Following a successful solo caribou hunt the year prior, an Anchorage resident named Doug brought his wife Claire and their 15-year-old son back to the North Fork of the Gulkana River, traversing a steep, frosted trail past Swede Lake down to the river crossing. Seeking to avoid a crowded hunter 'shanty town' near the foothills, Doug steered his four-wheelers and an equipment trailer Due West along a rough, overgrown river slough trail, eventually establishing a 'glamping' site on a flat shelf at the base of a prominent tundra shale-rock Butte. After erecting a heavy 10x12 canvas wall tent outfitted with a wood stove, the family was disturbed during an afternoon meal by an incredibly sharp, piercing whistle reflecting off the valley floor. Believing it was a lost hunter, Doug armed himself with a .454 Casull revolver and a 30-06 rifle, motoring his four-wheeler a mile and a half out to assist.
However, he was suddenly hit by an oppressive edge-of-vision surveillance dread so severe it felt as if he wanted to 'flee his skin,' prompting an immediate tactical retreat back to camp. At twilight, while using a makeshift bucket latrine surrounded by a privacy screen, a bone-chilling 'Banshee-like' scream echoed down the upper Butte face, causing Doug to shudder from head to toe. Forty-five minutes into complete darkness, a secondary multi-octave roar—blending an ultra-high shriek with a booming low bass rumble—vibrated directly over their shelf camp. Hours later, as Doug and Claire sat by a dying cooking fire to conserve water, a heavy bipedal crashing pattern erupted, crisscrossing the upper brush slopes with massive weight.
Rushing inside the wall tent, Doug positioned his family back-to-back with high-caliber weapons drawn. Suddenly, their 15-year-old son screamed and pointed into the corner of the structure as a giant unseen appendage forcefully deformed the heavy canvas wall, moving deliberately along the fabric right behind the hot wood stove. Doug shouted a warning, causing the entity to plunge into the alder brush. The family endured a sleepless night under a sequence of perimeter shrieks before executing a rapid dawn evacuation.
