Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I live in south eastern Manitoba Canada. I have been listening to your show for a while and it seems like you have a good handle on what this creature is. More importantly you are respectful towards the people that come on your show, you let them tell their story just the way they tell it. So, I thought I could share mine with you.

My first encounter happened in early April of 1984. I was 17 years old. We lived in a town called West Hawk Lake located in the Whiteshell Provincial Park where my dad worked for many years until his retirement, from the Department of Natural Resources.

It was a beautiful place to be a kid, I spent endless hours outside playing, and as I grew into my teens I would strike out for days at a time from our house on foot with a pack and a canoe on my back to hike and paddle the many miles of forest and lakes that was literally on my doorstep. It was my paradise, I never once ever gave a second thought to throwing down my tent in the middle of nowhere, alone to tuck in for a good nights sleep after a long day of portages and paddling.

Our town was a summer resort town, between May and labour day, it was a busy hub full of cottagers and campers staying for the season on the many lakes that dot the area. But when the season ended it went back to being a sleepy little town of about 60 to 100 people that included folks living just outside of the town too, so I can literally name every person who lived in the actual town that number is about 25. One paved road that dead ends at a lake, with a gas station a restaurant, general store and a post office. Although I don’t live there any more it hasn’t changed much over the years.

My experience happened in early April of 1984, I was in my last year of high school where I had to take the school bus with about 20 or so other kids that were gathered up by the bus every day along a route that wound through a few other small towns along the way 2 hours per day to the nearest school. It was mid term exam time, and I was working hard to get good grades because I had applied to join the Canadian Forces in the coming fall after I turned 18. So, after supper around 7:00 pm ( because I didn’t get off the bus until 6 pm) I walked about an 8th of a mile to my friends place to study for exams. It was still a little light outside when I left, it was the time of year up here where most of the snow had melted, leaving slushy puddles on top of the still frozen ground. As I made my way through the sloppy gravel road to my buddy’s place my thoughts were on prepping for the upcoming exams.

After spending some 3 or 4 hours hitting the books, I headed for home. I remember being glad to see it was a brilliantly moon lit night. As I knew that the trip home would be one where I would have to navigate the now frozen slush filled ruts on the walk home. At that time there was only one streetlight at the beginning of my lane. On a dark night the only way to tell that you were on that road was by feeling your way along the more or less level surface of the gravel. It was the kind of night where you could see right into the forest, almost like day time. The bare trees casted long shadows divided by bright patches where the last bits of remaining snow reflected the moonlight. It was truly a beautiful crisp calm night as I walked along with only the sound of my boots crunching along.

I arrived home after my short walk around 11 pm, to find our home was dark lit only by 2, 100 watt bulbs on either corner of the front of our house that my mom left on for me before she and my dad went to bed which was usually around 10 pm like clockwork.
I quietly let myself in the house so not to wake them shut off the yard lights otherwise my mom would complain that it lit up their room and she couldn’t sleep. I slipped off my boots and coat and made my way to my bedroom without needing to turn on any lights as the clear moon lit night lit the way for me.

My bedroom was a 16×12 room with my twin bed up against the wall beneath the window, and directly across from that was dresser with a large mirror next to the doorway opening to a hallway that connected to 2 more bedrooms and the bathroom. I am the youngest of my siblings, so only my parents and I  lived there. I sat down on my bed and began to undress, from the edge of the bed where I sat I could clearly see my silhouette, and the birch trees in the yard through the window reflected in the mirror as I glanced up occasionally.

After only a minute or less of going about getting ready for bed, I looked up and saw a huge outline of a torso and head outlined outside of my window only a few feet behind me. That wasn’t there when I began. I don’t remember being afraid, as I carried on getting undressed but glancing at it a few times as I did. I remember clearly thinking, that’s a cool reflection of myself from the mirror in the moonlight. I actually didn’t bother to turn around as I was thinking that. But as I was looking at the reflection of myself moving around, I thought it was strange that the unusual reflection in the window stayed still. Remember, this all happened in maybe 20 second from the time I walked into the room, it tells longer than it really was. I stopped what I was doing and turned around to look directly at the window. I am standing now, only a twin bed width away from the window. Still not understanding what I’m seeing I waved my arm in an arc, the figure remained as it was. Like everyone else on the planet I had seen the Patterson-Gimlin film that at the time I was not convicted of its authenticity. So, this thing in front of me was not even remotely on my radar, this thing, if it existed, was supposed to be living in the bush in the mountains of the western US thousands of miles away.

But here I was, standing there, I wouldn’t say I was afraid even then, I stepped toward the bed and crawled over it to the window and as I got to within maybe a foot or 2 of the glass, that’s when curiosity turned to disbelief and then terror. I realized that something was standing on the ground looking me in the face. My mind raced at that instant, I didn’t know what it was. I immediately recoiled back, still kneeling on the bed. In disbelief I looked back over my shoulder at the mirror and could see myself and this thing. Still on my knees I shuffled backwards to the edge of the bed, fell onto the floor, and half shuffling on my hands and heels got myself into a crab walk to the door. I stood up, and thinking back, I am not sure if it was because I had changed my angle from which I was looking at it, or if it turned itself slightly to look at me because I was no longer directly in front of it, but that is when I saw it’s eyes. They reflected red in the moonlight.

That was it. I stepped backwards and ran to my parents room and literally pulled my mom out of bed as she was closest to the door. I wasn’t yelling or screaming, yes I was terrified, but as I dragged her to my room to show her she was Turning on lights, and I was turning them off telling her she wouldn’t see, my dad was basically on our heels by the time we got to my room and my mom turned on the light and I switched it off immediately. I said look out my window, there was a huge man looking at me!!  There was of course nothing there. We looked out the window, we could see the back yard lit clearly with the moon, there was nothing there. The lights came on and then came, “what the hell is wrong with you, pulling us out of bed”. “You’re almost a grown man and all this for a bad dream?” Were the words out of my dads mouth. My mom frowned at me and said something like you better get into bed, we are up at 5 tomorrow for school, as she went back to their room. I told him I wasn’t sleeping, I just got home. My dad stood there beside me in the doorway of the room looking at me. I said I saw a huge guy standing outside of the window. I could see it from the chest up. My dad immediately pointed out out that it was impossible, because if there was somebody standing there the would have to be at least 8 feet tall. The base of the window sill is 6 feet from the ground.

My folks were no nonsense people. They lived through a depression and a world war, this was pretty far out for them. I wanted to go outside to look at where it stood, I sure as hell wasn’t going alone, so I convinced my dad to come with me. I guess he figured that if he didn’t nobody was getting sleep that night. He could see I was really shaken up by whatever happened, I wasn’t ever the kind of kid that came up with whacky shit like this, I had the odd beer with my buddies, and drugs were something that was a big city problem I never saw them. I spent my time at school, and outdoors, there was only one other kid my age within 10 miles, so there wasn’t any trouble we could get into even if we wanted to. So my dad was was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. He went and got his clothes on. We turned on the yard light that lit the front of the house and walked around to the rear, where my window was. We shined the flashlight around on the ground there were no tracks, nothing. What was slush and puddles 5 hours earlier was now frozen solid, there were no tracks. I was half expecting to see a upturned bucket, or chunk of firewood propped up under the window where the visitor perched himself it peer at me. “See” dad said, “there is nothing here, it was probably an owl that you saw in the birch tree. You’re tired, you’re up early, and studied late, and the moon can play some funny tricks on your eyes”. We went to bed, and we never spoke of it again. What were they going to say anyway? They chalked it up to pre exam nerves. Myself, well I figured it would be best to let it lay, I knew I wasn’t going to convince anybody, and if I tried all I would do is come off crazy.

I saw that thing clear as can be. It was backlit by the moon so I could make out the shape really well, besides that I was eyeball to eyeball with it. It wasn’t a trick of the light, it wasn’t an owl. I couldn’t really make out its facial features, because it was back lit but I could see it had a wide head that came to a peak on top. It had ears like a persons sticking out on the side. It’s head was like planted on its body, no neck. I could make out the jaw bone too, I could see that it was thick, like in those pictures of cave men. I didn’t see the nose or mouth. When I was up against the window looking at it I did’nt see the eyes either, not until I was on the other side of the room. It was the eyes that scared me. They were big, and set wide apart. They didn’t look right, you know, like a deer, does when you see it in your headlights. This thing had eyes facing forward on a face that had an outline like a big man, except 4 times bigger.

Some years later after the Internet got invented and people were able to share their stories, I did some looking around and found out that my experience was not that unique. I hadn’t thought about it for a long time afterwards. The year it happened, I went off to the army that fall, I came home, went back to school, started a family, and a career. I of course would go back home and visit often, and so I secretly measured the window in my old room. The glass is 52 inches wide, it is 6 foot 6 inches from the ground. That outline that I saw went nearly the whole width of the window, leaving maybe 6 inches or so per side. Based on the measurement to the bottom of the sill, this thing in my estimation topped out at around 9 feet tall.

The shoulders were more easy to see than the chest, I could easily see the muscles on either side of its neck, even though they were covered by hair, (not fur) that to me looked black in the moonlight. I could also see that it was shiny, the moonlight reflected off the top of its head and shoulders.

I still camped and hunted after that, I never did so alone again like I used to. The sight of that thing is burned into my memory. I never put this to writing like this, and it takes me back like it was yesterday. The hair literally stands up on my arms and neck just thinking about it in detail again after all these years.”