A listener writes “I am Ojibwe, and live on Curve Lake First Nation. We’re a small reserve about 2 hours north of Toronto. We’re a fairly spiritual place. Our beliefs allow us to consider the possibility of the strange and unusual. I’ve been trying to find out my peoples traditional beliefs in Sasquatch but haven’t been able to find anything yet.
I’ve had 2 encounters with what I believe may have been Sasquatch. The first was when I was 12 in Northern Ontario. I was visiting my Aunt and Uncle at a different reserve north of Parry Sound. This reserve is very remote. In some very old forest.
I had made some friends and we were sitting around their living room talking about the new Schwarzenegger movie Predator. Their older cousin came into the room and asked us if we wanted to go swimming at the landing. The landing was about 6-7 miles down a twisty rough dirt road. But it was a great place to swim. There was docks and big red boulders we could jump from into Georgian bay.
We were swimming and fooling around for couple hours, when someone noticed the trucks headlights were on. Of course with our luck the truck wouldn’t start, and it was starting to get dark. An older boy who I had been hanging around with volunteered to walk back to the Rez for help. I offered to walk out as well.
My friend who I’ll call Jay had a little brother. He was probably 9 or 10 years old. He tagged along as well. We were walking for 15 minutes without incident. We were continuing our conversation about the movie. Basically telling the story line to his younger brother. Suddenly Jay noticed how quiet it had become.
I noticed him looking around with funny look on his face, and asked him about it. He said “it’s nothing”. So we continued walking but in silence. After a couple minutes of walking in silence we heard an awful noise. It was a high pitched squeal. I stopped and must of had a freaked out look on my face. Jay told me it was just a fox catching a rabbit. That calmed me down and we started again.
We were only walking for a couple minutes when we heard the same sound again. But this time there was a loud crash of bushed and we heard something running down along the side of the road. About 25 feet into the bush. Jays brother said ” that ain’t no fox” and started panicking.
He started crying and wailing. Jay slapped his brother across the face. Really hard. And said “you wanted to come now shut up”. He pulled himself together and said”ok”. In a quiet voice. We continued walking. We wanted to run but we didn’t. We just kept walking. We heard about 6 or 7 different rabbits being taken. Thinking back on it now. I think they were using us to flush out small game along the road side. When we would hear the crashing. I think they were moving up the road to position themselves in a good spot to catch more rabbits.
This carried one for about 10 mins. It seemed a lot longer to us at the time. It was almost dark when we saw a police SUV come driving towards us. The cop was Jay’s uncle. He was working needing why his daughter was taking so long.
We jumped into the truck and told him what had happened to us. He said it must of been a fox. But we knew better. He didn’t ask about the welt on Jay’s brothers face.
The second encounter was at my reserve. I was 17 and had moved into my first place. I had a friend who left for college and I took over his place. It was great. Except I was always broke.
One night I decided to hitch hike to my moms, back on the reservation. It was about a 20 mile hike. I got a ride to the main road but it was a quiet February night. There was a full moon and I could see really good. So I decided I’d just walk the last few miles. I got to the halfway mark and I started to hear these noises coming from the side of the road. They sounded like big dog growls. We didn’t have any wolves around at the time. Just coyotes. And these were not little coyote growls and yips. It had some serious bass to it. The woods I was walking by had a lot of broken trees from a bad windstorm. There was a lot of broken stumps. I could see something on the side of the road. It was about 5 feet tall and had ears on top of its head. It looked like a man crouching with a big dog head. I was trying to focus on it. Then I heard growling dog noises from other side of road. I looked to try and see what was growling but couldn’t see anything. So I looked back at what I thought was maybe a tree stump, and it was gone. This is where I started getting nervous. I knew it wasn’t no dog or coyote.
These things stayed with me for most of the walk into the Rez. At least a mile. I just kept telling myself not to run. When I finally made it to my moms house her husband tried saying it was probably a bear. I said ” it’s February and 10 below”. If it was a hungry grumpy spring bears I would of known.
I’m not sure what I saw that night. But I do know it wasn’t a bear or a stump. I haven’t told many people my stories. I’ve learned how most people will react. It’s usually jokes and ridicule. Thanks for giving us a place to vent without fear of ridicule.”