Hunters

During a spring bear hunt expedition, a veteran Alaskan bush pilot named Buck flew two out-of-state hunters to a remote base camp east of Salcha. Left with an hour of free fuel time, Buck puddle-jumped his Piper Cub onto a nearby open tundra ridge flanked by a sparse black spruce tree line and large old-growth timber stands. Encountering an uncanny, absolute silence upon stepping out of his cockpit, Buck slung a .454 Casull revolver on his chest and hiked 500 yards out into a tundra berry patch to engage in wildlife photography.

Around 2012, a native villager and his hunting partner portaged their skiff across an ice-overflow gravel ridge into Henry Slough, a specialized secondary channel of the Nushagak River located just south of New Stuyahok. Spotting a bull moose over a mud-and-grass cutbank, the men anchored the skiff using a concrete stake and initiated a silent layout stalk through the alders. While tracking the antlers, an interactive clacking sound erupted from multiple directions, which they mistook for a competing bull.

Around 2019, a first nations hunter named Jack and his less-experienced partner, Eric, executed a remote catch-and-release style caribou hunt via single-man kayaks, launching from the Maclaren River bridge off the Denali Highway down to the Tyone Creek confluence. After pitching pop-up tents on the river's west bank, they awoke to an absolute, deafening silence that dropped over the tundra canopy. Proceeding on foot down a game trail through heavy morning fog, Eric spotted an edge-of-vision dark shadow tracking them.

Around 1997, a fly-fisherman named Daniel chartered a bush flight to drop him off alone on a sharp grassy spit at the first major bend of the Tikchik River system, northwest of Tikchik Lake. Armed with a heavy .480 Ruger revolver in a chest vest, Daniel finished a four-hour trout session. While packing his rod at the slough edge, a shift in the august wind parted the dense, 12-foot shoreline willow wall to expose a massive dark silhouette that towered far above his own standing height. Out of extreme caution, Daniel backed up flush to the river cutbank.

During an autumn gold prospecting trip, two first nations brothers named Ivan and his sibling navigated their 18-foot Lund skiff as far upstream as possible into the headwaters of the King Salmon River, north of the Nuyakuk confluence. While meticulously searching the bank cuts for gold-bearing quartz veins, they pitched a light spike camp using a Coleman cookstove. On their third night, a terrifying vocalization that sounded exactly like a woman being murdered erupted from the opposite bank.

Ten years ago, a few hunters were at the Kanik Glacier on their 4-wheelers hunting moose.  They look up and saw a Sasquatch on the ridge, swaying back and forth and dropping behind the rocks.  They felt a sudden urge to leave and immediately left.  In this area, there's many, many "soft" encounters.

Two brothers went on a moose hunt and things didn't go as expected. This encounter highlights the inconceivable strength of these creatures when considering the weight of a moose.

In 1997, an experienced bush pilot flew a wealthy, inexperienced hunting client west of Iliamna toward the Bering coast to scout for massive moose. After landing his floatplane on a remote lake and tying off the pontoons near a beaver slip, the two men hiked a narrow game trail into the dense black spruce. The situation took a disastrous turn when the client pulled out an elk bugle he didn't know how to use and blew a horrific call into the woods, instantly triggering a terrifying chain of events that sent them sprinting back to the water.

Trekking out on snowmachines after the first fresh snowfall west of Nondalton, Jerry and three hunting buddies spotted a small caribou herd being circled by a pack of wolves in the valley below. While watching the predator-prey standoff, an ear-splitting, unnatural scream erupted from the tree line, instantly scattering the panicked wolves. As a large bull caribou attempted to run back to the safety of the herd, a massive, dark arm swung out from the brush and violently backhanded the animal across the ribs.

Gathered around a hunting campfire in 2005, a First Nations elder recounted a harrowing 1968 encounter west of the Kvichak River. While hiking through the sparsely wooded tundra with two friends, they spotted a dark figure darting among the black spruce. Assuming it was a fellow hunter, they called out, only to be answered by a massive Hairy Man that suddenly burst from the brush. The men immediately opened fire, sending the creature sprinting toward a nearby beaver pond, where it dove in and vanished beneath the surface.

Craig and John were on a caribou hunt where they had a terrifying experience.

On the fourth day of a grueling Dall sheep hunt in the Brooks Range, big game guide Glenn and his client finally secured a perfect shot on a massive full-curl ram. Unfortunately, the animal's death throes sent it tumbling over the edge of the trail and deep into a craggy draw. Exhausted and losing daylight, they decided to wait until morning to recover the carcass. That night, their camp was serenaded by a bizarre, multi-octave howling that sounded entirely unnatural.

I share an encounter from my cousin Nicholai and a few other relatives that happened on the Nuyakuk River.

I share an encounter I had with a hunting guide and his client who was looking to bag a Hairy Man after an experience he had years prior. Spoiler alert: he changed his mind.

I share an encounter from mid-winter of 1982 by Johnathan, who was trapping with his brother James near Lake Illiamna, Alaska's largest lake.  Johnathan nor his brother ever returned to the area.