Some thirty years prior to 2023, a Bristol Bay native woman named Julie experienced an encounter as a young girl during a combined moose hunting and salmonberry harvesting trip up the Kvichak River channel with her grandfather (Uppa), father, and uncle. Landing early before sunrise, Julie and her Uppa combed the tundra slopes for blueberries and blackberries.
Forty minutes into the harvest, her grandfather noticed an immense, dark bipedal entity tracking them from a willow-and-alder thicket roughly 100 yards away. Maintaining absolute composure to prevent a panic response, her grandfather ordered Julie to immediately run directly back down to the river slough, keeping her back to the tundra and instructing her to stay quiet and count her harvested berries.
While crouched low in a state of sudden, inexplicable 'jackrabbit panic' that she had never felt around dump bears, Julie watched her grandfather maintain defensive aim with his rifle until he discharged a single round to halt the creature's crawling approach through the tundra moss. Minutes later, their family members arrived in a Lund skiff; after traveling two miles upriver to a sharp bend, they observed a massive black form crawling on all fours just 15 to 20 yards inside the grass line attempting to flank the boat, prompting a hasty downriver retreat under the duress of a piercing, high-pitched whistling shriek.
