Stalking

In the 1990s, a Bristol Bay native named Joseph was left alone to overnight inside an unfinished, windowless log cabin frame under construction on the west bank of the Nushagak River, roughly 40 feet from a steep riverbank cut. After executing a secure, bear-aware camp cleanup, Joseph heard an anomalous, interactive series of 'imitation wolf howls' echoing from several miles deep in the timber line. Sitting on the entrance logs at dusk, a severe 'glass-dome' silence enveloped the tree line, and the vocalizations re-emerged less than 200 yards out.

Around 2016, a seasonal cannery worker from Dillingham named Jesse utilized his week off to execute a solo catch-and-release silver salmon trek along Silver Salmon Creek, hiking from the Aleknagik Road culverts down to the Wood River mouth. Setting up an 8-inch skillet camp cookstove on a hard bank slough, Jesse heard a series of heavy 'woof' grunts that he initially attributed to a stray dog. While casting into a deep pool, an absolute silence dropped over the drainage, and Jesse spotted a large chocolate-brown mass crouching across the channel just 20 meters out.

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.

In the mid-1970s, a 10-year-old boy named Dan, who had recently relocated to the Gulkana River drainage region, wandered off into the timber alone. After navigating a trail where he was actively paced and eventually cut off by a large, intimidating hair-covered figure 15 yards out, he retreated. Eight months later in May, during a torrential rainstorm, Dan became profoundly lost in the remote backcountry wearing only a t-shirt and jeans.

While house-sitting a rural property north of Glennallen along the Richardson Highway to protect against localized equipment theft, a married couple named John and Betty jackknifed their 16-foot fifth-wheel trailer across the driveway entrance, placing their camper a mere 100 feet off the primary asphalt road. While returning to the rig at dusk after utilizing an outdoor fire pit behind the main house, they were unsettled by a low, non-animal gurgling throat-clear emerging from the foliage.

While traveling along a remote stretch of the Taylor Highway near the Mosquito Fork bridge of the Fortymile River, north of the Tok junction, an out-of-state family—parents Walter and Bernice, and their adult college-graduate son Michael—experienced an unprecedented multi-creature encounter. Approaching the bridge clearance zone at a 300-yard distance, they observed three colossal figures walking single-file across the asphalt road.

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.

In the summer of 1978, a seasonal Tongass National Forest service worker named Eric and two colleagues executed an un-armed exploration trek up Powers Creek inside the tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness within the Endicott Arm fjord system. After a peaceful first night, a thunderous, multi-octave shriek erupted from deep within the inlet canyon lines at midday.

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.

While investigating an active beaver dam system on the Kings River, the channel researcher and his companion, 'Squatch Bait,' documented complex engineering in the form of multiple, multi-cut tree trunks and a submerged, canopied beaver tunnel. Transitioning to a specific encounter site marked by orange surveyor tape, the researcher noted the exact location where a local witness named Daniel observed a large, dark-brown figure squatting on a log segment that jutted into the water.

In August 2018, Robert Johnson, a government investigator with experience in high-profile disaster scenarios like Katrina and 9/11, embarked on a solo motorcycle trip from Idaho to Fairbanks. Seeking a rest stop near Denali National Park, he stayed at the White Moose Lodge—a single-story, 20-room complex. During the night, Robert was awakened by rhythmic, forceful thumping emanating from the back wall of his room.

Ten years prior to 2022, two brothers, Jim and James, began constructing a remote 5-acre cabin cabin in the interior of Alaska, south of Fairbanks and north of Wasilla. During the building phase, they experienced recurring bear-like encroachments, forcing them to adopt a hyper-vigilant 'two-person always' security protocol. While James was left alone at the cabin to overnight, he began hearing a persistent 'click-click' sound originating from the walls of the windowless log shell.

Approximately 20 years ago, a couple named Margaret and Kyle were foraging for wild berries along a remote muskeg slough near the Alphabet Mountains, south of the Denali Highway. While separated by 100 feet to maximize coverage, Margaret heard a deep, guttural grunt; assuming it was her husband, she called out until she caught sight of a massive, dark movement through the alder brush that did not correspond to her husband's location.

John, a long-time trapper, had to cut short his trapping season once he realized what was stealing from his traps. As he decided to hunker down at his remote cabin until his resupply plane came through, he was surrounded by three Sasquatches attempting to intimidate him. They failed and John instead went on offense.