Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

The young member of a Manitoba homesteading and farming family who shot and killed a Sasquatch in error was a 17 year old youth at the time.  He was, however, in his late seventies when he recounted his experience to the author in 1999, vividly recalling his mistake:

It was 58 years ago and I was only 17 years old.  It was the first week in November.  This was when we hunted the most because by then the meat would keep.

  I like to hunt moose and I like moose meat.  Eventually I shot way over a hundred big game animals, which also included lots of deer, some elk, and one woodland caribou.  Only four or five bears.  I didn’t like bears and I didn’t hunt them.  But the bigger half was moose.  Maybe about sixty, sometimes two or three in one day for the neighbors and ourselves.  I started hunting with a .22 rifle when I was thirteen or fourteen years old.  When this incident happened, it was the first time I was hunting with my dads 38.55 Winchester.

  That day I was hunting northwest of Basket Lake.  There is a creek coming in there and it crosses the road.  It’s a four and a half to five mile hike into the area.  It’s good moose country and good for deer too.  It was a cloudy, hazy day with ice crystals in the air and there was a little northwest breeze, not much.  Judging from the tracks there were three or four moose out there feeding on willow.  Moose tracks criss-crossed the area, as they do in a place like that where they are feeding.  You can’t track them there because there are so many tracks.

  When I spotted a moose in the willows, I fired, but I didn’t kill it.  There was blood, but not much.  I followed the blood trail for for about three quarters of an hour in heavy brush.  Then I saw a patch of dark fur in the willows, standing still and facing away from me.  I said, “that’s my moose!”  I aimed right where it’s anus should be.  That’s a good shot because the bullet usually penetrates right into the chest cavity if it’s a straight-away shot.  I fired and it went down.  When I got up to it, what do you think I saw?  It was a Sasquatch!  I had hit it in the back between the shoulder blades.  It was dead, and lying on it’s side.  It had long, silky hair, especially on the head and shoulders.  It’s hair was dark brown with reddish overtones.  It had a slanted forehead, a face like an ape, and a body like a human.  It must have come in from the side; maybe it smelled the blood.  It had it’s back to me when I shot; if I had seen it’s face I would have known it wasn’t a moose and I wouldn’t have shot it.  It must have been bending over because I didn’t see a head.

  One arm was under it’s body, but the other one was on top, sticking out and laying flat.  It had long, heavy arms; the upper arms were huge.  With my foot I turned over the hand I could see.  It had a long, broad palm and the fingers were only a third to a half the length of the palm-mine are about the same length as my palm.  They were flat and stubby.  It’s fingernails were thick, and heavy and rounded.  The foot was about fifteen or sixteen inches long.  The five toes were pretty straight.

  It must have weighed about four hundred or five hundred pounds.  It was taller than me (I was five foot eleven then, I’ve shrunk a bit now), about seven or eight feet tall.  It was big in the chest-a man’s chest is sort of flattened front to back, but his was rounded.  It looked like a very powerful animal-that guy could lift anything.

  It was a male, so it had no breasts.  I didn’t look for it’s privates.  The longest hair was eight to ten inches long; this was on the head and shoulders.  It was fine, silky hair like a muskox.  It didn’t look like an old one-I didn’t see any gray hair-even a moose will have gray hair when it’s old.  I couldn’t see it’s ears;they were covered with hair.  It had very little forehead and it slanted back from the eyes.  The eyes had heavy eyebrow ridges.  The mouth was wide, going up the cheeks quite a bit further than a human’s mouth does, and the jaw jutted out in front of the nose.  But it’s chin was rounded, not sharp like a human’s.  It looked like the one from the Patterson-Gimlin film-that film is right on-but no breasts.  It had a face like an ape and a body like a human and it wasn’t a moose-I wished it was!  If I had been hunting legally it would have been different but it was out of season and I had no license.  I was kind of scared, as money was scarce-I had a hard time buying a box of shells.  I just wanted to get the hell out of there as fast as I could.

  I have no evidence, this is just my word.  I hunted that same area near Basket Lake many times after that.  But the location of where I shot the Sasquatch is impossible to find now.  There are no natural landmarks and it has been burnt over two or three times or more.  The man wished to remain completely anonymous and had refused to speak to anyone else about his encounter.

Encounter as told to Dr. John A. Bindernagel which is included in his book:

The Discovery of the Sasquatch: Reconciling Culture, History, and Science in the Discovery Process