2010, Alberta, Canada
I am an avid hiker,fisher, and camper. I do go camping on my own quite often. I was camping on my own west of the town of Bragg Creek Alta. At about 10:00pm Thursday July 22/10 I started to hear a fair amount of movement in the forest around me. Around 10:30 I started to hear what sounded like the banging of logs together, so I did the same in return. I heard nothing. Around 1:30 that night it was pouring rain thunder and lightning. Again I heard the cracking of dead fall but this time it was very close to where I was camping.
This woke me up quite abruptly, laying in my tent listening with shear amazement but not moving. Then I heard very loud breathing right beside my tent thinking it might be a bear. At this time I’m a little frightened. For the next 3 to 4 hours while it is still pouring rain I heard a constant breaking of branches I had a tarp strung outside my tent for my cooking area. The animal literally hit the tarp as to be walking underneath it, that made me jump. I slowly unzipped the flap on my tent to see if I could see what was making all of the noise and I saw what seemed to be a upright animal walking down the hill towards the creek below my camp. Was camping on a plateau. that was as far as I was going to move at this time.
The next thing I hear was a grunt noise as if someone is exerting themselves and heard this animal pickup a large boulder and throw it. Next I heard him push over a large fur tree that was at least 30′ tall. Scaring the living crap out of me. This all happened the first night that I arrived. Around 4:45 to 5:00 am when daybreak was starting and the rain finally stopped I heard what to be a very loud bird like call, but was not anything I have heard before to the north of me, then I heard a response west of me, then a response east then south. It sounded like I was surrounded. after the last response there was nothing. These calls happened every morning that I was out there, which was 3 nights 4 days. When I left the area I called the conservation officers office and asked if they knew of anyone in the area at these times. They said no but were not sure.