SO EP:651 The Cannibal Giants

I have a well known grandfather's names Austin Hammond, and he would tell stories. We learned a lot. There was a few times I talked with when we talked about the cannibal giant and I was very young and I was asking what it was and it says, it's a wild man in the woods. I didn't know what to think about that. As I was getting older, I think must have happened in nineteen sixty six. The first sighting I had, I was with two friends I loved going out in woods with They were clinking as well. They

always had a twenty two and a pelat gun. So I went with them and man, we hiked all over Gino. It was amazing because I loved hiking and I found the right people to be with. Many times we've been up and our favorite destination was the top of Amun Gino. If you ever seen a photograph of downtown Gino, you'll see a big mountain that rises up to thirty eight hundred feet, So it's a really difficult hike to go up,

but we would run all the way up. It m'd have been like late July, I think when we went up, because when we were to go up, we would always shoot grouse our term again, which is a state bird. So I really do do we eat anything we can get our scope on. We would do it, and we never shot things that we wouldn't eat. To me, that was wasteful. I figure, if you're going to put something down, you better use it. Many times we went up, we all took turns shooting. That's where I learned how to

tether and clean our grouse and cook it. I just learned by watching and then later learn by doing. But this one time in July we went up, it was kind of odd. We were getting near the top the mountain, which is the hardest part of the high just like endless switch back that's just going up, and we just realized how quiet it was. Really quiet. Usually you'd hear Tarmigan's mormots we'd hear other birds and and even insects. We'd hear any of that. We finally made it to

the top and it was really warm out. We sat down and we were talking that we didn't see anything. We were talking about how quiet it was, and we had some prode with us. We sat down, we started eating. One of my friends saw something in a distance going up as snow slope was a Calli slope. There's patches of snow here and there. We looked at as though

it must be a black bear. He had a little four power scope on us, a twenty two, and we looked through it and we realized that thing was on two feet walking up the hill and walking up really fast. The reason why that stood out to us is we did that tight from Salmon Creek Dam going up to kind of like the northwestern a sent up mounta Gino. Not too many people do that because there's no trail. We just went right off the Chamma Creek dam and just started headed up the mountain bushwalk a way up.

So we thought that was quite odd that this thing was moving really fast, which we all knew how difficult it was. Whenever you want it, you take three steps and you go back two steps, so it's really difficult hiking. We must have watched it for four or five minutes, and so it took for it to go up that slope that got up to the tree line. And in Januar area, the tree line is around two thousand feet. Some mountains are twenty one hundred feet. But it's all

very similar. To think about the tree line is the trees at the treelane, they're all about six foot tall than anything above that. There's nothing but shrubs and bushes. There's no trees. That thing each the top, we noticed it was really tall. It was much taller than the trees, and we said, man, we all start talking that we knew what it was. We didn't call it the hairy man back then, but call it the world.

the ridge and then disappeared on the other side. That time. That's sighting I'll never forget because it made me very curious what these creatures was. I told my father my uncles, and he told me more stories sightings that they've heard and some of them have seen. That just started something in me about being very curious of what this was. We have a lot of stories in my tribe about creatures in the woods, and the one we know the most is the cannibal giant. And the cannibal giant is

I can fifteen, pretty tall. They catch you, they'll eat you. In fact, there's a well known totem vo in southeast. It's a cannibal giant hesehold and the man. The man on the totem. The guy is dead and he's upside down and this creature's holding them. We always knew about them. We're told never to go in the woods, especially the women. My purpose of going there was I wanted a videocap to glacier. When you go there. It rumbles like every ten minutes. And when I rumbles, there was ice moving.

I wanted to capture that on video. I must have been there an hour and a half and I finally got it on the video. I got the rumble of the gray shirt and I saw the ice moving. I felt hot. I finally got what I wanted. That's when I realized how late it was. It was between four and four thirty and the sun was getting ready to just set way out in the distance of the sun was just getting ready to disappeared behind these islands out in lincolnal. I said, Man, I'm going to be in

darkness in no time. So I gathered everything I had collapsed, my tripop in my pack, and I started heading back as fast as I could. I probably piked a mile down when I got caught in the darkness. It just got so dark because I was in the woods and I was so dark, I couldn't even see my feet. I was wearing tennis shoes and they were white. I couldn't even see my feet. So it was very slow going. I knew that trail so well. I also stood still for ten minutes to let my eyes suggest or I

could see something that wasn't much light continue down. As I was going down, I heard something walking. I was at a part of the trail where as I'm hiding down that trail, on the left of me, there's this little granite dome. It's not that igh, it's only like thirty forty feet taller than me. When you go on top of that dome. On the other side, it's a mininol glacier. It just drops right down to the glacier.

And on my right there's this little valley that slowly rises, and it's a really steep little valley to slope through, like forty some degrees. Whatever is this thing of walking down at the bottom going up the mountain. I was listening to it and the sound of loud I couldn't recognize what it was because it sounded more than three or four footsteps. Usually if it's an animal, you would recognize it, like a moose or deer. That deer and

you would only hear it if they're racing. But usually deer a very silent as they run through the woods. But you could hear moose, and of course bears you just heard them because they just crashed through everything. I couldn't recognize this. I knew the bears were ebernating, who had no clue. Was too big to be a woos. They're party quiet. I remember thinking, whatever you go on or I'm going this way, which was down, and you're

going the other way, which is up. Stopped moving, And when it stopped moving, I stopped because I was trying to figure out what it was doing this only it took one to two seconds of me stopping one owner was started launching it. This thing was running up the mountains, running up the side of the handle towards me. It was crashing through a lot of brush. There's a lot of Sitka Spress, Western End Block, Devil's Club, and blueberry bushes.

The reason why I know there's blueberries because many times I've hiked down that little valley and infect blueberries. It's really tough going through that brush, and this thing was ripping through like a train. The fear just rose up to me so great I even tasted it in my mouth. I've never been afraid. I've come across many animals since I was hunting brown beerries. Moose was surrounded by packslaars and you're supposed to talk to them at least that's

what they teach us in my tribe. But this fear was so great I just couldn't believe it. He had realized it running up towards me. It only took two three seconds to reach me. I remember having a literal lamp on my Sony camcorder. Once you flip up, it turns on, and I flicked it up. It wasn't a bright light, but it's mostly even made to light subjects five six feet away at the most. Whatever this thing was like thirty feet or so. It was pitch black.

I saw it behind a western hemlock. That western hemlock tree must have been like ten inches twelve inches in diameter. It was still collar me, but yet it was down the mountain, down the hill, so I was looking at its size. I couldn't see any detail. I saw. It was a blackness, a silhouette. I could see his head and knows bob and behind the tree as it was looking at me, And I saw his shoulders which was like five feet in within it, I saw the length of his torso, and I saw his legs which looked

like tree trunks. It takes me a long time to describe what I saw but this all happened. But then just a seconds and I yelled and whistled in the end up running against my better judgment because you're not supposed to run from animals, but the fear on me was so great it just like all common sense went out. And I was moving, and I heard these things moving up to where I was as I was running, and you got to realize I was running and pitch blackness. I knew I saw that one, but I was wondering

where the other one was. Because when those twas split up when they were running up the hill, I found like two guys running, two big guys. That's when I just left and I ran as fast as I could. I ran into a tree and almost knocked myself out. I felt the blood going down my fork kit. I just kept going. Member was a random mile. There's this little switchbacks which has you said, all chains for a rail. So I knew exactly where I was and I just followed that going down that Kevin going until I got

to the level ground. By the time I got to the level ground, I stopped. I listened. I didn't hear anything behind me. I was relieved about that, but I was shaking so hard because when I first started running, I heard it behind me. I heard some noise. I just said, no, weird exactly. So I just started walking back to my truck, which was at the parking lot. Those of you who bend to Jannal It's nearest Skeeter's campin on Mend in all Lake As where the starts

in the West Glasier Trail was. I made it back back then I was a smoker. I wasn't a heavy smoker, but I like cigarettes. I got in my truck, slammed the door shut, blocked it. The chain smoked like six cigarettes in a rail just because I was shaking so much.

deer hunting. I did a lot of outdoor things, and of course my dad, which I've done many things with. They both couldn't believe. The next day I went to the ranger station at the min in Old Glacier. I reported what happened to me, and the arranger I was talking to says, these heard many reports of had in that same area before. I wasn't the first one, and he just wrote my information down. Greta, have you heard of this book the Rainco Sasquatch.

maybe a couple of times a year. In first two years, every time I started having a story, there would rise up. It was the most puzzling thing. I never had that before. I think he mentioned it's a primal fear. It just takes over and you have no control over it. It's just there. Yeah. Twenty seventeen, I happened to go close to the beginning of the Westvio Glacier Trail. I was and kind of going up a little ways, but when I got to the parking lot, the fear rose up

in me again. I said, nope, I'm not going. Twenty eighteen had to been in the middle of summer. My brother Bulah went with me. We did the hike. I think I did a lot of processing at that time because I was finally was able to tell the story without feeling this fear. My brother just agreed to come with me, so we up the trail all the way to the end. I couldn't find the spot where this incident happened. It was on my way back that I

found it. Found exactly where I was standing and I found a tree where this creature was, where the sasquatch was standing behind. That was something else. I meant, it was definitely healing, but there was something being there. So when you saw.

babe taller. It was big. Showing my relatives that they've seen him up to fifteen feet, I mean, there's some really big ones down in Southeast, especially in the southern part of Southeast.

But we all have relatives who were really old fashion, and he used to row his boat or trawling, laying out the elebent lines out, just pull it up by hand because they couldn't afford an engine or something to pull up the gear. There was some of them rollder relops were extremely tough, and it told me stories about these creatures and it is always read an impression on me that what they saw must have been amazing because they were afraid. I had never seen fear any of

my relatives. Yeah, that speaks volumes.

to understand his English. A nice enough guy, so he's ski during They're literally with their dogs ski jouring the idit Arod Trail, beautiful pristine wilderness. They were about three days into it. They had gotten a snow machine ride between a couple different checkpoints because of the weather conditions in between those checkpoints, and they were just north northwest of Rainey Pass. There was a small little hamlet of cabins.

was hard to understand the guy. So what ends up happening is they all break up into their own little personal groups because two of them knew each other and the other two knew each other and it was a mutual friend of the other person kind of thing. So they broke up into the individual little cabins. Most cabins up here people unless they bear proof them and lock them up for bears that will leave them open with

no food or anything, just as a shelter. I know our cabins back home in Dillingham, up the Newshgak River. We leave them unlocked so no one has to break anything to get in, and leave some firewood in there and some can goods dashed with a note on the table because bears can't read notes on where the can goods are. So anyway, I digress. They get there and they're whooped, they are tired. They have their dogs. Each of them had two dogs that were tethered to for

the ski drawing. So what they ended up doing is there's three of these little cabins, all within eyesight of each other. Now, these cabins there Caribou cabin style, basically a skinned two by material little shed, basically glorified shed. They call them caribou cabins. I don't know if you guys have seen them. So they're in these things, and these were strictly put there to be removable, and they were part of a checkpoint at some point for the

idea UD officials or some shit. So now it's wintertime, only one of these places still had a stove in it, so they all warmed up in the one it's dark out already, and they leave to go to their individual cabins after they warmed up. So as he gets into his cabin, he brings his dogs in. The dogs immediately are circling inside of this little cabin, real nervous. He didn't notice and being nervous when he was bringing them in. He put them in, came outside and was smoking a cigarette.

Before calling it at night, he had said that he was smoking a clove cigarette. One of the smells that wafted past his nose was like he had a bad cigarette, and so he figured, ah, this one's garbage. I want to enjoy one. So he put that out, lit another one and still had this funky smell and realized wasn't a cigarette, it was something.

where that tree is moving. Thought, not too much of it, sparse vegetation, according to him, it wasn't heavily treed in that spot with some trees, but not heavily treated. But it was just dark enough to where he couldn't make shit out. So he finishes his cigarette just periodically looking over in that direction because he is getting the creeps. Goes inside after a cigarette and is using one of those little sternal stoves to heat up some coffee and

something to eat. As he's doing that, he notices dark movement in front of the window just catches his eye and he looks up. Not in there. Dogs were in a corner. He said he heard movement. As the movement was going around the cabin. The dogs were going to the opposite corner each time from this movement. He's bewildered at what his dogs are doing. He had spent good money for his dogs, had them flown from Europe over here to do this thing. He's really perplexed at what

the hell's going on now. As he's debating on what's going on with the dogs, he catches movement on the opposite window. He catches his eye something moved past. As it moved past, he noticed just the slightest glint from eyeshine from his lantern he had on in this little cabin, and that glint caught his eye and gave him a feeling. He said in his soul that all was not well. He said he couldn't now. He was trying to explain this with broken English. So I may paraphrase a couple

of things. It's not to take away from it or add to it. It's just because of the language barrier. He broke into Dutch. Periodically. He'd be talking and trail off in the Dutch and I'd have to catch him anyway. So he catches his glint of eyeshine and immediately feels it in his soul, knows all is not well. So immediately he starts banging, going around, banging on the wall, yelling get away. All he saw was that glint in darkness. He couldn't make out. He didn't see a face or anything,

just that slight glint from the light. So he grabbed his little ski pole. It was winter time. There's really outside of moose whatnot. They weren't carrying firearms. They weren't even carrying bare spray.

This is a familiar size. And then he gets around two of the corners and he hears movement in the brush. Off to his right hand side and not off his left shoulder is this little cabin. So he turns and leans back against the cabin, just to have a backstop to lean back against, because when the snow falls on these places, it leaves a trough between the structure itself and the eve line of the roof. So he got this trough that can be pretty deep depending on the snow.

He slid down in this a little bit, and he was trying to get his foot back out as he's leaning back, leaning back against the cab, trying to pull his leg out of this little trough. Anyone who's been up in Alaska or anywhere where it snows knows what I'm talking about. That little trough that you'll pull you under a building if it's real silicual slide under that anyway. So while he's doing that, he's looking down, then looking around, and the second time he looks around, he looks over

to his right a little more and sees the eye shine. Now, this eye shine, he said, was what'd he say, three and a half four meters which would be what nine to twelve foot somewhere in there. I didn't do any conversion map, but he said three to four meters tall. As he was trying to figure out what the hell he was looking at, this thing was swaying back and forth. He said he wasn't breathing, taking his breath away, and

he's not but really frightened. So he immediately starts sidestepping to go back around this corner to get around away from this thing over here. He successfully gets back inside, shuts latches a little door, basically sits down against the door, trying to figure out what he was just saying, because he said he saw a hairy neanderthal man, gray skin, big face, the eyeshine was amber orange ish red, something like that. He wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or not.

He came back in and the only thing that broke his train of thought was his little sternal stove. He was boiling something on. It was fizzing over, so it got his attention. He shut off his little stove, and that broke his train of thought on that shit he just saw. Just momentarily, all of a sudden, there's a fump against the door, a big, heavy thump, like something was going to try to break in. But it was just a single time bamp shook him up to his core.

He didn't know what to do, so he started yelling for his buddies in the other cabins. Now one of the other guys that he was unfamiliar with. He came over with the nice acs and the other people followed him with their headlamps, all looking everywhere. He's yelling at him in Dutch or whatever they speak. Watch out, there's a wild man. There's a wild man. They all start looking around, and he was looking out the window as

they were searching because he was freaked out. He wasn't going back outside as he was yelling at them through the window to be careful. It was big. They all scatter, They all scatter around, are banging on his cabin door, so he lets them in. They all scurry in. Just as they get in and shut the door. On the back side of that little cabin was a big fam He said. It sounded like the place was going to explode.

So this thing ran up and hit the cabin. Said it was only hit once, but it shook the whole place. A moment later was a very loud scream.

This wasn't a no brochure. They tried to coax the dogs up. These particular dogs. I guess they're European hunting, bear tracking dog or some shit who knows. The dogs wouldn't do shit regardless. They were a bear dog, smart dog, basically a smart dog. It wasn't doing nothing. So they literally sat there. No one breathed, it seemed like, he said, for a good while, good couple hours. After some time

it calmed down. The rest of the group decided they're going to make a break for their cabins, keep an eye out for each other, scream if they need help. They'll settle it like that, because they all had their own sleeping arrangements, So they gingerly went back out made their ways over just as it was getting the light in the morning. He didn't sleep at all. He was dead dog tired, but he couldn't fall asleep, he said.

Just as it was starting to get light on the horizon, he had happened to be staring out the window, kind of hypnotized his zone and out staring out a window and realized there was a big thing in the window. As soon as he sits up, it moves out away the window. So as it moves out of the way of the window, the dogs light up, and this time the dogs bark and come over by the window and are yapping right ro ro. He hears heavy footfall in the snow, moving away, not fast, but just moving away.

Don't and so on, So he's relieved that it's leaving, so he decides he opens the door and lets the dogs out. The dogs run out, and they tear off in that direction, barking where he said he doesn't know where they got their fearlessness from all of a sudden, because all night they were cowardice little bitches over in the corner. All of a sudden they're gung ho to go after it. So he let them out. They run off, barking.

He hears them barking for a while in one area and moving a little bit and barking and moving and barking. Then they come scurrying back. A few minutes later. He felt confident enough they had run it off. All the barking and noise and whatnot lit up the other dogs with the other teammates, and they started barking and shit inside their cabins, waking everyone up. So, with the events

of the night before, they're all paranoid. They're up, they're throwing on their shit, they're grabbing their little ice axes and their little ski poles, and they're coming out to look and help or whatever. Right, so when they open their doors, the other dogs they take off. So there's eight dogs total on this trip. All eight are now off into the trees. Everyone there is trying to call them back. Now when he notices his teammates come out, he comes out of his cabin and starts telling them, hey,

they ran off, they were running it off. They'll come back. So they sit around waiting and calling for the dogs periodically. Finally, after he said it was after like two hours, the dogs come back. One of them had a broken leg, and the two of them weren't right. I asked him to elaborate, what do you mean not right? He said, they weren't acting like dogs. They would just walk in. They followed the other dogs and trailed the other dogs coming in but all they would do is walk in

a little circle. They were just stuck on something, so those two dogs were worthless from that point on, he said. So they ended up lasing up what they could the two dogs that mentally they would follow, but they wouldn't pull, so they at least knew they could tether them and the dogs would follow along. The one with the broken leg. The other teammate threw the pack style over his shoulders until they got to the next spot to get out of there. When they got to the next place, he

couldn't remember the name of the little village. There was a language barrier. All he could say is wild man.

a bit of money to come over here. They got similar terrain over there, but it's not Alaska, and they wanted to do the idea or odd trail. Goodness, gracious, Yeah, it's not a good feeling to be stuck in somewhere not knowing what's going on around you. Trust me, it's not a good feeling. Who do you go to with

this shit without coming across like a maniac or a weirdo. Anyway, what's easy for someone who hasn't dealt with something like that to chalk it up is that guy lost his mind out in the woods too long talking to the birds. It's not that kind of party anyway, until the next one.