Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

Jul 21

Sunday’s Show – A trapper is killed

My guest this Sunday is Brian who had a very close encounter as a child. The creature had walked up to Brian and his friends while shooting off bottle rockets in the woods. Brian shined the a flashlight on the creature and it stopped its advanced. Brian along with his friends went screaming out of the woods. Within the same time frame the neighbor had reported seeing a 10ft tall figure that appeared to be covered in hair.

 

I will also be retelling the famous Bauman encounter story. The story is below.

The Bauman Encounter:
Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be very superstitious. They lead lives too hard and practical, and have too little imagination in things spiritual and supernatural. I have heard but few ghost stories while living on the frontier, and those few were of a perfectly commonplace and conventional type. But I once listened to a goblin-story, which rather impressed me.

A grizzled, weather beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman who, born and had passed all of his life on the Frontier, told it the story to me. He must have believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale; but he was of German ancestry, and in childhood had doubtless been saturated with all kinds of ghost and goblin lore. So that many fearsome superstitions were latent in his mind; besides, he knew well the stories told by the Indian medicine men in their winter camps, of the snow-walkers, and the specters, [spirits, ghosts & apparitions] the formless evil beings that haunt the forest depths, and dog and waylay the lonely wanderer who after nightfall passes through the regions where they lurk. It may be that when overcome by the horror of the fate that befell his friend, and when oppressed by the awful dread of the unknown, he grew to attribute, both at the time and still more in remembrance, weird and elfin traits to what was merely some abnormally wicked and cunning wild beast; but whether this was so or not, no man can say.

When the event occurred, Bauman was still a young man, and was trapping with a partner among the mountains dividing the forks of the Salmon from the head of Wisdom River. Not having had much luck, he and his partner determined to go up into a particularly wild and lonely pass through which ran a small stream said to contain many beavers. The pass had an evil reputation because the year before a solitary hunter who had wandered into it was slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the half eaten remains being afterwards found by some mining prospectors who had passed his camp only the night before.

The memory of this event, however, weighted very lightly with the two trappers, who were as adventurous and hardy as others of their kind. They took their two lean mountain ponies to the foot of the pass where they left them in an open beaver meadow, the rocky timber-clad ground being from there onward impracticable for horses. They then struck out on foot through the vast, gloomy forest, and in about four hours reached a little open glade where they concluded to camp, as signs of game were plenty.

There was still an hour or two of daylight left, and after building a brush lean-to and throwing down and opening their packs, they started upstream. The country was very dense and hard to travel through, as there was much down timber, although here and there the somber woodland was broken by small glades of mountain grass. At dusk they again reached camp. The glade in which it was pitched was not many yards wide, the tall, close-set pines and firs rising round it like a wall. On one side was a little stream, beyond which rose the steep mountains slope, covered with the unbroken growth of evergreen forest.

They were surprised to find that during their absence something, apparently a bear, had visited camp, and had rummaged about among their things, scattering the contents of their packs, and in sheer wantonness destroying their lean-to. The footprints of the beast were quite plain, but at first they paid no particular heed to them, busying themselves with rebuilding the lean-to, laying out their beds and stores and lighting the fire.

While Bauman was making ready supper, it being already dark, his companion began to examine the tracks more closely, and soon took a brand from the fire to follow them up, where the intruder had walked along a game trail after leaving the camp. When the brand flickered out, he returned and took another, repeating his inspection of the footprints very closely. Coming back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the darkness, and suddenly remarked, “Bauman, that bear has been walking on two legs.”

Bauman laughed at this, but his partner insisted that he was right, and upon again examining the tracks with a torch, they certainly did seem to be made by but two paws or feet. However, it was too dark to make sure. After discussing whether the footprints could possibly be those of a human being, and coming to the conclusion that they could not be, the two men rolled up in their blankets, and went to sleep under the lean-to. At midnight Bauman was awakened by some noise, and sat up in his blankets. As he did so his nostrils were struck by a strong, wild-beast odor, and he caught the loom of a great body in the darkness at the mouth of the lean-to. Grasping his rifle, he fired at the vague, threatening shadow, but must have missed, for immediately afterwards he heard the smashing of the under wood as the thing, whatever it was, rushed off into the impenetrable blackness of the forest and the night.

After this the two men slept but little, sitting up by the rekindled fire, but they heard nothing more. In the morning they started out to look at the few traps they had set the previous evening and put out new ones. By an unspoken agreement they kept together all day, and returned to camp towards evening. On nearing it they saw, hardly to their astonishment that the lean-to had again been torn down. The visitor of the preceding day had returned, and in wanton malice had tossed about their camp kit and bedding, and destroyed the shanty. The ground was marked up by its tracks, and on leaving the camp it had gone along the soft earth by the brook. The footprints were as plain as if on snow, and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail, it certainly did seem as if, whatever the thing was, it had walked off on but two legs.

The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a great heap of dead logs and kept up a roaring fire throughout the night, one or the other sitting on guard most of the time. About midnight the thing came down through the forest opposite, across the brook, and stayed there on the hillside for nearly an hour. They could hear the branches crackle as it moved about, and several times it uttered a harsh, grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister sound. Yet it did not venture near the fire. In the morning the two trappers, after discussing the strange events of the last 36 hours, decided that they would shoulder their packs and leave the valley that afternoon. They were the more ready to do this because in spite of seeing a good deal of game sign they had caught very little fur. However it was necessary first to go along the line of their traps and gather them, and this they started out to do. All the morning they kept together, picking up trap after trap, each one empty. On first leaving camp they had the disagreeable sensation of being followed. In the dense spruce thickets they occasionally heard a branch snap after they had passed; and now and then there were slight rustling noises among the small pines to one side of them.

At noon they were back within a couple of miles of camp. In the high, bright sunlight their fears seemed absurd to the two armed men, accustomed as they were, through long years of lonely wandering in the wilderness, to face every kind of danger from man, brute or element. There were still three beaver traps to collect from a little pond in a wide ravine near by. Bauman volunteered to gather these and bring them in, while his companion went ahead to camp and made ready the packs.

On reaching the pond Bauman found three beavers in the traps, one of which had been pulled loose and carried into a beaver house. He took several hours in securing and preparing the beaver, and when he started homewards he marked, with some uneasiness, how low the sun was getting. As he hurried toward camp, under the tall trees, the silence and desolation of the forest weighted on him. His feet made no sound on the pine needles and the slanting sunrays, striking through among the straight trunks, made a gray twilight in which objects at a distance glimmered indistinctly. There was nothing to break the gloomy stillness which, when there is no breeze, always broods over these somber primeval forests. At last he came to the edge of the little glade where the camp lay and shouted as he approached it, but got no answer. The campfire had gone out, though the thin blue smoke was still curling upwards.

Near it lay the packs wrapped and arranged. At first Bauman could see nobody; nor did he receive an answer to his call. Stepping forward he again shouted, and as he did so his eye fell on the body of his friend, stretched beside the trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing towards it the horrified trapper found that the body was still warm, but that the neck was broken, while there were four great fang marks in the throat. The footprints of the unknown beast-creature, printed deep in the soft soil, told the whole story. The unfortunate man, having finished his packing, had sat down on the spruce log with his face to the fire, and his back to the dense woods, to wait for his companion. While thus waiting, his monstrous assailant, which must have been lurking in the woods, waiting for a chance to catch one of the adventurers unprepared, came silently up from behind, walking with long noiseless steps and seemingly still on two legs. Evidently unheard, it reached the man, and broke his neck by wrenching his head back with its fore paws, while it buried its teeth in his throat. It had not eaten the body, but apparently had romped and gamboled around it in uncouth, ferocious glee, occasionally rolling over and over it; and had then fled back into the soundless depths of the woods.

Bauman, utterly unnerved and believing that the creature with which he had to deal was something either half human or half devil, some great goblin-beast, abandoned everything but his rifle and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting until he reached the beaver meadows where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting, he rode onwards through the night, until beyond reach of pursuit.

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49 Responses to “Sunday’s Show – A trapper is killed”

  1. Allen O

    Wow this sounds pretty interesting wes and with your skills of telling these stories this Sunday should be a good one. You really have a good way of interviewing and talking that makes this show legions above anything else out there!! Thanks for all you do man

  3. Tyler D

    If Teddy Roosevelt, a former president of these United States, a rather level headed and a man’s man if there ever was one believed this story maybe the people out there who believe this is nothing but a huge elaborate hoax should give this story a once over before making that judgement. And please remember this was a time and era where hoaxes were virtually never heard of. So what would be Bauman’s goal in sharing this story? I’m sure it was something that was eating away at this poor man and he wanted to get it off his chest. I wholeheartedly believe this story and see no reason not too. For some reason I always saw this creature that Bauman talks about in this story as being the Dogman type just because of how extremely aggressive it was during their stay in that area

  6. pam

    cool Patrick!
    these are great for making home video Dvds- I have one of old gals at a quilt show with really spacey, dark scary music- always gets a laugh!

    • SantiamLady

      Wow, Pam! ???????????? Thanks for showing us the Royalty-Free Music site!
      Wes! I went and listened! You pick out what you have in mind, And presto! The site comes up with something that matches your search criteria! I selected ‘soundtrack’, & then ‘eerie’, ‘mysterious’, & ‘suspenseful’. It pulled up a 4 min long soundtrack called “Ossuary 6”. Spooky background music! That particular piece may not be the best fit for the story of the murdered trapper, but the website that Pam has put us onto here is definitely the place to find that perfect sound! ????????????????????
      And…..Pam’s hubby is a sound tech……. ????…….perhaps Pam could persuade him to consult with you on sound mixing from time to time? ????????

  8. jamie smith

    I would much rather just listen to the encounters instead of having to read it , it’s just so much easier for me that way , I haven’t read half of the stuff posted because it is just not my thing to sit and read because I suffer from elipesey and I cannot look at the screen for to long as it could trigger another seizure but I will definitely listen to encounters which are done this way because it is really more interesting to me and the way Wes tells the encounters is just magnificent and really makes you feel like you are there, good job Wes I think audio is definitely the best way to go . I have listened to this show since the 2nd episode and it is by far the best of them all on this subject !!!!

  9. James B

    WES, DIDN’T TEDDY ROOSEVELT HAVE HIS OWN ENCOUNTER? ALSO JUST WONDERING IF YOU ASKED BOB ABOUT SKIATOOK?
    THANK FOR ALL YOUR HEARD WORK, YOU MAKE THIS OUR #1 SITE>

  10. steve m

    Listened from the first episode until now. It keeps getting better. You are doing a great job. I have listened to many other shows, there is no comparison, this is the best. Just want to say thanks.

  12. Alan H

    I think 1892 was when Roosevelt was told the story by old man Bauman. I took the story to occur during the golden age of tracking in the 1820s and 30s. As a reminder RMSO claims they have found the location.

  13. Papa - Yeti

    Great Encounter stories Wes, well written, that Bauman encounter is my favorite encounter, as it was in the mid to latter Victorian era, and I have tracked and hunted Elk, and prospected those mountains decades back, rugged country, some of the most rugged mountain country I have ever hunted, as well as the Saint Joe mountains. In the winter snows those mountains are deadly to traverse, be while cross country skiing / Climbing, or snow shoeing, I had got bit by Hypothermia up their one winter. No mountains to be traversing while fighting the heated fevers with maddening delirium. I am damn lucking to be alive.

    I cannot imagine the hell that Bauman and his trapper partner went through, and he was lucky the Sasquatch had not found their horses and ate um. It use to be God’s Country Wes, now I guess it’s the Diablo’s mountain’s. Sometimes I would climb up there, and roll a bed roll out in a grassy meadow under the stars, before a days climb to the high ridges to run them. Hell I wasn’t even thinking of snakes.

  16. Charles B

    It’s a good story but we all know it hit us w ones we haven’t heard yet
    Also I put on forums about that justin smeja what u guys think about that dude I just do t get it if your that close u can’t try to call it over and capture it if it’s sitting there confused anyway what u think

  17. Papa - Yeti

    Thank you kindly Patrick, I know it’s a shocker in contrast, as it throws you off after reading my messed up dyslexic posts. Also I was hesitant posting my trout face, because I am quite intimidating in my appearance, I am built, and big, I carry myself well, but I didn’t want to shy people off, especially the ladies, and give them the impression I am a scraper and mean, I am kind hearted to anyone that is not harming a woman or child or messing with the elderly. I have had a lot of people state that they never want to be my enemy, and have had bears run like hell. But I am cool, kind hearrted, my dear wife loves my Trout face and my baby boy loves his daddy.

  22. Christopher c

    Great song choice for the into bro! it gives that same chilling effect we had in the 80’s with Crocket and Tubbs when they were on that mission in that one Miami Vice episode- love it!

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