Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I’m finally feeling like it’s time to share my story. My cousin and I, when we were kids, were chased out of the woods by what turned out to be what we could only describe as a sasquatch. We were about 10 years old at the time, and normally I would dismiss an experience like this as a kid’s imagination running wild, but I am sure we saw what we saw that day.

We thought it was a crazy man that was messing with us. As this thing chased us out of the woods, we got to what we thought was a safe distance away, and then we stopped to look for the “person” chasing us, so we could get a good look at this “guy’s” face and identify him so we could tell our parents and watch out for him. That’s why I am sure that what we saw come out of those woods that day was not at all a person chasing us. Here is the whole story –

When I was about 10 years old (around 1993), my family, along with my aunts and uncles and cousins, would get together for a camping trip every year on Memorial Day weekend. That year, we chose to go camping in Itasca State Park in Northern Minnesota. It was early evening, and my cousin and I decided to ride our bikes from the campground down to the headwaters of the Mississippi river, which begins at Lake Itasca in the state park.

We arrived at the walking trail that lead to the river, and we left our bikes there and walked in. There were two other people there, but they were on their way out, so we ended up being there by ourselves. We were just looking for cool rocks and that sort of thing when I heard a whistle that I thought was some type of bird. Even as a kid, I had a keen interest in birds, and this bird’s whistle was one I had never heard before, so it piqued my interest. The tune sounded sort of like “yoo-hoo”, and I whistled that tune back to see if it would respond.

Every time I whistled, got a response. I even changed up my intervals between whistles, to make sure it wasn’t just a coincidence in timing, but sure enough, every time I whistled, it would whistle back. It sounded like it was getting a little closer every time it responded to my whistle, so I was excited about possibly getting to see what kind of bird this was. After a little while, when the whistle was getting pretty close, something just seemed off. It didn’t seem like it was a bird to me anymore.

I thought it might be a person whistling, so I stopped whistling to it. Whatever it was, it kept whistling, despite no longer getting a response from me. As it got closer, the intervals between its whistles became less and less, almost as if it were starting to be frantic. I could now hear footsteps in the water, as if someone were walking in the lake along the shoreline coming towards us. I couldn’t see anything in the lake, as the the woods blocked my view down the shoreline. Then, this strange smell filled the air suddenly. I don’t know exactly how to describe this smell, as I had never smelled anything like it before.

It wasn’t exactly musky, but a rotten kind of musky smell, like a dog that had rolled all over a dead fish, but not quite exactly like that either. The smell scared me, and it was very strange that a smell made me feel fear. I looked at my cousin and said “do you smell that? Let’s get out of here!” We ran down the trail, all the while hearing this thing frantically whistling to us. We got to our bikes, and I told my cousin we should ride just a little way up the trail and stop so we could get a good look at this guy who was screwing with us, so we could describe him to our parents and watch out for him around the campground. We rode just far enough where we knew we could get away on our bikes from someone chasing us on foot, maybe 25-30 yards away, and we waited for him to emerge.

I could hear him running through the woods, off the trail taking the most direct rout to the bike trail. He sounded large. I watched the woods where I heard him crashing through, and I saw a spruce tree, maybe a 15 foot tall tree, shake and sway as if a bulldozer had hit it. I remember thinking “what the heck is coming out of these woods?” Then it emerged. It was a Bigfoot. It must have been at least 8 feet tall if I had to guess. It was wide and muscular like a gorilla.

It was completely covered in hair that was maybe 3-4” long and a dark reddish brown color. It moved so smoothly through the thick brush in the forest, thick brush and undergrowth that any man would struggle to get through on foot. We were absolutely terrified. We rode our bikes back to the camp ground faster than we had ever ridden, in tears from being so scared.

The adults saw something was terribly wrong when we rushed back and asked us what had happened. We didn’t really know how to say it, so we just told them we saw bigfoot. Of course they all laughed at us and thought it was ridiculous. We got really upset that everyone was laughing at us, so they stopped joking about it but still didn’t take us seriously. If it weren’t for the fact that we stopped with the serious intent of getting a good look at this “guy’s” face, I would probably dismiss this as a kid’s imagination getting the best of him. But I was dead set on getting a good look and seeing who this person was, and because of that, I have to believe I actually saw what I saw. I have never had another experience like that one, and I’m not sure I ever want to again.

That’s my story. I really don’t tell this story to many people because I know it makes me sound crazy to say that I saw a sasquatch. But I was dead set on getting a good look at the face of what we thought was going to be a man coming out of the woods after us. And I did get a good look, it just wasn’t a man that I got that good look at. It was terrifying and stuck with me my whole life, and I can’t explain it to be anything else than what I saw.”