Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

The winter of 1937 came early to northern Michigan. Snow lay thick in the forests of Wexford County, pressing the pines low and muffling the land into an uneasy quiet. Robert Fortney had lived in those woods most of his life.

He was a farmer and outdoorsman no stranger to isolation, hard weather, or the sounds of animals moving through the dark. That night, he was driving alone along a remote stretch of road, returning home after visiting a friend.

The moon was high, casting pale light across the frozen ground. His truck rattled along the narrow dirt road, engine humming steadily, tires crunching over packed snow. Nothing felt out of place until something moved ahead of him.

At first, Fortney thought it was a large dog standing at the edge of the road.

Then it stood up.

The creature rose from all fours to its hind legs in a smooth, deliberate motion. Fortney’s foot eased off the gas as his headlights fully illuminated it. What stood before him was taller than a man, easily seven feet or more, its body thick with muscle and covered in dark, coarse hair. Its head was unmistakably canine long snout, pointed ears but its posture was wrong. Too upright. Too balanced.

Too human.

The creature turned and looked directly at him.

Fortney later said that moment froze him more than the winter air ever could. The eyes reflected the headlights, glowing faintly, fixed on him with an intelligence that made his stomach drop. This wasn’t an animal startled by a vehicle. It wasn’t confused.

It was watching him.

Suddenly, the thing stepped fully into the road.

Its legs bent backward like a dog’s, yet it walked upright with shocking ease. As Fortney slowed nearly to a stop, the creature crossed the road in front of his truck, its shoulders rolling with each step. Its arms hung long at its sides, ending in hands or paws he couldn’t clearly make out through the windshield.

Then it did something that erased any lingering doubt in Fortney’s mind.

It smiled.

Not a snarl. Not a threat display. A deliberate, unsettling grin that pulled back its lips and exposed teeth too large and too numerous to be comforting. The expression carried something mocking, as if it knew exactly how much fear it was causing.

Fortney slammed on the brakes.

The engine sputtered as his truck rolled to a halt. His hands shook on the steering wheel. For a brief, terrifying second, he thought the creature might approach the vehicle but instead, it turned its head, glanced into the woods, and stepped off the road.

With two long strides, it vanished between the trees.

The forest swallowed it whole. No crashing branches. No retreating footsteps. Just silence.

Fortney sat there for several moments, heart pounding, breath fogging the windshield. When he finally found the strength to move, he pressed the accelerator and didn’t slow down again until he reached home.

He told his family what he had seen that night.

They believed him.

In the years that followed, Fortney never wavered in his account. He insisted the creature was neither man nor animal, but something else entirely something that walked the Michigan forests long before roads ever cut through them.

Decades later, his story would be cited as the earliest known modern Dogman encounter, predating the term itself and forming the foundation of what would become one of Michigan’s most enduring legends.

And according to those who still live deep in those woods…whatever Fortney saw in 1937 never left.