean white slate. I studied the area around the cabin
Speaker 1: from the windows before venturing out, no fresh tracks, no
Speaker 1: signs of disturbance. Perhaps whatever had been stalking me had
Speaker 1: moved on. With renewed confidence, I set out earlier than usual,
Speaker 1: determined to shake off the previous day's unease and get
Speaker 1: back to the business of trapping. I needed this season
Speaker 1: to be productive. The fur market wasn't what it once was,
Speaker 1: but I'd built a reputeation for quality pelts among the
Speaker 1: buyers and Yellowknife, and I had orders to fill. I
Speaker 1: headed west, this time toward a ridge where I often
Speaker 1: had luck with Martin. The sun was bright, glinting off
Speaker 1: the snow in a way that lifted my spirits. This
Speaker 1: was just another season, I told myself, nothing different about it.
Speaker 1: I'd set about half my traps when I found the
Speaker 1: first sign, at the base of a large pine. The
Speaker 1: snow had been cleared away in a rough circle about
Speaker 1: six feet in diameter. In the center lay a neatly
Speaker 1: arranged pile of pine cones, surrounded by a ring of
Speaker 1: broken branches. It was deliberate, methodical. No animal I knew
Speaker 1: behaved this way. I studied the area around the strange arrangement.
Speaker 1: The snow was trampled by those same large human like tracks.
Speaker 1: They led away toward a dense thicket of spruce, where
Speaker 1: the branches grew so close together that I would have
Speaker 1: had to crawl to follow. I marked the location in
Speaker 1: my mind and moved on, but my unease had returned tenfold.
Speaker 1: Twice more that day I found similar arrangements, once with
Speaker 1: pine cones, once with small stones from a creek bed,
Speaker 1: each time surrounded by those massive tracks. At the third site,
Speaker 1: I noticed something I'd missed at the others. The tracks
Speaker 1: around the arrangement weren't random. They formed a distinct pattern,
Speaker 1: a spiral that wound inward toward the central pile ritual.
Speaker 1: The word came unbidden to my mind, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: shake it once it had taken root. These weren't random disturbances.
Speaker 1: They were deliberate constructions, messages of some kind. By midafternoon,
Speaker 1: a sense of being watched had become overwhelming. The forest,
Speaker 1: normally a place of comfort for me, now seemed full
Speaker 1: of hidden eyes. I decided to check my beaver traps
Speaker 1: from the previous day, then returned to the cabin. The
Speaker 1: first trap was empty, as was the second. At the third,
Speaker 1: I found something that stopped me cold. The trap had
Speaker 1: been sprung, but there was no beaver in it. Instead,
Speaker 1: the heavy steel mechanism had been carefully removed from the water, disarmed,
Speaker 1: and placed on the bank. Beside it was another arrangement,
Speaker 1: this time a pile of beaver tued sticks formed into
Speaker 1: a crude pyramid. No animal could have done this, not
Speaker 1: even a human, unless they knew exactly how to handle
Speaker 1: conn of bear traps, which even experienced trappers treated with caution.
Speaker 1: My mouth went dry. I was no longer alone in
Speaker 1: these woods, and whatever shared them with me was intelligent
Speaker 1: and deliberate in its actions. I abandoned the rest of
Speaker 1: my trap checks and headed straight back to the cabin,
Speaker 1: no longer bothering to hide my fear. The sun was
Speaker 1: already sinking toward the horizon, casting long blue shadows across
Speaker 1: the snow. I wanted to be behind the solid walls
Speaker 1: of the cabin before darkness fell completely. I was within
Speaker 1: half a mile of home when I heard movement in
Speaker 1: the trees to my left, branches snapping under heavy weight,
Speaker 1: the soft crunch of snow underfoot. I raised rifle, aiming
Speaker 1: into the gathering gloom of the forest. Who's there, My
Speaker 1: voice sounded thin and reedy in the vast silence. No
Speaker 1: answer came, but the movement stopped. I could feel eyes
Speaker 1: on me, watching, Assessing I'm armed, I called out, trying
Speaker 1: to sound more confident than I felt. Show yourself. For
Speaker 1: a long, tense moment, nothing happened. Then came a sound
Speaker 1: I'll never forget, a sharp, clear, whistling, almost like a bird,
Speaker 1: but too deliberate, too complex. It rose and fell in
Speaker 1: a distinct pattern, unmistakably a form of communication. I backed
Speaker 1: away slowly, rifles still raised, until I could turn and
Speaker 1: half run, half walk the remaining distance to the cabin.
Speaker 1: I burst through the door, slammed it behind me, and
Speaker 1: through the heavy wooden bar across it. Only then did
Speaker 1: I realize I was breathing as if I'd run miles,
Speaker 1: my heart hammering against my ribs. Darkness fell quick after that.
Speaker 1: I lit the kerosene lamps, built up the fire, and
Speaker 1: tried to calm myself with rational thought. There had to
Speaker 1: be an explanation. Perhaps another trapper had moved into the area,
Speaker 1: someone with an odd sense of humor and too much
Speaker 1: time on their hands. But the tracks and those howls,
Speaker 1: no human I knew could make sounds like that, I
Speaker 1: picked up the radio handset and tried to raise someone, anyone.
Speaker 1: The nearest outpost was a small weather station about one
Speaker 1: hundred miles to the southeast, staffed year round. I'd spoken
Speaker 1: to them occasionally in previous seasons when the isolation got
Speaker 1: to be too much. The radio crackled with static. I
Speaker 1: adjusted frequencies, fiddled with the tuning, but couldn't raise a response,
Speaker 1: just the empty hiss of dead air. This wasn't unusual.
Speaker 1: Radio signals were notoriously unreliable in the mountains, but tonight
Speaker 1: it felt ominous. I checked and rechecked the cabin's defenses.
Speaker 1: The door was solid oak, the bar a thick piece
Speaker 1: of hard wood that would take considerable force to break.
Speaker 1: The windows were small, designed that way to conserve heat,
Speaker 1: and shuddered from the inside with heavy wooden panels. The
Speaker 1: chimney was the only other entry point, but it was
Speaker 1: too narrow for anything larger than a Martin to squeeze through.
Speaker 1: I was secure, safe, That's what I told myself. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I tried to distract myself with one of the Westerns
Speaker 1: I'd brought, but couldn't focus on the words. They slid
Speaker 1: past my eyes without registering. I found myself rereading the
Speaker 1: same paragraph over and over, my attention constantly drawn to
Speaker 1: the windows, the door, the sounds of the forest outside.
Speaker 1: Around ten o'clock I heard it, a soft, deliberate tapping
Speaker 1: on the north wall of the cabin, tap tap, tap,
Speaker 1: then silence. I froze in my chair, book forgotten in
Speaker 1: my lap, ear straining. It came again, this time from
Speaker 1: the west wall, the same pattern, tap tap tap, testing, searching.
Speaker 1: I sat rigid in my chair by the fire rifle
Speaker 1: across my knees, listening to the methodical sounds testing. I
Speaker 1: thought they're testing the cabin. The tapping continued for perhaps
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, then stopped. What came next was worse voices,
Speaker 1: low guttural vocalizations just outside the walls, not quite speech,
Speaker 1: but not animal sounds either. A complex series of grunts, clicks,
Speaker 1: and what I can only describe as words without consonants.
Speaker 1: There were at least three distinct voices calling to each other, responding, conversing.
Speaker 1: They circled the cabin for hours. Occasionally one would shake
Speaker 1: the door violently or scrape at a window shutter. I
Speaker 1: kept the fire burning bright and stayed in the center
Speaker 1: of the room away from the walls, sleep was unthinkable.
Speaker 1: Time in the early hours, when the fire had burned low,
Speaker 1: one of them climbed onto the roof. I heard the
Speaker 1: heavy thud of weight settling onto the rough hewn shingles,
Speaker 1: then the slow, deliberate movement across the peak of the
Speaker 1: roof toward the chimney. I held my breath, staring at
Speaker 1: the wood stove, where a small but hot fire still burned.
Speaker 1: Would it reached down, try to find a way in
Speaker 1: the movement stopped directly above the chimney. For a long,
Speaker 1: terrible moment, nothing happened. Then a shower of snow and
Speaker 1: debris cascaded down the chimney, hissing as it hit the
Speaker 1: hot stove. Something larger followed, a bundle of some kind
Speaker 1: that landed with a muffled thump in the flames. Acting
Speaker 1: on instinct, I grabbed the metal poker and fished the
Speaker 1: object out before it could burn completely. It was a
Speaker 1: small sack made of what looked like rabbit skins, crudely
Speaker 1: stitched together. Inside were three objects, a smooth stone with
Speaker 1: a natural hole through it, a small carved figurine that
Speaker 1: might have been meant to represent a bear, and most
Speaker 1: disturbing of all, a battered metal button from a coat,
Speaker 1: the same kind of button that was on the winter
Speaker 1: PARKA hanging by my door, A gift, A threat. I
Speaker 1: couldn't interpret the meaning, but the fact that there was
Speaker 1: meaning at all terrified me more than any physical threat.
Speaker 1: Whatever was out there wasn't just some unknown predator acting
Speaker 1: on instinct. It was intelligent, communicating reaching out. Near dawn,
Speaker 1: they left as suddenly as they had come. The forest
Speaker 1: fell silent again, and I collapsed into exhausted slumber in
Speaker 1: my chair, rifles still clutched in white knuckled hands. I
Speaker 1: awoke to daylight in a deceptive normalcy. Birds called outside,
Speaker 1: a squirrel chattered on the roof. For a moment, I
Speaker 1: wondered if I had dreamed the entire night's events. Then
Speaker 1: I looked at the floor. Underneath the single window on
Speaker 1: the east wall, where the shutter hadn't quite closed properly,
Speaker 1: was a line of huge, four fingered hand prints in
Speaker 1: the dust. Something had pressed its hands against the glass,
Speaker 1: peering in at me as I slept. I approached the
Speaker 1: window cautiously. The handprints were unmistakable, twice the size of
Speaker 1: my own, but with only four digits, including an opposed thumb.
Speaker 1: The shape was broadly human, but the proportions were off,
Speaker 1: the fingers too long, the palm too wide. I placed
Speaker 1: my own hand next to one of the prints for
Speaker 1: comparison and felt a wave of vertigo at the size difference.
Speaker 1: I spent that day fortifying the cabin. I nailed the
Speaker 1: shutters closed, reinforced the door bar, and piled my heaviest
Speaker 1: equipment against the walls. Part of me knew it was futile.
Speaker 1: If they wanted in, they would get in, but the
Speaker 1: activity kept the terror at bay. While working, I found
Speaker 1: more evidence of their presence. Tufts of dark, coarse hair
Speaker 1: caught on the rough wood of the cabin's exterior. A
Speaker 1: half eaten rabbit carcass under the porch, the flesh torn
Speaker 1: with teeth marks larger than any wolves and most unsett
Speaker 1: A crude symbol scratched into the wood beside the door,
Speaker 1: a spiral similar to the arrangements I'd found in the forest.
Speaker 1: By afternoon, I'd convinced myself to try the radio again.
Speaker 1: I hadn't planned to check in with the nearest ranger
Speaker 1: station until next week, but circumstances had changed. I needed
Speaker 1: to get out, to leave this place before nightfall. The
Speaker 1: radio sputtered to life, but produced only static. I tried
Speaker 1: all frequencies, even fiddled with the antenna, but couldn't raise
Speaker 1: a response. Whether due to weather conditions or other interference,
Speaker 1: I was cut off. My only option was the plane.
Speaker 1: If I could reach it, I could be airborne in
Speaker 1: minutes away from this nightmare. But the clearing was a
Speaker 1: good fifty yards from the cabin door. Across open ground,
Speaker 1: I would be exposed, vulnerable. I watched through a crack
Speaker 1: in the shutters as the sun began its descent, the
Speaker 1: shadows of the forest crept closer to the cabin, dark
Speaker 1: fingers reaching across the snow. I had to decide try
Speaker 1: for the plane now in the last of the daylight,
Speaker 1: or spend another night under siege. In an attempt to
Speaker 1: organize my thoughts, I turned to my journal. I documented
Speaker 1: everything that had happened since my arrival, the tracks, the
Speaker 1: arrangements in the forest, the disarmed trap, the events of
Speaker 1: the night. Writing it down somehow made it more manageable,
Speaker 1: transforming formless terror into concrete problems to be solved. My
Speaker 1: grandfather had been right about that. The decision was made
Speaker 1: for me when I saw movement at the edge of
Speaker 1: the clearing. At first, just a shadow among shadows, but
Speaker 1: then it emerged into the open and I got my
Speaker 1: first clear look at what had been stalking me. It
Speaker 1: stood at least eight feet tall, maybe taller, its body
Speaker 1: covered in dark, matted hair. But it wasn't the size
Speaker 1: that froze the breath in my lungs. It was how
Speaker 1: it moved upright, like a man with a fluid grace
Speaker 1: that spoke of power and intelligence. Its arms hung long
Speaker 1: at its sides, massive hands clearly visible. Its head was
Speaker 1: set directly on broad shoulders, no neck to speak of,
Speaker 1: And though I couldn't make out its face clearly at
Speaker 1: that distance, I could see the eyes, dark reflective, watching
Speaker 1: the cabin, watching me. I'd seen bears, wolves, cougars, all
Speaker 1: the predators of the north Woods, none of them had
Speaker 1: ever looked at me the way this creature did. There
Speaker 1: was purpose in that gaze, intelligence, awareness. As if sensing
Speaker 1: my gaze, it turned its head directly toward my hiding spot.
Speaker 1: We stared at each other across the clearing, human and other.
Speaker 1: After a long moment, it raised one massive hand and
Speaker 1: deliberately beckoned to me a clear, unmistakable gesture to come out.
Speaker 1: I recoiled from the window, my mind struggling to process
Speaker 1: what I'd seen, not just the creature itself, but that
Speaker 1: human gesture. The implications were too terrible to contemplate, and
Speaker 1: stay tuned for more Sasquatch ott to see. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. After these messages, within minutes, darkness fell completely,
Speaker 1: and the siege of the previous night resumed, but with
Speaker 1: greater intensity. The creatures, three or four of them at least,
Speaker 1: began systematically testing the cabin's defenses. They pushed against the door,
Speaker 1: rattled the shutters, even began digging at the foundation where
Speaker 1: the cabin met the ground. Their vocalizations grew louder, more urgent,
Speaker 1: calls and responses, complex patterns that could only be language. Occasionally,
Speaker 1: one would strike the walls with what sounded like a
Speaker 1: heavy branch, the impacts shaking the entire structure. I crouched
Speaker 1: in the center of the room, rifle aimed at the door,
Speaker 1: the only point of entry large enough for their massive frames.
Speaker 1: Hours passed this way, a stand off between one terrified
Speaker 1: man and the impossible creatures that under him. The darkness
Speaker 1: inside the cabin was nearly complete. Now I'd extinguished the
Speaker 1: kerosene lamps, not wanting to silhouette myself against the windows.
Speaker 1: The only light came from the dying embers in the
Speaker 1: wood stove, casting a faint ruddy glow over the room.
Speaker 1: I could hear them moving around the cabin, their heavy
Speaker 1: footsteps crunching in the snow. They're breathing, sometimes audible through
Speaker 1: the walls. Around one am, a new sound emerged, a
Speaker 1: rhythmic pounding on the ground outside, not random or aggressive,
Speaker 1: but patterned, deliberate, one two three pause, one two three pause.
Speaker 1: It continued for several minutes, gradually increasing in tempo and volume.
Speaker 1: Then came the howls again, but not like before. These
Speaker 1: were harmonized, layered, almost musical in their complexity. The sound
Speaker 1: raised the hair on my arms, not just from fear,
Speaker 1: but from something deeper, more primal recognition. Perhaps some part
Speaker 1: of me, buried beneath layers of civilization understood this as communication.
Speaker 1: Around three am, they changed tactics. The assaults on the
Speaker 1: cabin stopped abruptly, replaced by a soft, almost melodic series
Speaker 1: of calls just outside the door, coaxing enticing. When I
Speaker 1: didn't respond, one of them began mimicking human sounds, first
Speaker 1: wordless cries, then broken fragments that chilled me to the bone.
Speaker 1: C come out. The voice was deep, guttural, the words
Speaker 1: malformed but unmistakable human speech, or a nightmarish approximation of it.
Speaker 1: Had they learned this to lure victims? Or had they
Speaker 1: been watching us, learning from us for longer than anyone suspected?
Speaker 1: No harm? I bit back a scream, pressing myself against
Speaker 1: the far wall. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening.
Speaker 1: Homess my name. They knew my name? How could they
Speaker 1: know my name? I clapped my hands over my ears,
Speaker 1: unable to bear the sound of my name and that
Speaker 1: inhuman voice. But the voice continued, growing more articulate with
Speaker 1: each attempt, as if it were remembering how to form
Speaker 1: the sounds. Thomas Mercer, my full name.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I lowered the rifle, my hand shaking too badly to aim.
Speaker 1: This was beyond fear, beyond terror. This was something for
Speaker 1: which I had no reference point, no framework to process. Father,
Speaker 1: cabin Father. I froze my father. They were speaking about
Speaker 1: my father. Had they known him? Watched him all those
Speaker 1: years he'd trapped these woods alone, or a thought too
Speaker 1: terrible to form fully had they been responsible for his death?
Speaker 1: Heart stop? Sorry, No, it wasn't possible. My father had
Speaker 1: died of a heart attack. The autopsy had confirmed it.
Speaker 1: But out here alone in the wilderness, with strange creatures
Speaker 1: speaking my father's name through the walls of his cabin,
Speaker 1: doubt began to gnaw at the edges of certainty. Help him.
Speaker 1: Too late, I found my voice at last, though it
Speaker 1: emerged as little more than a croak, What do you
Speaker 1: want from me? Silence followed my question, so complete I
Speaker 1: could hear the blood rushing in my ears. Then, after
Speaker 1: what seemed an eternity, the voice came again, closer now,
Speaker 1: as if its owner had pressed its mouth to the
Speaker 1: very seam of the door. See you know you long watch,
Speaker 1: long watch? The words echoed in my mind. Had they
Speaker 1: been watching our family for generations? Was that how they
Speaker 1: knew me? Knew my father? Why? I managed to ask? Why? Now?
Speaker 1: Why me? Others coming? Bad ones? Hunt us? Hunt? You
Speaker 1: need alliance, alliance. The concept was so unexpected, so far
Speaker 1: from the terror of being hunted, that I couldn't immediately
Speaker 1: process it. They weren't trying to kill me. They wanted
Speaker 1: an alliance. What others? Who's hunting you? Men? Guns, trucks?
Speaker 1: South Ridge? Three days find us, find cabin poachers, researchers.
Speaker 1: I couldn't make sense of it, but the genuine fear
Speaker 1: in that inhuman voice was unmistakable. Show yourself, I said,
Speaker 1: surprised by the steadiness in my voice. Come where I
Speaker 1: can see you alone. Then we'll talk. Silence again, Then
Speaker 1: a soft tapping on the shuttered window. Three quick taps,
Speaker 1: three slow, three quick, some kind of acknowledgment. The presence
Speaker 1: at the door moved away. I heard footsteps retreating, followed
Speaker 1: by a complex series of calls and responses as the
Speaker 1: creatures communicated among themselves. Then silence fell once more. I
Speaker 1: didn't sleep that night. I sat with my back against
Speaker 1: the wall, rifle across my knees, straining to hear any
Speaker 1: movement outside. But the creatures had withdrawn, at least for now.
Speaker 1: The silence stretched, broken only by the occasional pop from
Speaker 1: the wood stove or creak of the cabin settling. As
Speaker 1: the first gray light of dawn seeped through the cracks
Speaker 1: in the shutters, I rose stiffly muscles protesting after hours
Speaker 1: of immobility. I approached the window facing the clearing, working
Speaker 1: up the courage to look outside. What would I see
Speaker 1: in the light of day, empty snow, those massive tracks,
Speaker 1: or something worse. I eased the shutter open a crack
Speaker 1: and peered out. The clearing lay pristine in the early
Speaker 1: morning light, unmarked except for my own tracks from previous days.
Speaker 1: The forest beyond stood silent, the trees heavy with fresh
Speaker 1: snow that must have fallen in the night. No sign
Speaker 1: of the creatures, no evidence they had ever been there
Speaker 1: at all, save for the lingering memory of that voice
Speaker 1: speaking my name. Had I imagined it all? Was this
Speaker 1: what my grandfather had warned about the mind playing tricks
Speaker 1: in the isolation? I rubbed my face, feeling the rough
Speaker 1: stubble that had grown since my arrival. No, the tracks
Speaker 1: had been real. The disarmed trap, the bundle dropped down
Speaker 1: the chimney. I glanced at the small table where I'd
Speaker 1: placed the objects from the bundle. They were still there,
Speaker 1: the old stone, the crude figurine, the metal button. Not
Speaker 1: imagination real. With daylight came clarity and determination. I couldn't
Speaker 1: spend another night in the cabin. I would make a
Speaker 1: run for the plane, risk everything. On one desperate dash
Speaker 1: across the clearing, I gathered only what was essential, my rifle, ammunition,
Speaker 1: the emergency kit from under the bed. I checked the
Speaker 1: action on the rifle one last time, steeled myself and
Speaker 1: approached the door. The forest was quiet, peaceful in the
Speaker 1: early morning light, no sign of the creatures. I removed
Speaker 1: the bar from the door with trembling hands and eased
Speaker 1: it open a crack. The clearing lay empty before me,
Speaker 1: the plane a tantalizing promise of escape just fifty yards away.
Speaker 1: I stepped out, cautiously, rifle ready, ies scanning the tree
Speaker 1: line for any movement. Nothing. Ten steps from the cabin,
Speaker 1: now moving as quickly as I dared through the knee
Speaker 1: deep snow. Twenty steps halfway there, the attack came, not
Speaker 1: from the forest, but from the roof of the cabin
Speaker 1: behind me. A tremendous crash as something heavy landed in
Speaker 1: the snow, and then a roar that shook me to
Speaker 1: my core. Rage and hunger and something almost like sorrow
Speaker 1: combined in one terrible sound. I turned and fired in
Speaker 1: one motion. The rifles report deafening in the winter stillness.
Speaker 1: The creature staggered but didn't fall. It stood less than
Speaker 1: twenty feet from me, even more massive up close, its
Speaker 1: broad chest showing a bloom of red where my bullet
Speaker 1: had struck, not a killing shot. Its face, God helped me.
Speaker 1: Its face nearly human, but horribly wrong, like something formed
Speaker 1: by hands that had only been told what humans looked
Speaker 1: like but had never seen one. The eyes, though, The
Speaker 1: eyes were the worst part, because there was intelligence there,
Speaker 1: an emotion, and a terrible awful recognition. It roared again
Speaker 1: and charged. I fired twice more desperately, the recoil bruising
Speaker 1: my shoulder. The second shot missed, but the third hit
Speaker 1: it squarely in the chest. It stumbled, fell to its knees,
Speaker 1: but kept coming, crawling, now leaving a trail of dark
Speaker 1: blood on the pristine snow. I backed away toward the plane,
Speaker 1: unable to tear my gaze from the creature. It stopped
Speaker 1: its advance about ten feet from me, swaying on its knees.
Speaker 1: Blood poured from its wounds, steaming in the cold air.
Speaker 1: It raised its head with obvious effort and looked directly
Speaker 1: into my eyes. Then it spoke one clear, perfect word
Speaker 1: in a voice that sounded as though it hadn't been
Speaker 1: used for speech in a very long time. Why I
Speaker 1: broke turned and ran the remaining distance to the plane,
Speaker 1: fumbling with the door, throwing myself inside. My hands shook
Speaker 1: so badly I could barely get the key in the ignition.
Speaker 1: The engine coughed, sputtered, then roared to life. As I
Speaker 1: began taxing, I looked back. The creature still knelt in
Speaker 1: the snow, watching me, but it wasn't alone anymore. From
Speaker 1: the edge of the forest, two more of its kind
Speaker 1: had emerged, larger, darker, moving with terrible purpose toward their
Speaker 1: fallen companion, toward my cabin. One carried what looked like
Speaker 1: a crude spear. I gunned the engine and took off,
Speaker 1: the little plane struggling for altitude Below me, the three
Speaker 1: figures smaller, becoming dark specks against the white clearing, and
Speaker 1: then vanishing altogether. As I banked away, heading south toward civilization,
Speaker 1: toward sanity. But something made me circle back, flying high
Speaker 1: above the clearing one last time. What I saw froze
Speaker 1: the blood in my veins. There were more of them, now,
Speaker 1: at least a dozen, forming a rough circle around their
Speaker 1: fallen comrade, and beyond them, at the edge of the
Speaker 1: forest to the south was what they had warned me about. Vehicles,
Speaker 1: three snowmobiles, and what looked like a modified all terrain
Speaker 1: truck with caterpillar treads. Men moved around them carrying what
Speaker 1: could only be rifles. I wasn't the only human who
Speaker 1: knew about these creatures, and unlike me, these men had
Speaker 1: come prepared to hunt. For a wild moment, I considered
Speaker 1: landing again, warning the creatures, helping them somehow. They had
Speaker 1: tried to communicate, tried to form an alliance. They had
Speaker 1: known my father, perhaps even tried to help him, but
Speaker 1: self preservation won out. I banked the plane again and
Speaker 1: headed south, leaving the cabin, the creatures, and the hunters behind.
Speaker 1: It took me three hours to reach Yellowknife. I landed
Speaker 1: at the small airfield on the outskirts of town, my
Speaker 1: mind still reeling from everything that had happened. The normalcy
Speaker 1: of civilization felt surreal after what I'd experienced. People going
Speaker 1: about their day, cars on the roads, smoke rising from chimneys,
Speaker 1: a different world entirely from the one I just fled.
Speaker 1: I gave a statement to the local ranger station, A
Speaker 1: heavily edited version of events. I told them I'd spotted
Speaker 1: poachers near my cabin, men with heavy weapons who didn't
Speaker 1: look like legitimate hunters. I described the vehicles as best
Speaker 1: I could. I said nothing about massive footprints, disarmed traps,
Speaker 1: or creatures that spoke my name. The rangers promised to investigate,
Speaker 1: but I could see the skepticism in their eyes. Poachers
Speaker 1: weren't uncommon, but they rarely ventured so deep into the
Speaker 1: back country, especially in winter. Without more concrete evidence, I
Speaker 1: suspected my report would be filed and forgotten. I spent
Speaker 1: that night in a small motel on the edge of town,
Speaker 1: unable to sleep, despite the comfortable bed and secure walls.
Speaker 1: Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that creature
Speaker 1: kneeling in the snow, asking me why as its life
Speaker 1: blood drained away. I saw the others emerging from the forest,
Speaker 1: moving to protect their fallen comrade. I saw the men
Speaker 1: with rifles hunting them. Had I killed it? The question
Speaker 1: haunted me. I'd hit it at least twice center mass.
Speaker 1: But how durable were these creatures? How similar to humans
Speaker 1: in their physiology? It had still been alive when I fled,
Speaker 1: but with wounds that would have been fatal to a man.
Speaker 1: Three days later, unable to bear the uncertainty any longer,
Speaker 1: I flew back, not to land. I didn't have the
Speaker 1: courage for that, but to observe from above, to see
Speaker 1: what had happened in my absence. The clearing looked undisturbed
Speaker 1: from the air. My cabin still stood no sign of
Speaker 1: damage or forced entry. The area around it was crisscrossed
Speaker 1: with tracks, both the large footprints of the creatures and
Speaker 1: the mechanical patterns of snowmobile treads. There had been a
Speaker 1: confrontation here, that much was clear. I circled lower, looking
Speaker 1: for signs of blood, bodies, anything that might tell me
Speaker 1: the outcome. Near the edge of the forest, I spotted something,
Speaker 1: a dark patch in the snow that could have been blood.
Speaker 1: Beside it, arranged in a perfect circle, were pine branches,
Speaker 1: a marker, a memorial. Perhaps. I never returned to that cabin,
Speaker 1: told the authorities there had been a terrible accident, that
Speaker 1: I'd burned it down through carelessness. Better that than trying
Speaker 1: to explain what I'd encountered. Better that than admitting I'd
Speaker 1: shot a being that could speak, that knew my name,
Speaker 1: that asked me why as it died, did it die?
Speaker 1: I don't know. That question has haunted me for thirty
Speaker 1: years now, along with another more terrible one. What if
Speaker 1: they weren't monsters at all? What if they were something else, entirely,
Speaker 1: something ancient, intelligent, a people who had shared this continent
Speaker 1: with us all along, keeping to the deep woods, watching
Speaker 1: us from afar. And what if I, in my fear
Speaker 1: and ignorance, had committed a murder. I live in the
Speaker 1: city now, haven't set foot in the deep wilderness since
Speaker 1: that winter. I sold the trap lines, sold Claire, took
Speaker 1: what money I had and moved south to Vancouver, got
Speaker 1: a job in construction, eventually started my own small business
Speaker 1: as a general contractor. Married a kind woman who doesn't
Speaker 1: ask too many questions about my past. Had two daughters
Speaker 1: who've never heard the full story of why their father
Speaker 1: doesn't take them camping or hiking, Why he flinches at
Speaker 1: certain sounds in the night, why he still wakes sometimes
Speaker 1: drenched in sweat, reaching for a rifle. That isn't they
Speaker 1: Sometimes on cold nights, when the wind howls around the
Speaker 1: corners of my apartment building, I imagine I hear those
Speaker 1: calls again, those complex melodic vocalizations that might have been
Speaker 1: a language older than human speech. I've researched them. Of course,
Speaker 1: what began as casual reading quickly evolved into an obsession
Speaker 1: that has consumed much of my adult life. In the
Speaker 1: early years after my encounter, I haunted libraries, requesting obscure
Speaker 1: journals and anthropological studies. Through inner library loans, I traveled
Speaker 1: to small historical societies throughout the Pacific Northwest, pouring through
Speaker 1: local newspaper archives and First Nations oral histories. Later, as
Speaker 1: technology advanced, I built one of the most comprehensive private
Speaker 1: digital collections of Sasquatch related materials in existence. My background
Speaker 1: in construction proved unexpectedly useful. I developed relationships with logging companies,
Speaker 1: road crews, and park rangers, anyone who worked in remote areas.
Speaker 1: I created a network of contacts who would call me
Speaker 1: when they found something unusual. Most leads went nowhere, but
Speaker 1: occasionally I'd receive photographs of strange tracks or structures deep
Speaker 1: in wilderness areas that matched what I'd seen. I attended
Speaker 1: cryptozoology conferences, listening more than speaking, collecting stories from believers
Speaker 1: and skeptics alike. I funded small research expeditions, though I
Speaker 1: never joined them personally. The thought of returning to those
Speaker 1: deep woods still filled me with dread, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: stop myself from seeking answers from a safe distance. Over
Speaker 1: the years, I've compiled a database of over two thousand
Speaker 1: reported encounters across North America, categorizing them by location, type
Speaker 1: of interaction, physical descriptions, and behavioral patterns. I've crossed, referenced
Speaker 1: these with meteorological records, lunar cycles, industrial development projects, and
Speaker 1: wildlife migration patterns. Patterns emerged that few other researchers have
Speaker 1: read recognized because they weren't looking at the full picture.
Speaker 1: What I found both validates my experience and deepens the mystery.
Speaker 1: There are geographical clusters of sightings that remain consistent over decades.
Speaker 1: There are seasonal patterns that correlate with game movements, and
Speaker 1: most intriguingly, there are behavioral consistencies in how these beings
Speaker 1: interact with humans, sometimes curious, sometimes territorial, sometimes seemingly attempting communication.
Speaker 1: Most sasquatch researchers fall into two camps. Those who view
Speaker 1: them as undiscovered primates purely animals operating on instinct, and
Speaker 1: those who romanticize them as gentle forest guardians with almost
Speaker 1: mystical qualities. My research suggests a more complex reality. They
Speaker 1: appear to be somewhere between intelligent beings with social structures
Speaker 1: and communication systems, but also territorial predators, capable of extreme
Speaker 1: violence when threatened. I've never told my story publicly. Who
Speaker 1: would believe me? Even in the community of believers, My
Speaker 1: account would seem far fetched. Sasquatch that disarmed, traps that
Speaker 1: speak human words, that warn of other humans hunting them,
Speaker 1: that might have tried to help my dying father. It
Speaker 1: sounds like madness, like the product of isolation and fear
Speaker 1: and an over active imagination. But I know what I saw,
Speaker 1: what I heard, what I did. In recent years, as
Speaker 1: I've grown older, the urge to return has grown stronger,
Speaker 1: not to the cabin I could never set foot there again,
Speaker 1: but to the wilderness, to find them, perhaps to apologize,
Speaker 1: to learn the truth about what happened after I fled.
Speaker 1: I've resisted that urge. What right do I have to
Speaker 1: intrude on them again after what I did? What guarantee
Speaker 1: do I have that they would even remember me, let
Speaker 1: alone forgive me? And there's a selfish reason too. I'm
Speaker 1: afraid of what I might find that there are none left.
Speaker 1: The men with rifles completed their hunt, and stay tuned
Speaker 1: for more sasquatch ott to see we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: After these messages that I am partly responsible for the
Speaker 1: extinction of something ancient and irreplaceable. And so I live
Speaker 1: with my guilt, my questions, my half formed theories about
Speaker 1: what they were and what they wanted from me. I
Speaker 1: lived with the memory of that voice speaking my name,
Speaker 1: of that dying creature asking me why. As I fled
Speaker 1: some nights when sleep won't come, I take out my
Speaker 1: old journal, the only thing I kept from my trapping days,
Speaker 1: and read my frantic entries from those few terrible days.
Speaker 1: I study my own words, looking for clues I might
Speaker 1: have missed, for some meaning behind it all. And I
Speaker 1: wonder about those men with rifles. Who were they government agents,
Speaker 1: private collectors, something else. Entirely, I've never seen any reports,
Speaker 1: any news stories, any evidence that would shed light on
Speaker 1: their identity or purpose. It's as if the entire incident
Speaker 1: never happened except in my memories and nightmares. But it
Speaker 1: did happen. I have the journal entries to prove it.
Speaker 1: And I have the small bundle, the creatures drop down
Speaker 1: my chimney, the old stone, the crude figurine, the metal
Speaker 1: button from my coat. I keep them in a locked
Speaker 1: box in my closet, taking them out occasionally to remind
Speaker 1: myself that I didn't imagine at all. The hold stone,
Speaker 1: I later learned, has significance in many indigenous cultures, a
Speaker 1: seeing stone or portal between worlds. The figurine, which I
Speaker 1: initially thought represented a bear, I now believe was meant
Speaker 1: to be one of them, a self representation. And the button.
Speaker 1: The button was a connection, a symbol that they knew
Speaker 1: me had been close enough to take something from my
Speaker 1: clothing without my awareness, a message, in other words, one
Speaker 1: I was too frightened to understand until it was too late.
Speaker 1: I'm sixty three, now retired from the contracting business. My
Speaker 1: daughters are grown with children of their own. My wife
Speaker 1: doesn't ask anymore why I still check the locks twice
Speaker 1: each night, why I keep a loaded rifle in a
Speaker 1: hidden compartment by our bed, despite living in a safe
Speaker 1: neighborhood in a peaceful city. She accepted long ago that
Speaker 1: there are parts of me she will never fully know
Speaker 1: or understand, but lately, I've been thinking of telling the story,
Speaker 1: not publicly. I still have no desire for the ridicule
Speaker 1: or unwonted attention that would bring, but to someone who
Speaker 1: might understand, someone who might help me make sense of
Speaker 1: it all before I'm too old to seek answers. That's
Speaker 1: why I'm writing this account now, not for publication, not
Speaker 1: for validation, but as a record, a confession, perhaps a warning,
Speaker 1: because I believe they're still out there in the deep woods,
Speaker 1: watching and waiting, and I believe they remember me, the
Speaker 1: man who shot one of their kind and fled. I
Speaker 1: wonder sometimes if they've learned more of our language in
Speaker 1: the decades since our encounter, if they've observed our civilization
Speaker 1: from the margins, adapting, evolving in their understanding of us.
Speaker 1: I wonder if the one I shot survived. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they still speak my name in their gatherings. A
Speaker 1: cautionary tale about the danger of reaching out to humans.
Speaker 1: And I wonder, with increasing frequency as the years go by,
Speaker 1: what might have happened if I'd stayed, if I'd found
Speaker 1: the courage to face them, to communicate, to form the
Speaker 1: alliance they seemed to be offering. What might I have
Speaker 1: learned what insights into a different way of being, a
Speaker 1: different relationship with the wilderness. Might they have shared. I'll
Speaker 1: never know. That opportunity, if it ever truly existed, is
Speaker 1: thirty years gone. Perhaps they're all gone, too, hunted to
Speaker 1: extinction by men with rifles and snowmobiles and no concept
Speaker 1: of what they were destroying. Perhaps I witnessed the last,
Speaker 1: despert attempt of a dying people to reach out, to
Speaker 1: find an ally to survive. The thought is almost too
Speaker 1: painful to bear, and yet I hold on to a small,
Speaker 1: fragile hope. The wilderness is vast, and they had survived
Speaker 1: there unseen for generations before I encountered them. Perhaps they
Speaker 1: still do. Perhaps somewhere in the deep woods of northern Canada,
Speaker 1: far from human eyes, they continue their ancient way of life,
Speaker 1: watching us from the shadows, remembering the trapper who discovered
Speaker 1: them and then betrayed them with three shots from his rifle.
Speaker 1: If they do still exist, I hope they've forgiven me.
Speaker 1: I hope they understand that I acted from fear and ignorance,
Speaker 1: not malice. I hope the one I shot survived somehow,
Speaker 1: And I hope as I approach the end of my
Speaker 1: own life, that they find a better ambassador from humanity
Speaker 1: than I was, someone with the courage to stay, to listen,
Speaker 1: to understand, someone worthy of the trust I betrayed. For me,
Speaker 1: I lived with my choice and its consequences. I lived
Speaker 1: with the knowledge that I turned my back on something
Speaker 1: extraordinary because I couldn't see past my own terror. I
Speaker 1: lived with the memory of that voice speaking my name,
Speaker 1: and that single devastating question as I fled why, a
Speaker 1: question for which, even thirty years later, I have no
Speaker 1: adequate answer. My research led me to a particularly disturbing
Speaker 1: account in twenty ten that has haunted me ever since.
Speaker 1: I was corresponding with a former logger named Frank who
Speaker 1: had worked in the Olympic Peninsula during the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: He'd been reluctant to share his experience, even anonymously, but
Speaker 1: after months of cautious exchanges, he finally sent me his
Speaker 1: handwritten account through regular mail no return address. Frank had
Speaker 1: been part of a small crew doing preliminary surveys for
Speaker 1: a logging operation in an extremely remote section of old
Speaker 1: growth forest. The area hadn't been logged or even properly
Speaker 1: mapped protected for decades. By a combination of environmental regulations
Speaker 1: and sheer inaccessibility. His crew consisted of five men who
Speaker 1: would spend two weeks at a time in the forest,
Speaker 1: mapping terrain and marking trees. On their third expedition into
Speaker 1: the area, things began to go wrong. Equipment disappeared from
Speaker 1: their camp. Strange structures similar to the arrangements I'd found
Speaker 1: around my cabin, appeared overnight near their tents. They heard
Speaker 1: vocalizations at night that they initially attributed to owls or
Speaker 1: other wildlife, but which grew increasingly complex and seemed to
Speaker 1: surround their camp. The crew leader, a veteran lagger who
Speaker 1: had spent thirty years in the deep woods, recognized the signs.
Speaker 1: He told them they were in their territory and that
Speaker 1: they needed to leave offerings and show respect. The other
Speaker 1: men laughed it off as superstition, but they followed his advice,
Speaker 1: leaving small piles of food at the edge of camp
Speaker 1: each night. For several days. This seemed to work. The
Speaker 1: disturbances lessened, the men grew complacent. Then came the night
Speaker 1: that changed everything. They woke to screams. One of the
Speaker 1: men dragged from his tent by something immensely strong. By
Speaker 1: the time the others had grabbed flashlights and rifles, he
Speaker 1: was gone. Only a trail of blood and broken vegetation
Speaker 1: indicated the direction they followed. Immediately, of course, five hours
Speaker 1: of tracking led them to a clearing where they found
Speaker 1: the remnants of their colleague, torn apart with a ferocity
Speaker 1: that Frank described as not animal, not human, but something
Speaker 1: worse than either. The body showed signs of methodical dismemberment,
Speaker 1: not consumption, a warning not predation. What disturbed Frank most
Speaker 1: was what they found arranged around the body, their own
Speaker 1: offerings from previous nights, placed in a precise circle. Their
Speaker 1: attempt at communication had been acknowledged and rejected with terrible finality.
Speaker 1: The official report listed the death as a bear attack.
Speaker 1: The logging survey was quietly abandoned. Most of the crew
Speaker 1: left the industry entirely afterward. Frank's account had the ring
Speaker 1: of truth that I'd learned to recognize over decades of research,
Speaker 1: the specific details that matched patterns I'd seen across hundreds
Speaker 1: of other reports, but which had never been publicized. I've
Speaker 1: collected other accounts of aggression and violence, though few as
Speaker 1: extreme as Franks. What emerges is a picture of beings
Speaker 1: that are not simplistic monsters, but complex territorial creatures with
Speaker 1: codes of behavior we only dimly understand. They appear to
Speaker 1: have boundaries and expectations, communication systems, and social structures. They
Speaker 1: can be curious about humans, even attempt some form of exchange,
Speaker 1: but they can also respond with calculated violence when those
Speaker 1: boundaries are crossed. This complexity only deepens my regret about
Speaker 1: my own encounter. Had I been approached out of curiosity?
Speaker 1: Were they attempting some form of peaceful content at that
Speaker 1: my fear transformed into a threat, Or was I being tested, evaluated,
Speaker 1: perhaps even hunted until I demonstrated my capacity for violence.
Speaker 1: I'll never know that uncertainty, more than anything else, has
Speaker 1: been my punishment these past decades. I've considered many times
Speaker 1: organizing an expedition back to my old cabin site. Modern
Speaker 1: technology trail cameras, audio recording equipment, thermal imaging might capture
Speaker 1: evidence that was impossible to obtain in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: But something always holds me back. Perhaps it's fear of
Speaker 1: finding nothing, of confirming that they're gone. Perhaps it's fear
Speaker 1: of finding proof that they remain that the one I
Speaker 1: shot either died or survived, and that others remember what
Speaker 1: I did. Or perhaps most terrifying of all, it's the
Speaker 1: fear that they might remember me not as an enemy,
Speaker 1: but as someone who failed them when they reached out,
Speaker 1: that they might still be waiting for the alliance that proposed,
Speaker 1: still fighting their own desperate battle against the men with
Speaker 1: rifles who hunt them. The question remains as it has
Speaker 1: for thirty years, suspended in that moment when I fled
Speaker 1: instead of staying, when I chose fear over understanding why,
Speaker 1: I still have no answer, only the weight of a
Speaker 1: choice made in terror, and the lifetime of wondering that
Speaker 1: followed in s