EP 89 Memories and Monsters Part 2: Sasquatch encounters

It's it's one of those weird conundrums of well which is it you know is it you know 50% of time they just want you out of there the other 50% they're hunting you and and you know that's just way way hard to like pinpoint that that turn of the coin from an aggressive display to a full-on you're done yeah you know what i mean they're gonna they're gonna snatch you and eat you and that's one of my driving forces doing this is hoping to find some kind of information that kind of uh what

that light switch what that trigger is to go from just a an aggressive display to a full on attack and you know predation on a human and it's it's elusive you know that trying to find that information is very elusive because all we have is anecdotal evidence you know that was fred role. And in this episode, I talk to Fred and David Holthouse about Sasquatch encounters. Fred is a YouTuber and a Sasquatch or hairy man oral historian.

His channel is called the Sub-Arctic Alaska Sasquatch and Alaska Little People. And in it, he narrates Sasquatch encounters and also interviews people who tell their Sasquatch stories. At this point, he's collected over 200 of them. And he says that there are a couple common themes throughout. Sasquatch is either pushing humans out of a territory, or they're watching them. To Fred, Sasquatch is an adversarial predator.

So sharing these stories is a form of public safety, similar to being bear-aware. It's a perspective and a healthy fear that he grew up around in Bristol Bay. David Holdhouse is an investigative journalist, and his perspective comes from the intersection of belief and propaganda. How the idea of Sasquatch can be used to enforce territorial claims, or as a warning to keep people in line, as was the case with his 2021 docuseries Sasquatch.

The concept of the show is based on a story he heard in 1993, about a Sasquatch killing three people on a weed farm in Northern California, an area that David says reminds him of Alaska. The story goes beyond Sasquatch, though. At its core, it's about long-standing social issues like racism, the war on drugs, gangs, and violence. So here they are, David Holthouse and Fred Roll.

Welcome to Chatter Marks, a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, dedicated to exploring Alaska and the Circumpolar North through the creative and critical thinking of ideas, past, present, and future. Music. In this Chattermark series, I talk to storytellers and knowledge holders about Sasquatch, in its many variations, and its personal and cultural importance to the people of Alaska. In this first conversation, I talk to investigative journalist David Holdhouse.

So in 2021 you were part of a hulu docuseries about sasquatch the concept of the show is based on a story you heard back in 1993 about a sasquatch killing three people on a weed farm in northern california you know in my mind i feel like the story goes beyond sasquatch that it's really about longstanding social issues like racism, the war on drugs, gangs, and violence. Does that sound right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the series was really multifaceted in that respect, for sure.

And Sasquatch is almost like a symbol for the lawlessness and chaos of the Emerald Triangle, which is the region of Northern California where that story took place. That's where I originally heard the story in 1993 and where I went back in 2019 and 20 to try and figure out if there's any truth to the tale at all. But yeah, it definitely was not just about Sasquatch, despite the title.

It was funny, like some Squatchers, you know, if you go to Rotten Tomatoes, that series, the Hulu series, it had like a 98% positive rating from critics, but then the audience rating was actually pretty low. And the reason was There were so many Sasquatch believers that were felt like they'd been bait and switched by the title of the show. They were like, oh, finally.

And so they were mad. But yeah, I mean, definitely, obviously the Sasquatch and the Sasquatch stories from that region play a major role in that series, but it wasn't really like a Sasquatch hunter kind of show.

Do you think it's easier to talk about these issues by way of something like Sasquatch rather than just talking about them straight out? Those issues being crime and racism, things like that? Exactly. Yeah. Gangs, violence, social issues.

I think it softens it for sure. And also, if you're trying to address really serious topics, which the serious topics that the Hulu series Sasquatch addresses include the racism against immigrants from Mexico and Central and South America in that region, the victimization of them, and also just the staggering number of people that go missing in the Emerald Triangle. I mean, that's a very, very dark subject to address, to get into. And it's not at all like entertaining, right?

But if you frame issues like that within an entertaining tale, which I think Sasquatch is first and foremost, it's just kind of like a good story, right? It sort of starts with a campfire ghost story of a fable, if you will, about how a Sasquatch murdered three people, brutally murdered three people on a weed farm. You know, that's a campfire ghost story. And that's at the heart of the series.

So if you keep things within that storytelling framework, you can go to some dark places and the audience will stick with you, right?

As long as you keep coming back to the entertaining ghost story. And so, yes, it's definitely a way that you can address serious issues, not in a lighthearted way or a trivial way, but in, it's just kind of like. You know, every once in a while you give them a little meat and potatoes, right? Yeah, yeah. To go with the dessert, but it's mostly just, it's mostly just a tasty story.

Yeah. Yeah. I've heard it described as, or this concept, you know, of mixing entertainment with education is edutainment, you know?

Yeah. you are like you said giving them some meat and potatoes but then also here's some dense social issues that are systemic that we should probably think about doing something about right and then also the flip side to that too is it it's it's like it makes a show like sasquatch less of a guilty pleasure meaning that you know a lot of true crime because sasquatch is a true crime series in a way it's true crime adjacent at least and that's sort of like the hot

that's sort of like the hot genre in hollywood now for docs is not straight ahead exploitative true crime but true crime adjacent and sasquatch was you know a player in sort of driving that that buying trend if you will or that popular trend in docs and but um point being like a lot of people.

Prospective audience members they either shy away from true crime or if they watch true crime they feel a little guilty about it right it's like it's like it's too fluffy or it's too exploitative or voyeuristic, but by giving, you know, serious attention to serious issues, again, within that, the storytelling rubric of just a good campfire ghost story, it sort of makes him feel better about watching it.

And it contributes to better word of mouth, you know, driving audience to the show. Yeah, yeah. And this area in Northern California, Mendocino County, it's remote. It's very, I mean, yeah, yeah. It's, it's three counties. It's, it's, it's Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino County. Mostly it's Humboldt, Mendocino County. It's like Northern, yeah.

Northern Mendocino and Southern Humboldt County. And it is, it's, you know, I'm from Alaska. You're from Alaska. We're familiar with big country, right? We're familiar with low population density. We're familiar with urban areas that are wilderness adjacent. And there's some wild parts in the lower 48, but I can't think of any that are wilder than this region, meaning that you have sort of a backling of pretty small towns, an economy that's driven almost entirely by black market behavior.

It's a black market money-making. But it's just, it's very, very rugged, wild country. You can just get into the, you know, it's, it's a lot of redwood forest, a lot of very dense forest. Not a lot of, not a lot of roads and what roads there are, you know, get pretty rough in a hurry. And once you hike just a few miles off the road system, it's like Alaska, like you can, you know, you know, it could be thousands of years ago. Okay. And I, and I, and I, you know, Sasquatch, I, I, I must, I must.

Believe it when I see it, guy, when it comes to things like Sasquatch. And I haven't seen one, okay? But I will say that the idea of Sasquatch made a whole lot more sense after I'd spent time in the Emerald Triangle and actually been out in the woods there with just these massive trees and just this eerie, spooky, quiet. And even the way that the light filters down through the redwood canopy, it's kind of like it plays tricks on your eyes, right?

And it'd be very easy for a person or a creature to be to be camouflaged and move within those shadows because the shadows themselves are moving and i wouldn't have been surprised to see a brontosaurus go walking through that forest right i mean i would have been surprised but it would have made sense i would have been like oh yeah there's a brontosaurus because it has that sort of primordial feel to it so it definitely makes sense you know

i think a lot of people that live in like say new york city where the closest woods they have are central park it's like sasquatch doesn't make any sense well sasquatch makes sense sense in that part of the world. It's very easy to believe or at least give more credence to the possibility of a creature like that inhabiting an environment like that.

Yeah. But it's a dangerous part of the world. The Emerald Triangle is a dangerous place, especially for outsiders. It's a very insular criminal culture to the place. Okay. And is there a difference in the belief of Sasquatch or Bigfoot in Alaska versus other places like Northern California? Well, you know, it's interesting. I think that there's some Alaska native groups that have stories about a creature not unlike Sasquatch.

I can't remember the name right now, but if you trace the origins of the Sasquatch, let's call it the Sasquatch story or Sasquatch belief system back to its roots in California, it's with the indigenous people of that region of what is now the Emerald Triangle. They were the first ones to have stories about creatures like this.

And there were some early incidents, Sasquatch incidents in that part, where people were encroaching on Native Americans' territory, like early loggers, basically, and miners exploiting the natural resources. And that's where some of the first, you know, violent, alleged violent Sasquatch encounters happened where, you know, equipment was being destroyed or miners or loggers were just going missing or their bodies were being found.

And, you know, my theory is that the indigenous people of the region were doing these things, were killing these guys and wrecking their gear and stuff, but then spreading the story that a Sasquatch was responsible. Okay. And they, you know, they believed it. I mean, the miners believed it. So, yeah, it's interesting to see that because, I mean, I don't, at this point, the show's been out for three years.

So I don't think I'm spoiling anything to say. Like, that's what it, that's what the story of the three people that were murdered on a dope farm turned out to be is that, you know, I believe that three guys were murdered, but the murder scene was staged to look as if a Sasquatch had killed these guys. You know, to the point of fake footprints and, you know, ripping up bags of weed as if a wild animal had torn them apart, but not stealing the weed or stealing the money.

And it was a similar sort of psychological warfare operation in terms of trying to, like, scare people into believing that they were encroaching on a Sasquatch's territory when, in fact, they were encroaching upon a hostile population's territory. Yeah. Or people that didn't care to be encroached upon. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Throughout the interviews and research I've done for, you know, this Sasquatch, these interviews, I found that so often there's a social function to these stories, to these Sasquatch creatures. With your story, I think it's probably an easier way to explain, you know, the institutional injustices and horrible things just humans do to each other. And be able to maybe wrap our minds around it for the layman and then for the criminals to explain away, you know, their criminality.

Right. Yeah. And I noticed too that in people that, because I met a lot of people, I would say that the percentage of people that believe in Sasquatch and the Emerald Triangle is several magnitudes greater than in the average population in the U.S. And part of that is because, again, just like inhabiting that sort of terrain, Sasquatch makes more sense. But I also think that the people that are drawn to that area, they have a certain like wistfulness for, um, Hmm, you know, time has gone by.

Uh, and, and so I think that the belief in Sasquatch can, can very easily get wrapped up in a, in a nostalgia for a time, you know, before modern technology, uh, more sort of frontier era, uh, people being able to live out on their own and make their own way in the world with a lot, a lot of interference from governments or, you know, the internet.

Right. And so, and so a lot of these people like live off the grid or semi off the grid and, and, uh, at least express like a, like a fervent belief that Sasquatch is real. And I think that in that respect, like Sasquatch is a symbol for wilderness or a symbol for, for, uh, for a simpler, less technology dependent time or technology dominated time.

In the course of making this show, I definitely met and spoke with and interviewed people who described, and most of them were in some way involved in black market cannabis cultivation, either back in the 80s and 90s or today. And they had stories, their own stories of Sasquatch encounters that, man, if they were putting me on, I've been an investigative journalist for 30 years. I like to think that my BS meter is pretty finely attuned.

I think these people, these people at least believed they were telling me the truth. You know, I sort of bet the house on that. And so it gave me pause because they did not seem like, you know, once you had their trust, it took a while.

It was like, look, in the Sas, in the Squatchers scene, you are definitely going to find, you know, some wild eyed, um, fringe belief characters that are hard to take seriously.

Okay uh but if you if if you take your time and you get to know people and gain their trust you'll find that there are people that believe in sasquatch and that that that have you know stories of encounters with sasquatch that are difficult to disbelieve okay and so i don't know you know if if they didn't actually see sasquatch i don't know what accounts for that because they're very very convincing and and i think that are are they at least believe that they're speaking the truth. Yeah.

Since working on the series, have you found that Sasquatch is more on your mind or do you think you've kind of exercised it out of your mind? Yeah, it hasn't really been on my mind. You know, I, I, I, I, it did, it did sort of create a fascination with all sort of cryptid creatures for me. Um, but I haven't, you know, I live in Northern New Mexico now and, and, uh, the closest Sasquatch territories is a ways away. So I'm not out looking for squash, you know?

Um, but it's, yeah, I mean, it's, it, it, it, I also met these guys that were dope growers that had similar stories about cryptid creatures from the Amazonian rainforest. And they've been more on my mind because, again, these people are very convincing. So it's just like if I was going to go out and actually try and find a cryptid, I think it would be down in Brazil or somewhere around there rather than trying to find one in California. Oh, okay, okay.

So have you thought about sasquatch in alaska well yeah i mean it also i mean there are definitely parts of alaska where in the same way like i keep i keep returning the phrase sasquatch makes sense where they where you're out there in the wilderness and it seems it feels possible right it feels possible the same way that you know there's the there's the stories up in like you know the north Northwest Alaska about the, you know, the little people in the tundra and that they played, you know,

that they, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That they play tricks on, you know, travelers and stuff. And that, you know, sort of like leprechauns of the tundra in a way. Right. And it's, you know, in Anchorage, it doesn't, you're like, oh, what are you, what's kind of a cute sort of mythological, cute mythology. Right.

But if you're out there on the vast tundra, you know, up there around some of the national parks in Northwest Alaska or just any of that, like untrammeled, it's like, man, you know the wind starts getting that sort of eerie sort of whistle to it you're out there by yourself or with like one friend and there's like you are out there man you're like in a different you know a different reality where where the idea of of creatures

like that uh starts to feel like more of a real possibility yeah you know i interviewed derrick schmidt of the alutic museum. And he said that Olak, like I was saying, which is the name for the Bigfoot or Sasquatch creature in Elutic. And he explained how Olak is someone who was expelled from their village. And once in the wild, they become these wild creatures. They're also believed to be shapeshifters who have this monstrous form and can shapeshift into animals and also humans.

I guess what I found interesting about all this is. Is that there's always this relationship between humans and Sasquatch. Like Sasquatch doesn't exist without us. And I wonder if that's because maybe in some existential way, they are us in one way or another.

Yeah, it's a fun theory to play around with. I mean, there's a subgenre of Squatchers, a subset, who believe that Sasquatch, the species, the Sasquatch species, exist in a parallel dimension to ours that's close enough to ours that what explains Sasquatch sightings is that every once in a while, the sort of cosmic wires get crossed and our dimension crosses over and bleeds into theirs or vice versa. And so that explains all these fleeting momentary sightings of Sasquatch.

And what's fun about that theory is that if that's true, then that means that in the world where Sasquatch are a common species, they have these stories about sighting these hairless, bipedal creatures that are human beings, right? Which means that there's all these Sasquatches in this parallel dimension that have these stories about, no, really, I saw this six-foot-tall hairless monkey, you know? And they're like, yeah, of course he did. Of course he did. He was growing weed.

Yeah, exactly. Of course he was. Right. Yeah. Smoke another bowl there, Jerome. So, uh, I don't know. It's fun. Yeah.

But it's, yeah, you're right. There's, there's something, there's something inextricably, you know, linked between, between humans and, and, and, and especially like bipedal cryptids like Sasquatch where, you know, they feel like a missing link or they feel like a, uh, you know, another branch on the evolutionary tree that just, um, you know, this just grew an entirely different direction. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, another thing I found interesting was, you know, and this kind of came from my conversation with Derek from the Aleutic Museum, is that the stories he told me of Sasquatch were often cautionary tales used to keep children or I guess people in general away from engaging in something dangerous. But either way, if it's a cautionary tale or like with your docu-series, a way to keep people in check and cover-up murders, Sasquatch only ever really shows up in bad situations.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's one thing I found. And there's a case, you probably are going to be able to cite it right away. There was a case of like alleged Sasquatch, you know, murders in Alaska that had something to do with natural resource extraction. So over and over again, you find this, you find this, these stories over the centuries that I found that had three things in common. One, you've got indigenous people.

Two, Sasquatch is being used to try and warn away interlopers that are there to extract natural resources. There's at least four different instances of that. If you count marijuana as a natural resource, which it basically is in the Emerald Triangle now, there's at least four instances of that in Alaska in the lower 48 in the last 300 years that I was able to find.

Where it was like there was actual like violence committed that was attributed to a Sasquatch or a hairy man where the targets were white colonizers.

That had been warned and then were more explicitly and dramatically warned using Sasquatch as kind of a threat system. Yeah. yeah and i think the story you're thinking about is portlock alaska right that's where yeah in the in the 1940s um the whole town disappeared yeah right yeah, yeah, So do you think we can interpret this creature, Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Olak, as something negative? That's a good one. You know, I think it's, I don't know.

I don't have a negative connotation with Sasquatch for some reason. You know, I think that even in the way that Sasquatch has been used, where we're talking about even violently or like pinning murders on Sasquatch.

It's like, uh, uh, I don't want to say that the people deserved it, but there's a, there's a purpose behind it. That's other than just purely evil. Um, and so I don't, yeah, I don't, I don't attribute a negative vibe to Sasquatch myself. Okay.

So far i've talked to a number of people and their perspective has either been related to culture or belief being a journalist yourself do you think your perspective is related to culture or belief or does it stem from a different place maybe curiosity, yeah probably curiosity and also just sort of gut feeling i don't know okay yeah yeah just gut instinct on it i mean i imagine that it would be uh terrifying to actually run across you know a sasquatch and you

know it's that the original that story that i originally heard in 1993 there was more to it than just um that that uh you know three guys had been found uh killed on a weed farm i mean i was i was i was up in uh uh that part of the world for a couple a few weeks I think. And the first stories that I was hearing is I was hearing stories about this like tribe or family of Sasquatch that were like around this area called Spy Rock.

That's like a, you know, really notorious, infamous dope growing area that were like. Guys that were going out creating, I mean, cause there's two kinds of weed farms. I won't go too far down this rabbit hole, but stick with me. So there's like ones where you're just like on a property that somebody owns, right? Like a backwoods property.

But then there's also weed farms where it's like, people are hiking out with backpacks and, and finding a very remote plot of land with, with a water source, uh, that, and that they can sort of, you know, pipe in. And it was these people that were hiking miles and miles back in the woods.

Some of them were coming back with stories that they, that they'd had like this, uh, in this one area, they'd had this like encounter with this violent group of Sasquatch that were like bluff charging, like running at them and like throwing big rocks at them. And, and there were several people that, that were, were telling this story. And then a couple of weeks later was when it was like, holy shit, this word started spreading that these three guys had been found dead on a farm.

So it was pretty involved uh pretty involved uh propaganda operation if that's what it was yeah yeah that's what it sounds like a lot of that story is about is the propaganda to cover up murders and then how that intersects with actual belief in you know this creature the sasquatch yeah and a lot of you know there were also um there were growers up there because if you're if you're a dope grower in the 80s or 90s in the Emerald Triangle.

You're hiring seasonal labor and they call them trimigrants and it still happens, but especially when everything was still black market and fairly small scale, you'd have young people from all over the world showing up in the Emerald Triangle at harvest season, knowing that they could get fairly high paying cash under the table jobs, harvesting and processing weed. It's labor intensive. You got to cut it, you got to trim it, dry it, et cetera.

And if you have one of these farms, you don't want your trimigrants. You don't want your, your laborers to be going off the farm and going to town a lot because like the back and forth traffic is what attracts law enforcement attention. And so numerous, numerous growers that I found had back in the day had, had like, you know, use some of them fairly elaborate, like fake Sasquatch footprint stilts to create footprints around their property.

And they would tell the trimigrants, especially those that weren't from America, that were from like Europe, they're like, look, you know, this is Sasquatch country. You don't want to go walk into town. Okay. Even on, even on your one day off a week, trust me, you don't want to risk it. And then they'd show them the footprints. Right. And so it's just another example of how Sasquatch can be used to like enforce territorial claims or, or, or it was like a warning to keep people,

to keep people away from where you don't want them to go. Yeah, you know. I had this thought, and I want to know what you think of it. You know, I wonder if we like this idea of a creature that exists in the wild, outside of our own kind of man-made reality.

Because in a lot of ways, it implies that the things we've done to this world as humans, pollution, overpopulation, how much we harm each other, and the natural world, can be undone or in some places never even existed.

I think yeah i think that that is essentially spot on i mean i think sasquatch represents i mean i think that in all of us in every human being there is a part of us that misses that misses wilderness because very few of us live in wilderness anymore or even most of us don't even live anywhere close to it and so i think that sasquatch symbolizes something that we're all sort of wistful and we're all sort of missing, um, that has been lost as, as, as we've, as we've overpopulated the planet with

humans and paved over so much of the world and become reliant on cars and everything that we know. And so you have the, the hardcore Squatchers, it really like being hardcore into trying to find Sasquatch.

Well, it means that you're also hardcore into the wilderness and you're hardcore into trying to discover that thing that we're missing because I don't, that's why i'm like i don't see any harm in what they're doing because they're basically like they're going out and they're getting in as wild a country as they can find trying to find this creature but they're spending time out in a place that that for anybody is is healing which is wilderness i mean it's very like it's great for

your mental health right to get back out there yeah and and the same reason that it's good for anybody to be out in the woods i mean the you know the in finland they have a word for it taking a nature bath is what it translates to and it totally makes sense like even a day hike. You come back, you feel better. Well, why? Well, because it's like tapping into that place that's in all of us, that that's where we used to live. And things, I think, were probably better.

I think mental health issues were probably a lot less when there were a lot fewer of us and we sort of lived off the land, right? So I know that's getting on a fairly deep track, but I think that's related exactly to what you're saying. To me, it's like the belief or the desire to believe in Sasquatch comes from the same place of missing wilderness. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

What would you do if you saw or encountered Sasquatch? Well, I, I tried to get footage, you know, I mean, that's the, that's, that's the big argument against it. Right. And then that's the, um, and that's to get back to the people that believe it's an interdimensional thing. They're like, well, that's why there's no photograph. There's no photographs or video because they're not fully in our dimension.

That's why there's no, that's why even now that everybody's walking around, you know, with a high def video camera in their pocket, that's why nobody can get footage of them is they're not totally here. and I'm like, well, maybe. So I would, I would, uh, I would try and get footage. Yeah. That'd be my, and, and I, I, I'm not saying I'm agnostic, man. I mean, look, you know, I know we're talking about Sasquatch, but like, I, I saw the Phoenix lights UFOs in 1997 in Phoenix.

I didn't believe, I didn't believe in UFOs until I saw one. Okay. Okay. And I know what I saw. And I, so I have the same sort of open mind about Sasquatch. I mean, I, I spent a lot of time in the back country, either in Alaska or New Mexico or Colorado or Arizona, wherever, you know, if I see one, I'll believe it. I'm open to the possibility. Yeah. Listen, a world in which Sasquatch exists is vastly more fun than a world in which Sasquatch doesn't exist.

Same goes for extraterrestrials visiting us, right? Yeah. It's much more fun to believe at least that it's possible. So I'm going to stick with that. Yeah. Well, David, that does it for my questions. As always, it is great chatting with you. Thank you for your time and, you know, your research on Sasquatch. Music. All right. Likewise, brother. Appreciate it.

In this next conversation, I talk to YouTuber and Sasquatch oral historian. Music. I watched some early episodes of your show. You started it in 2022, and it looks like you've gone through an evolution of where you record them. Can you talk about that a bit? Yeah, basically it was, you know, updating the technology I had available. So I started off just using a laptop and then, you know, progressed to the GoPros and then the editing software and so on.

It was just a progression for better quality, basically. And you eventually started recording from the driver's seat of your truck. Do you do that because it adds to the vibe of the subject or is that just the best place to record?

Uh well in the winter time it's the easiest instead of chomping through snow but my dogs whenever I get onto this topic my energy changes so my dogs get worked up so as I'm trying to record the dogs will be barking more and you know uh because they're picking up on my vibe and whatnot so yeah I'll I'll retreat to the Tahoe and make use of that or sometimes I'll go out on a trail you know quiet trail and record there or when it's not snowing and the weather ain't horrible I'll,

you know, record in my backyard as well. And of course, you know, sometimes at encounter locations. What is that like, you know, to be talking about and narrating some of these stories or in some situations, you know, you're doing an interview.

What's it like doing that on location? It's a little nerve wracking, especially on one particular one we got whooped at just before we started recording but we couldn't place where it came from so the initial time we tried to record we were we were rubbernecking too much so we ended up having to move to another spot where it felt a little calmer the energy was a little better and so we recorded there but uh not too far from the actual location but uh sometimes it gets real spooky you know

and other times it's just a bright beautiful day songbirds you know what i mean so it kind of varies from place to place like out west of nancy lake going towards the susina river recording out there was very difficult because i felt like i was being stared at but i couldn't see anything around me and it just certain situations like that just gets so creepy when it's dead quiet no songbirds in the middle of the day you know it's like that is creepy how do you move past that,

It, uh, you basically cope with it. You really, you never move past it. I think if I was to get too complacent, that's when, you know, potentially something bad could happen because it's not necessarily a hairy man or something like that. It could be a bear. You know what I mean? So I try to stay on my toes when it comes to that. Cause when I'm recording, I prefer when I'm out in the field to have someone with me, even if they're off camera, at least watching around as I'm focused on the camera.

Um yeah so like when i recorded the tracks in the wild as i was recording the juvenile footprints in the mud i had someone standing guard they were standing on top of their uh polaris razor just keeping an eye out and uh while i recorded but yeah some places you got to have you know security with you to keep an eye you know watch your back while you're distracted recording.

Earlier you said that you try not to record in your house because your dogs can feel that shift in your energy do you feel like you have um a kinship or maybe this ability to recognize recognize, you know, vibe changes in animals or in your atmosphere? Oh, yeah. We were raised to pay attention in the woods. You know, I come from Bristol Bay, and my earliest memories are of my grandpa teaching me how to track.

You know, my uncles teach me little things, and we were always paying attention to those things, the energy change, the weather change.

You know, it all plays a part when you grow up like that because we were subsistence hunters so we paid attention big time to the environment around us you know if the birds went quiet we you know we paid more attention could be a bear or whatever but yeah I always follow those vibes so to speak I pay attention to them and sometimes I just leave an area if it feels too like just creepy I'll just get out of there and go somewhere else totally you know.

You know, plenty of people see things that aren't always explainable. What do you think it is about Sasquatch that makes people invest so much of their time into it? I think because for a lot of people, they didn't grow up with the knowledge.

So they'll have an incident happen that will just be so drastically out of their normal that it sparks them to go down that rabbit hole. And a lot of these people that go out researching, it's due to an encounter and they're looking for answers. It's a very big draw when, especially for someone who didn't believe in it to all of a sudden have an encounter, it's a very powerful, moving thing.

So I think that motivates them to try to figure out what's going on you know what i mean kind of try to figure out the puzzle because as as humans we're kind of problem solvers you know so i think that plays into it as well. Did you have a moment like that early on where, you know, you were introduced to something unexplainable and, you know, now it's set you off on this path of trying to figure out the puzzle?

Right. Well, we were raised with the knowledge, you know, our oral history isn't fanciful stories around a campfire. Our oral history is a direct one of, you know, good fishing over here, good hunting over there, winter camp over here. It was all necessities of life and being safe and keeping safe. And the hairy man, little people, and a few other things are part of that oral history.

So when we're told these, you know, stories about the hairy man, it's not to scare us or keep us out of the woods. It's so, it's like being bear aware, you know, or be aware of a moose that's going to stomp you or something like that. You know what I mean? It's not to, and this day and age, people kind of romanticize it as, oh, native folklore, native mythology. And that's not the case. Okay. You know, we don't waste our words when it comes to the oral history.

You know, we don't have those kind of fairytale tales. These are, you know, things passed down that are of consequence in our life. And is there a difference between Sasquatch and Harry man? No, there's no difference. It's basically the same thing. It's just that it was referred to by the native people as hairy man.

They felt calling it by the Yupik name, whatever it may be, is there's a strong superstition that it'll call it in or call in a bad omen against the family or, you know, what have you. You have a bad fishing season or, you know, someone could die in the family.

So, you know, they always called it the hairy man versus its, you know, actual Yupik name because of these things, you know, and for superstition, I don't kind of buy into that this day and age, but it started somewhere and for good reason, I'm sure.

So I try to respect that especially if I'm talking to someone from the village who still has those very strong beliefs to not speak about it out loud you know because we'll be talking they'll be sharing their encounter and then when they get to say the hairy man was over there they would almost whisper it that the hairy man was over there you know that kind of thing and so it's kind of uh it's it's one of those dynamics that you just kind of push through and deal with but For me, as a young kid,

I already knew the knowledge because it was told to me. And then we had one scream at us and throw rocks in 1983.

It was up on Black Bluff at the mouth of the Nushigak River in the Tidal Zone right by Angel Bay. And that was eye-opening. The screaming and throwing rocks, you know, it definitely brought everything into focus as far as the danger of these things. Because we were just stuck on a gravel bar, and this thing just started chucking rocks at us and screaming. And so, you know, it was for me, I was raised with the knowledge.

So I and we were always taught you don't chase it. And so for me to do this now is kind of going against the grain because I didn't I didn't start doing this until just, you know, a couple of years ago. But I felt compelled just for public safety issues, you know, like, hey, be aware, like bear aware. You know, this happened to Joe Schmo over here. And, you know, I kind of take that direction with it. And what's the first Sasquatch or hairy man story you remember hearing?

It was, gosh, I was real young, but I remember my grandpa talking about when him and his brother were on a sailboat, because back in the day in Bristol Bay, they used little 30-foot sailboats to do the salmon fishing, which I can't even imagine how difficult that was. But they took their boat up to Aleknegik, and they were at a place called Bear Bay by Bear Creek, and they floated in there and they were going to subsistence.

They were going to throw a net and basically cork off this little bay area of the lake and catch a bunch of salmon for subsistence. And they were there early in the morning and they saw a bear running and they saw one of these creatures chasing behind the bear.

And when the bear crossed the creek or was going across the creek, another one of these creatures jumped out of the brush onto the bear and then they commenced to tearing it open, drinking its blood and eating its liver and then just left the carcass and walked off. So that that was my introduction to the yeah it is pretty pretty gruesome but uh yeah so.

You know hearing that as a young kid and from the people you respect you don't question it you know what i mean you don't question your elders you know for for the younger kids we were the worker bees we you know we listened to what was being told because we're there to learn you know whatever it may be and you know as a kid you kind of hate it because you're doing all the work but it's so you learn how to hang a net it's so you learn how to patch a net or you know

what have you so you as a kid you kind of get resentful like well i'm doing all the work you're not doing nothing but in reality they're they're teaching you a life skill and you just don't recognize it because you're a stubborn kid you know mm-hmm. Yeah, that story about the Sasquatch attacking the bear, you know, and eating it is, at least to me, feels a lot more animalistic than many of the stories I've heard before.

You know, the stories I've heard before are encounters or are menacing stories.

Yeah that i'm and you know it kind of varies too you know some of them like if if i look at the the library of things that i've you know produced and put out there overall a lot you know most of them these things they show themselves they they make a display and you know 10 out of 10 times damn near unless someone's stuck in a cabin or something they get the hell out of dodge you know which is basically what's been going on for a millennia you know like with us we were always taught

you don't follow them you don't follow strange whistles in the woods don't whistle in the woods you'll call them in you know and things of this nature and it's you know it's gosh, the ones that really bother me are the ones with kids involved because I being a father myself you know I just I cringe when a woman will tell me it was at the window looking at my kids you know what I mean that just is like uh the mental image alone is like oh crap yeah you know it it just ups

that danger level, you know, to a different place, you know, especially with the kids, any mama bear will protect her cubs. You know what I mean? So it gets, it gets kind of creepy when it comes to that. Yeah. On your website, you say that they are not our friends and that in Alaska, they are more aggressive than encounters you've heard from the lower 48. Why do you think they're more aggressive in Alaska? You know, that's a good question. What I feel, and again, this is pure speculation,

but I feel it's our extreme environment up here. I mean, you've been here. Winters are unforgiving and we have such a short season when it is here to gather the materials, you know, the fish, the moose and what have you. And I think that extreme environment coupled with, you know, us coming into those areas as they're in those areas for the resources as well, it becomes a direct conflict. So it's kind of that, you know, hey, this is my berry patch.

Hey, these are my hunting grounds kind of feel to a lot of the things that happen. But yeah, it's definitely, man, there's so many aspects, you know, that it could be. And that's one of the driving factors as well as all the unanswered questions.

Why are women targeted? You know, you hear that all the old stories about, you know, protect your women and children. I was raised with those same stories. You know, you never let a woman walk home alone. You know, none of that stuff, because there's so many missing people up here that they're just walking a quarter mile down the road and they're gone. No sign, nothing, not a trace of them ever found. You know, they're just gone.

And a lot of you know the the speculation is you know hairy man abduction you know and things like that so it's like what do you do with who do you report that to you know because the powers that be typically will not put that down in a report you know they'll put down you know probable bear predation or something along those lines even though they found no trace of a bear an attack site or anything like that and if you know anything about bears they don't snatch

you up and run 20 miles away leaving no trace you know it's a knock down drag out until you're dead or they got you pinned and start eating yet they're not gonna run away with you you know what i mean so. Women are more likely to be attacked by hairy man or Sasquatch. That's the consensus, yeah. And smaller, younger children, you know. And that's just through our oral tradition. And, of course, I'm not there when every woman goes missing or whatever, so I don't know the circumstances.

At one point, I wanted to investigate some of the more problematic type missing cases where the people just disappeared without a trace, you know. And there's so many of those and trying to get the information or any kind of thing outside of the bulletin, just the missing person bulletin, you can't.

You can't get anywhere looking into it because their trump card or their cop out, so to speak, which is legitimate, is it's an open investigation and they don't share information on open cases, just the bulletin. So you can't necessarily investigate it or, you know, try to get context to why they went missing.

Did they go missing in the village? you know and you know they'll get the last known location but nothing else behind that so it's really hard to you know say for sure what's what you know so trying to filter through all that information it was just so daunting I just I just stopped the attempt because it was like above and beyond my means of understanding the internet FOIAs you know freedom of information acts you know you have to you have to get a FOIA just for 9-1-1 strange

9-1-1 calls you know and you have to have a specific date and time when your request when you just want the general information like is there a strange creature call you know over here or over there that kind of thing you just can't get that information do we know why hairy man attacks people are these situations like brown bear attacks where humans are in their territory or is hairy man hunting humans. You know, that, that's a good question. I think it's, I think it's both.

I think, um, because our oral tradition, I respect it, you know, they didn't waste their words. So I think it's, I think it's a 50, 50 thing. I think some of it is, you know, they're out to hunt people when, when, you know, the, I guess the ease of catches is good for them.

You know opportunistic hunter and the other times i think it's they have their resources they just don't want you getting involved so they run you off you know what i mean and and it's always done through aggressive displays regardless of what they mean behind them we don't know and let's be honest if you have a eight to ten foot being you know massive four and a half foot wide screaming at you regardless of what it means by it you're going to take that as aggression i don't care who you are

that's gonna seem like a very aggressive thing it's gonna be intimidating you know definitely so so it's hard to say you know yeah they they appear more aggressive up here they definitely do.

But what's behind that is it just a display but you know again there's that other 50 you know that other side of the street of the missing and the oral tradition of they will take you and eat you You know, so it's, it's one of those weird conundrums of, well, which is it, you know, is it, you know, 50% of the time they just want you out of there, the other 50% they're hunting you.

And, and, you know, that's just way, way hard to like pinpoint that, that turn of the coin from an aggressive display to a full on you're done.

You know what I mean? They're going to, they're going to snatch you and eat you. and that's one of my driving forces doing this is hoping to find some kind of information that kind of uh what that light switch what that trigger is to go from just a an aggressive display to a full-on attack and you know predation on a human and it's it's elusive you know that trying to find that information is very elusive because all we have is anecdotal evidence you know,

Do we know what hairy man does when it's not mauling or terrorizing people and other animals? You know, I've talked to people who live in remote places that will see these things at a distance and they'll just appear to be going along, you know, just picking berries or moving from one area to another. I think they follow the food because I get, you know, reported sightings, you know, of road crossings when the caribou are crossing the Richardson Highway.

You know, I had gotten a few of those reports just recently, and they appear to follow the food. So, you know, I think it runs the gambit. I think, you know, you have ones that are like nomadically roaming after the food. And I think they also move around like we used to in ancient times where we had fish camp, you know, and then we had moose camp in the fall and we had winter camp over here.

You know what I mean? So I think they move around like that, but I don't see it as a full on migration north to south kind of deal.

Cause then if that was the case, I think, uh, there'd be a lot more sightings, you know, than what's, what's being reported. So you grew up subsistence hunting when you're thinking or talking about hairy man, are you considering it as a hunter would predator versus prey, or are you considering it as an equal?

Um well gosh you know that's a really good question cody um it's mainly viewed as uh an adversarial or adversarial predator so for me anyway i can't speak for others but for me i view it as an adversary yet potential predator you know that that's going to be against me so being out in the field I don't stay paranoid about it but I'm aware of it so if there's like a weird owl hoot that is just not natural you know a bar owl hoot or whatever kind of owl hoot

these things will mimic them perfectly like a time or two but for whatever reason they exaggerate it after a couple calls it'll get real loud and obviously an imitation, and you know you you listen to those cues short sharp whistles uh they can mimic just about anything you know what i mean so when i'm out in the woods i'm very aware of the the sounds around me and if they're natural or not and i don't know if you've ever heard porcupines mating but it sounds

like demons coming out of hell man okay it is not a pretty sound and the first time i heard that i thought a witch was coming after us you know i was like what the heck is that, You know, because it was the most ungodly sound Jeez Yeah. So there's this interactive map of Sasquatch encounters in Alaska on your website that goes back to the 1800s. And the encounters span a good portion of the state, from a couple of Aleutian Islands to up north to central Alaska to southeast.

Have you found stories from different parts of Alaska to be similar, or are they different from one another?

You know, they seem to have the same narrative theme, like being pushed out.

Or being watched it's it's like either they're being pushed out or they're being watched, it's usually one of those two um but yeah they're very similar the the main difference being is how they're viewed by those communities some you know some say that they have shaman that talk to them, you know which is something that was i i never heard of that but again that wasn't from my tribe It was from a separate tribe down on the YK Delta.

And what was told to me was about a decade ago, this elder found a basket floating in the lagoon, right, of their village. So he went to inspect it and he noticed the basket was immaculate. It was not a weaving that they were accustomed to. And so he went to inspect it. And according to what was shared, there was a dead infant of one of these creatures in that basket. And so he saw that and initially thought it was a human child until they looked closer and realized it wasn't.

So he decided he would bury it, give it a Christian burial, so to speak. So he goes and does that. And within three days, the shaman that lived a couple of villages away was contacted by these beings saying, give us back our child or it's war. So the shaman went investigating, trying to figure out what was going on, found the guy who buried it.

They came with the shaman, one of the representatives, I guess we could call it, and inspected the burial site and saw that it was done with respect and only said, we'll leave it be, but never touch our stuff again or it'll be war.

Or that even looks like, I don't know. i couldn't imagine 15 20 of these things off in the tree line threatening war yeah what do you what do you do with that you know what i mean like yeah you know it's one of those things it's it's you know it varies by tribe, And there's this story from the 1800s that is on that interactive map. What is that story?

A couple of guys, prospectors, you know, during, you know, around near the gold brush era were prospecting and, you know, they, they had made their way, you know, word of mouth back then was the only way they communicated.

And they had heard, you know, good stories about down the Yukon river at a certain point you head east and you'll find this particular mountain and, you know, you'll find this creek where this gold is you know it's kind of like an Eldorado type story for them but you know they followed the instructions and found this place and you know they were just strictly trying to prospect gold and then they were accosted and you know they had to endure some things and what made

that encounter very unique for me to even hear it was a channel subscriber who lives over in Finland that account was from his great grandpa's journals so what ended up happening is is he went out of his own pocket and hired a translator because I wasn't getting everything he was trying to say in his broken English. You know, there's a difference in slang words and understandings of those kind of things. So a great guy, his name's Fritz.

He was named after his great-grandpa, but he went out of pocket, hired an interpreter to share the encounter with me, which really, it blew me away how generous that was. You know what I mean? to make sure that his grandpa's story was heard as well. But these prospectors were, again, accosted. They showed up. The miners didn't know exactly what to do. So when in doubt, let's kill it. You know what I mean? That was kind of their motto back then.

And so they had a couple of glitching guides with them. And they basically made their times harder. This thing ended up killing dogs. It stole from them. It became a harassment issue You know, To be somewhere so remote and be so alone, man, you got to be a hardcore person to, you know, know that you're going to be gone from your family for potentially years. And then to stick around with this thing, openly aggression, throwing rocks, you know, they fired on it several times.

You know, the glitching guides, you know, they were like, hey, you can't be doing that. You know, hey, you know, we should leave. You know, the glitching guides kept encouraging them to leave.

And at one point at the the peak of the aggressions going on they left however roughly less than a week later they were back because they went around the back side of uh the beaver mountains to the east and ended up seeing a couple of these things up on the on the mountain the trail was too rough that way so they end up having to come back anyway but you know for your guide to want to take off on you know you're into some stuff you

know especially when they're getting paid well and all that but you know they killed their donkey uh part of the problem with getting that whole story was some of the pages were kind of degraded and so there's certain aspects of what happened with those guys that I wasn't able to get the whole story on I the best we got was this goat or this donkey was killed they came back up onto it it appeared to have you know its rear leg partially torn off uh it had a broken neck but was

still kind of alive you know it hadn't quite you know kicked off yet so it was you know real recent so you know these guys end up just building a little portal they had no windows so they built this little portal in the wall so they could you know peek at it and fire out it if need be and you know at one point this thing was doing a display stomping up and down the creek and screaming you know almost like calling them out and then they go out and you

know they fire on this thing and it runs off and you know it just. Uh, I, I, I have a very, uh, like, uh, I don't know if you call it a vivid imagination, but when I'm, when I'm picturing it, I can almost be there. You know what I mean? I can almost feel what these poor guys were going through just from life experience out in the woods. You know what I mean? And to be that far away from anything would just, I mean, Oh, geez, geez, man.

You know? And again, what do you do with that? You know, it turns into you, end up leaving you know what i mean which yeah you know thankfully they did i mean they lost four dogs they've lost you know rabbits they've snared they've lost cornmeal or whatever it may have been i wasn't quite sure in the translation what it equated to it could have been flour i'm not sure but uh you know again some things are lost in translation but yeah so they they basically,

were at the beaver mountain prospecting and the whole time all these shenanigans are going on And in the interim time, they're trying, they're still trying to prospect. They're still, I mean, they're going everywhere with their guns, but they are literally looking for every flake of gold they can with this chaos going on around them, you know, and it's sporadic at times and it gets quiet for times, you know, but it's something, man.

I'm not, my eyes don't get that big for gold, but I can imagine, I can imagine what it was like for them to invest years of their life, you know, basically their life fortune for the grub steak to be there. They want to, you know, make the most of it. And I respect the hell out of that, man. That is just more gumption than I got.

If I got to grab a shovel, I might, you know, contemplate renting a track hoe or something, you know, cause it's just like, you know, having spent this much time collecting these stories that span at least a century, You know, we are talking about the 1800s here. How interrelated...

Is hairy man to the history of Alaska in your mind? I think it is, I think it's history spans hours, so to speak. Because I was always told, when I asked, I was like, well, where'd they come from when I was a little kid? I was told they were always here with us. You know, we don't have any origin story other than they were here. Well, Fred, those are all the questions I have for you. I want to thank you for this conversation and for teaching me about hairy man in Alaska.

Yeah, no problem, Cody. I appreciate you reaching out.

And, you know, in the future, if there's anything that needs clarification or, you know, redoing or whatever, you just let me know, man. I'd be happy to help. Music. For more information about the Anchorage Museum visit anchoragemuseum.org This podcast was produced by me Cody Liska for the Anchorage Museum with additional help from Julie Decker. Music.