Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

For the past four years, I’ve lived in the Yukon. About two years ago, my husband and I moved onto a property in Mendenhall, near Kusawa on the Alaska Highway. During our first week there, my husband heard banging coming from up the hill, near an empty cabin.

It sounded like someone was knocking on solid wood. Not hollow wood.

Solid.

The sound went on for about four minutes. A couple of days later, it happened again. Naturally, we started getting curious. What in the world was making that noise? I should probably add some background about myself. I’m 52 years old, and I’ve spent my entire life wandering around the bush. I did it as a child and have never been the kind of person who was afraid to go exploring.

About a week later, my husband was at work, and I was lying in bed.

It was dark outside. Suddenly, something whooped right behind our motorhome. The first time, my brain didn’t immediately register what I was hearing. Then it whooped again. And a third time. This time there was no mistaking it. The sound was incredibly distinct.

That’s when it clicked.

Those banging noises we’d been hearing up the hill…I realized what they might have been.

The Dog

Fast forward to this summer. We went out toward the Kusawa area to a spot where we like to look for mushrooms. We had our dog with us. He’s a bush dog. He loves being out there and normally takes off into the bush without a second thought. He’ll disappear for a while, come back, check in with us, and then take off again.

That’s exactly what he did that day. He went charging into the bush like he normally does. He came back out a few times. Then he went back in. And suddenly, everything went quiet.

Completely quiet.

Then we heard our dog scream. I’ve never heard him make a sound like that in the bush before. He’s never been afraid of being out there. Not even around bears. My husband and I immediately took off running into the bush. He went to the left, toward where the scream had come from, while I stayed on the path I thought our dog would use to get back to us.

My husband reached the area where the scream had come from. He saw something large take off to the left. It was hunched over as it moved.

Whatever it was, it was big.

My husband didn’t get a clear look at it, but he was certain it wasn’t simply our dog or some small animal running through the brush. And I know our dog. A bear would not normally make him react like that. Not even a grizzly. A moment later, our dog came out of the bush exactly where I thought he would. He was shaking like a leaf.

Literally trembling. But he wasn’t injured. Whatever had happened in there had scared him badly.

Mendenhall River

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, we took Timber out toward Champagne Settlement. We weren’t planning anything unusual. We just decided, almost on a whim, to stop at the Mendenhall River and see if we could get down to the water. We couldn’t. The bank was far too steep, and the clay made the slope even more difficult to navigate.

But while we were there, I noticed something. And that’s when I found this. I couldn’t get down to it to measure anything or get a closer look. The bank was simply too steep and unstable. The clay you can see in the picture is basically the entire surface of the land in that particular spot. So I couldn’t get close enough to determine exactly what I was looking at.

But after everything that has happened around here the unexplained banging, the whooping, and especially what happened with our dog I couldn’t help but wonder if there might be a connection.”