During the winter of 1994, Fred was ripping down the Manokotak trail with a pack of friends on snowmachines. Hoping to catch up to the faster sleds, he took a densely forested shortcut, but a hard bump accidentally triggered his kill switch. Plunged into darkness as the roar of his friends' engines faded into the distance, Fred was left completely alone. The situation escalated when a pack of wolves began howling from the dark timber, closing in on his position. After firing a few warning shots into the darkness with a 9mm pistol, Fred finally realized his mistake, popped the kill switch, and fired up his sled.
Speeding down the snaking trail toward the open tundra, a massive black shadow suddenly loomed at the edge of his headlight beam. Terrified of being clotheslined off his machine, Fred ducked low and pinned the throttle. Once safe on the open flats, curiosity took over. Fred circled back and used his high beams to scan the tree line, spotting massive eyeshine in the brush. As he made another pass, his headlight illuminated a towering figure squatted in the middle of the trail, swaying back and forth before standing upright and slipping into the trees. When his friends finally returned to find him, they laughed off his warning—until one of them aggressively drove up the trail, instantly triggering an ear-splitting scream from the timber that sent the entire group scrambling for their lives.
