Paul Kane (1810-1871) was an artist and walked all over North America sketching Native people and scenery. His artwork is beyond astounding, and his book, The Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America, is likely among the best books anyone will read who is interested in native culture and general life in the early wilderness. On March 26, 1847 Kane arrived at Mount St. Helens, Washington.
The famous wild life painter Paul Kane wrote that while painting around Mount St. Helens he would often have local Indians guide him into some of the more isolated regions of the mountain. When it came to exploring the giant crater along the Southern ridge the Indians balked.
The natives told Kane that a race of hairy giants inhabited that area of the mountain. A race of beings of a different species, and who were cannibals. These giants were extremely aggressive and often raided their camps and stole their women. The natives told Kane that these being had strong liking for human flesh. The Indians of that region called them “Skoocooms” for fierce and fast. Kane offered a considerable bribe to any native who would accompany him in an exploration of the mountain, but none came forward. Mount St. Helens would later become highly associated with many Sasquatch related incidents.
Mount St. Helens today
Christopher c
We will take you only so far, but after that you are on your own LOL!
Patrick N
I was once canoeing the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. These aren’t your normal backyard ponds. The boundary waters are thousands of enormous lakes interconnected with each other (think mini-great lakes). We had been canoeing and camping along the lakes for about a week at this point. We didn’t really have an itinerary, just planned to boat and camp, fish, and live off the land two weeks. We had a GPS and a sat phone to call a helicopter for pickup whenever we were done.
Anyway, about a week in and we were set to canoe a few hours to the next lake. An hour or so in and we are in the center of a extremely long and narrow lake. Unfortunately, a storm started to blow in and the waves on the lake swelled to 2+ feet. Too much for our dinky canoes. We pull off to a random clearing on the shore and set up camp in rush to avoid being totally thrashed by a rainstorm. We just setup camp and hunker down for the night.
By the next morning it had cleared up. We started walking up the coast of the lake about 200 feet from our camp looking for a good fishing spot. What we actually found was another campsite. However, it was ABSOLUTELY wrecked. Trash strewn everywhere, tent collapsed and torn, clothes on the ground. At first we were just like disgusted like what assholes did this? or left their shit out to be bear food?
The more we looked around though, the weirder things seemed though. For one, their garbage was still hoisted into a tree to keep it safe from bears, but the whole bag was ripped open despite being 30 feet in the air. Second, literally everything except the canoes were still at the campsite. Clothes, packs, food, rope, pans, like a serious set of hiking equipment. Enough for 2 or 3 people. Half of it was trashed and torn open, mostly the packs, tent, and clothes. The other half was totally untouched but thrown on the ground. Like somebody NOPE’d the hell out of there in nothing but their long johns ditching hundreds of dollars of gear in the process. We waited a couple hours and eventually called it back to our helicopter crew– but they hadn’t been aware of anybody else or gotten any distress calls. We eventually just left everything and moved camp. Everybody was pretty upset by it and a day or two later we ended the whole trip early because it seemed like nobody wanted to be out anymore.
It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. First thought was bear attack, but there was food left uneaten, and I’ve seen bear attacks on camps before, but nothing like this. Bears rip open packs and go after food, and are generally pretty easy to scare away. What still sticks with me is why all their clothes and packs were still there with half being totally destroyed and half being untouched. I still don’t get it.
I’ve done a lot of other camping and hiking, rafting and biking, all around the country and I’ve never had any other weird experiences like that.
Tyler D
Doesn’t cannibalism mean to eat your own species? I could be wrong but that’s what I always thought. You hear that a lot in Native American legends and folklore. That these hairy giants would raid camps and also steal women n children and eat them so they were considered cannibal monsters. I don’t know why it’s considered cannibalism it seems more like a primitive nature than being cannibals. But I do have the utmost respect for these natives and the legends and folklore surrounding these monstrous beings
Esther P
Yeah you are right about the definition of cannibal… and some tribes call the Sasquatches who steal & eat children, women, etc as ‘Man-Eaters’.
Scott A
Tyler D, I heard on Sasquatch Chronicles and elsewhere that Native Americans consider Sasquatch to be a different tribe of another kind of human and so if they ate a human then it was cannibalism.
Robert H
Sounds like there meat eaters to me
Janetta V
Yea! And I bet it tastes just like chicken.
Tyler D
Exactly, sounds like they’re some carnivores. N also some tribes also considered them monsters or demons. N would still call them carnivorous but it doesn’t mean it’s accurate
Papa - Yeti
Also appears to make the point that the Native Indians appear to be frightened of a race of beings. Paul Kane’s journal entry, ►March 27th, 1847, ◄ reads: ►“When we arrived at the mouth of the Kattlepoutal River, twenty – six miles from Vancouver (Washington), I stopped to make a sketch of the volcano Mount Saint Helens, distant I suppose, about thirty of forty miles. This Mountain has never been visited by either whites or by Indians; the latter asserts that it is inhabited by a race of beings of a different spices, who are cannibals, and who they hold in great dread… these superstitions are taken from a man they say went into the mountains with another, and escaped the fate of his companion, who was eaten alive by the “Skoocums” (Skoocooms), or Evil genii.” ◄◄◄►I offered a considerable bribe to any Indian who would accompany me in its exploration but could not find one hardy enough to venture there.”
r v
Awwww, now look, see? You’ve gone out and, and, and, well, you’ve broken the darn thing! (Jimmy Stewart sees the photo of Mt. St. Helens).
Papa - Yeti
Anthropoids – the meaning of Anthropoid is: ‘of apes and monkeys, relating to the group of animals that includes monkeys, gibbons, great apes, and humans.’ um, you know? A monkeys uncle…
Rod C
When St. Helens blew were there any BF bodies found after by searchers? A whole lot of lumber flying through the air when she blew. Look at all the logs still floating in Spirit Lake on Google Earth.
Jim D
Yes there was a report made by a man who rode with some soldier who was helping the Sasquatch that were hurt in the Mt St. Helens eruption of 1980. The man said that this soldier was able to speak the language of the creatures. I’ll try to see if I can find that account.
Sean C
Damn, it would be awful to be a female in that tribe and time! I couldn’t even imagine the fear one would have, knowing that the men can’t even protect you.
Carol Germer
St Helens blew in 1980, when BF was not well known. There were no reports of finding BF bodies.
Mike B
i did hear a report of them slinging the bodies out under chinook helicopters.don’t know when i heard it and don’t know if i believe it,but it wouldn’t surprise me.
james s
janetta the islanders called it long pork
Chris I
Will said that there weren’t any sasquatch bodies found, he was sure because someone would have told him, but I think it’s been pretty well established that the government can keep people from talking and definitely are in the practice of doing so.
Jim D
Yea Will and his mysterious Mister X (-Files) I wonder if he also got information from the Marlboro Man. That guy is full of crap half the time and you can’t be sure if you should believe him the other half.
Jim D
Not for nuthin’ Chris, but I don’t place Wil as the be-all and end-all of the believability on Sasquatch encounters. There have been many discrepancies in his supposed encounters that Wes was too much of a gentleman to make public note of. Also, all of his, “yea that happened to me’s and I heard from Mister X” stuff was getting old and stale. Just because an operative’s so-called inside source doesn’t want a story to be true just doesn’t make it so for me, I prefer to dig a little deeper and if you click on the link there happens to be some corroborating testimony from someone who was on the ground at that time.
Jim D
Here it is, it’s a Bigfoot Evidence post from a few years back when actual real people were still able to comment there, before it was overrun by the idiots. http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2012/09/anonymous-former-national-guardsman.html
Jim D
Here is the guy’s letter to Shawn Evidence at Bigfoot Evidence from September 2012:
Dear Shawn:
I was reading some of the stories about Mt. Saint Helen on the message boards and wanted to share this one. I only ask that you withhold my name.
I was a National Guardsman at the Mount Saint Helen site and this is the first time I have ever spoken about what I saw firsthand. I lived in Spokane, Washington and was 24 at the time this all took place.
I have read some of the other stories and they only tell part of the story.
I was placed on a special cleanup crew farther up the mountain. A large tent was set up and it was be guarded by armed soldiers who were not part of the guard. There were numerous soldiers on the scene that were not members of the guard.
We were given a briefing by soldier who said that “after he spoke to us, we would forget about him and what he said at the end of the mission”. This was strange as we never dealt with anything before.
Myself and four other guardsmen were told to follow a group of soldiers and not to speak to each other and to remain very quiet overall. We were told to get into a jeep and wait. We sat in the jeep for maybe a half hour. Eventually another jeep arrived carrying a civilian and another member of the military.
The civilian was brought into the tent and he emerged a few minutes later followed by a large hairy creature. It looked like a large man covered in fur and the best way to describe it was like “Beast” from X-Men only brown.
The creature looked to have some burns and had a bandage on its arm. At first we were afraid but when it walked by we could see its eyes and it just looked very sad and somber. He climbed into the back of a pickup with the civilian and the two were speaking in a weird language I had never heard. It would cough at times.
We followed the truck to different areas. There were 5 total stops. Each time we stopped we were told to follow the civilian and the creature. Each time we followed them to rocky areas where there were caves. The creature would make a sound and then listen. At the first area he made a sound and we all just waited in silence. After a few minutes, the creature looked at the civilian and then at the ground. The civilian at one point touched its shoulder and called for a canteen to give the creature a drink.
The same thing happened at the next area but this time there was a response to the sound. After a few minutes two soldiers emerged from the cave carrying a badly burned creature just like the one with the civilian. The creature bent down next to it and looked it over for about five minutes. It then spoke softly with the civilian. It turned and walked back to the truck and we were told to follow as we were walking away we heard a shot and we knew it was one of the soldiers putting the creature out of its misery.
There was no response at the third or fourth site but at the fifth there was another return sound to the creature. This time it was different and soldiers carried out a creature with a badly burned left leg. We were then ordered to all help get a very large stretcher from the truck and to help place the creature on it and carry it back to the truck.
We then immediately returned to the base camp. The creature was carried into the tent while the other creature and the civilian spoke. We were ordered to stay in the jeep until we were to be debriefed. As the creature turned to walk into the tent it looked at us and made a waving gesture with its hand. We took it as a thank you for what we had done.
By the time we were ordered out of the jeep we were all in shock. We were called over to an area to be debriefed and it was just strange. I will never forget what was said because it was just not what was expected. I thought I would hear “You took an oath and now you need to live up to it for your country with a threat also implied. A different high ranking soldier just said “look, do you all really want an explanation? You saw what we were doing. These creatures live in these areas; they mean no harm and want to be left alone. Do you really want to do anything that may cause them trouble? They are like us in a lot of ways. If you need or want to talk about this just wait about 30 years, by that time there will likely be no reason to keep them a secret”.
We were then ordered back to the guard camp because “they were breaking it up so nobody saw too much and knew everything that happened”. We did not speak of it and after a few months I just took the attitude that these things live out there and honestly my life is no different because of it. I only bring it up now because people have been writing a lot about MT. Saint Helen and I believe that the whole story should be told.
I will also say this. I like to camp and hike and have done so many times throughout the Northwest. Every time I would look for signs of these creatures, tracks, listen for sounds etc. I never saw or heard anything other than what I did that day on Mt. Saint Helen.
Jeffrey H
Jim D.: I believe somewhere in the large list of SC podcasts you will find one that addresses this very topic. Wil, a former host of SC podcasts, had talked about this very story. I believe he stated he was there around that time and I believe he stated that the story was not true to the best of his knowledge because he would probably have been privy to that information being a Sgt. at the time who headed a squad and he knew some of the inportant people in the know who would have told him what was going on. So take this info as you may, you might ask someone where to find the podcast of not. i’m just giving it as a FYI type thing.
Jim D
Jeff read the comment that I wrongly posted to Chris above-that was actually meant for your comment
Carol Germer
I think the BF were smart enough to leave the area before it blew, because the mountain was doing a lot of rattling. People were warned to stay out of the area. This went on over a period of time.