Tales from Alaska's Interior: Bigfoot Beyond the Trail

[Music] join us as we venture into the interior of remote Alaska from the endless boreal forest to the slopes of the Epic Alaska range stories of sasquatch-like creatures abound in some of these desolate and stunning landscapes and we see this or I see this thing first this huge thing that at first glance I jokingly say to my wife and nephew I said wow there goes Bigfoot well at that point I was fully thinking in my mind got to be a hunter or something Park Service also at the time they would do a wildlife report of the latest sighting since the last report about once a month and one time on the report shortly after hunting season they actually in that report mentioned that Hunters had reported a sighting of they said it was a Sasquatch so was it just blood and hair here where there actually any bones or any it was just blood in here I walked up and saw the hair and deeper inspection when we got close we could see like traces of blood stuff around okay foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] places you can be in the land will literally swallow you up you can die of hypothermia frostbite even in the summertime a weird weathering pattern can come in even with GPS I've been you know got lost at times you can get disoriented in the mountains not know where you're going there's all kinds of trenches you can fall into just really inhospitable land not to mention the Bears very aggressive Bears I've been charged by bears before attacked by bears just very dangerous the Moose the Moose alone kill more people than bears do and injure more people here in town they're just very dangerous they'll stomp on you but the Bears are very vicious wolves people have been attacked by Wolves it is just an inhospitable Place very difficult place to travel there is just so much land here our population is small and so much of Alaska is unexplored so who knows what's out there there's all kinds of Legends and half of them could be true because it's just it's just unexplored it's a very wild place people go missing people die they get in accidents you know bears eat people literally eat them here it's a very wild wild place [Music] well the interesting thing about Bigfoot in Alaska is there seems to be a either or kind of situation where someone you talk to people and they either absolutely do not believe and it's it's not a real thing or they have had an encounter or know someone who has there doesn't really seem to be a lot of in between there's a lot of space up here there's just open areas people have never been everywhere so around here you can see how they could do it because you just can't see anything through these I mean it's just they could totally stay hidden why not it's not that crazy to think there would be some kind of a primate or some kind of an ancient hominid that has survived and is thriving around you know certain areas so Alaska would be seem like a logical choice because they they stay hidden they could easily stay in see a lot of people that have had Encounters in remote areas you know away from from cities away from Municipal areas and that's one of the luxuries that Sasquatch has up here is just if it doesn't want to be around people it certainly doesn't have to be there's not a lot of areas where you would have like choke points uh maybe in between two cities or a couple of you know large bodies of water and some towns you've definitely got a lot of room to just be away from people if you want to be and you see the majority of encounters that I've heard about and had reported to me seemed to occur just out in the bush out away from civilization I have a lot of people tell me like oh you're so lucky to be up there to be able to research up there and look for bigfoot up there and honestly I don't I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse because again you know to beat the dead horse it's so massive up here it's just so much area to cover and I'll get reports from people you know hey I had a siding at this area you know you want to come investigate and it's 10 hours away from my house you know and I'm like that's that's a big commitment to make uh you know to drive and just look at a place where something across the road if there's no tracks or anything so yeah it's a it's a challenge uh I don't think there's uh too many places in the war 48 that can compare if you are going to go exploring in Alaska at the very least you need bear spray I would suggest a firearm because many times bear spray does not work and you need a firearm to protect yourself you need a way to contact people so shortwave radio or like an inreach Satellite Communication System first aid kit you have to have the right gear to keep yourself dry and warm that's probably the most important thing if you're not warm and keeping your feet from getting wet you can dive very quickly out here even in the middle of summer so you have to be prepared with the right clothing the right Gear boots rain gear Survival equipment [Music] the last Bigfoot beyond the trail film called the Alaska Bigfoot Highway documented my journey driving up the world famous Alaska highway from the lower 48 United States all the way up to Alaska itself the end destination of that Journey was the city of Fairbanks in order to attend the Boreal Bigfoot Expo a two-day event held about all things Sasquatch in the 49th state while giving me a chance to reconnect with friends and colleagues Like Larry beans Baxter Rob Roy Menzies Dr Jeff Meldrum and others it also gave me a chance to speak with quite a few alaskans who have had Sasquatch sightings and experiences this is probably my favorite part of any Bigfoot Conference regardless of location connecting with locals who can share their experiences and knowledge of these areas is very much the highlight of these kinds of events with interior Alaska being such an insanely large and remote area having some tips on where to head definitely helped steer Us in the right direction otherwise you're just looking at a giant mostly blank space on a map with potential habitat abounding [Music] there were a few locations that we did visit as a direct consequence of knowledge gained from the Boreal Bigfoot Expo whether from the locals I spoke with or from researchers Like Larry beans Baxter given the city of Fairbanks central location within Alaska it was an ideal jumping off point to other areas of the interior of Alaska we could visit the first place we ventured to was about three hours outside of Fairbanks on the road to a place called manly Hot Springs he was first brought to my attention by beans who had been wanting to visit the location for a while he had previously received a citing report from somebody driving through this area of interior Alaska so the witness contacted me told me about his the roadside Crossing he had there near manly Hot Springs he seemed like a good credible witness he you know he he was wanting to use a pseudonym and remain anonymous which was fine a lot of witnesses do the following audio is from an interview beans conducted with this witness we're from material Alaska and we had gone out to manly hot springs in manly Hot Springs is a small community just over 100 people 156 miles from Fairbanks so it's it's pretty remote little place out there so anyways we were out in manly and we were heading back to Fairbanks and this was again maybe third week in July or something so of course you know tons of Midnight Sun and uh and it was it was a pretty hot day probably 75 degrees or so and we were playing a game driving it back trying to just stay awake be entertained on the long drive back so we were all kind of alert paying attention and we were in between manly and Fairbanks we see we come over this Crest come over this like Hill and we see right in the middle of the road something and and this is pretty far out probably at least 300 feet in front of us and we see this or I see this thing first this huge thing that at first glance I jokingly say to my wife and nephew I said wow there goes Bigfoot well at that point I was fully thinking in my mind that it's got to be a hunter or something you know I didn't even at all really think but yet the way it was hunched and walking that's why I jokingly at first said There Goes Bigfoot even though I was thinking it was a hunter and so they look up right away and they see it with me now when I saw it first it was probably right in the middle of the road and it was walking at a pretty brisk pace and by the time they'd looked up it was kind of had already gotten to the edge of the road and was starting to walk down into the um off you know on the side of the road into the woods and so they I probably saw it for a total of maybe seven seven to ten seconds they probably both saw it for about four to four or five seconds and this thing was probably at least at least seven foot and it looked pretty skinny and it was hunched a little bit forward walking with its arms kind of swinging and its arms looked pretty abnormally long and when we saw this thing again uh after I would had jokingly said there was Bigfoot and then thinking man this has got to be a hunter or something but at that point I sped up because it was like I said a couple hundred feet in front of us and I wanted to get a better look but it didn't have any color disfiguration like you know whereas a human would have different colors on their gloves or hands or feet or anything it was completely black and black or very dark brown we get up there and it had already gotten into the woods and we were thinking man what the heck was that that has to be you know there has to be an explanation it's got to be a Hunters a really tall hunter or something but we look around there's no driveways no cars no Trails nothing no hint of people or anything and again we're miles and miles away from any kind of Village or civilization we just started freaking out at that point we're like What was that you know his sighting it's it's a very it's typical of your con you know roadside Crossing that walks across the road you think maybe it's a man or a person but then you start to realize like I'm in the middle of nowhere there's nobody here and then like well why was it all one uniform color you know why wasn't there you know different colored hands or feet or whatever ahead I did have another indication there was activity in the area uh Stephen major I had come up here for an expo a couple of years ago and was talking to the cab driver that was taking him to the airport mentioned he was here for the Expo the cab driver said hey you know my family's from Minto and there's all kinds of crazy Bigfoot stuff going on there which is just a few miles away from where we were in manly Hot Springs so you know you have those kind of you know not necessarily collaborating but compounding reports of activity in the same area so I thought it was definitely worth going out there and checking out while at the Expo I got a chance to meet with the eyewitness he seemed credible in person in my estimation not interested much in the Bigfoot topic previously given this information we decided it warranted a visit to the area all right so we're leaving Fairbanks now heading North and then West towards more of the geographical center of Alaska very remote area near manly Hot Springs about a three-hour Drive should be just cool to see the kind of area around there and check the whole place out so we're going to Convoy out there with beans we're gassed up and ready to go you guys ready for this I'm excited yeah we've had some reports coming out of there and a really good roadside Crossing and some activity around the Minto area and we're going to be camping right in that area and I've never been up this far and stayed here I've been through here so uh I'm really excited to see what happens if we're going to get any activity we're going to be doing some some real rustic camping uh so we'll see what happens yeah it should be awesome well let's hit the road then all right let's do it let's do it you ready bro [Music] are you ready [Music] squash upstairs on there yet there we go nice and prominent huh all right well we're convoying out we got beans in front of us in his truck let's do another quick radio check yeah I can hear you loud already okay so now we've got about I think another hour until we're out to this place but it's really starting to get pretty desolate out here not a lot mountains have become sort of Rolling Hills that reminds me of driving through parts of northern Maine middle of nowhere just these dirt roads just rolling kind of Hills Memorial looking forests this could probably be anywhere in northern Maine Northern parts of Canada this doesn't have any really dramatic mountains here like you would see in maybe other parts of Alaska further south from here I don't know I'm maybe even further north I don't know the terrain but it really just it reminds me of places I feel like I've been to these kinds of areas oh [Music] [Music] about mile 124 very close to the siding location and uh just about to be a big rainstorm just as we're about to get here just our luck you drive up to it sir hang up in the tree over here really all right oh my God what is that I think it's a Bait Bucket not really a lot here no it's just super thick though I mean and I was looking as we were coming down the road and I thought maybe I could find a game Trail or something yeah and uh it's all pretty much just like this there's not really any a lot of any a lot of times trees here yeah I mean these are decently tall you could you could see how something could hide in and this side's more Brushy compared to even just that side but this is so he basically said it happened between 125 and 126. yeah right so so uh yeah it was just a road crossing he said it was kind of kind of lanky uh it kind of reminded him a little bit maybe like Chewbacca from Star Wars and um initially like a lot of witnesses thought it was a person but uh then it kind of dawned on him like look where I'm at there's no cars you know nobody's parked on the side of the road here and uh kind of realized probably what what it was yeah I don't I don't understand so explain to me how they keep the mosquitoes off of them because that's what I want to do yeah out of the Bears and the Moose do it I mean they just deal with it I guess I don't know jeez well we're getting hit with a little bit of rain but yeah I mean I talked to the guy too and what he described was what was so what he thought was really weird was the all black and he said you know no difference skin tone or anything like that so what a person would be doing wearing black ninja outfit you know whatever it is but we'll drive the the mile yeah and uh see if there's maybe any other trails in or anything if I see any trails and uh yeah you want to lead the way sure alrighty [Music] all right well we just loaded up and we're gonna check out this area out here Old Logging Road of some kind or just an old road everybody's equipped armed we got all our bug stuff although I mean you've got the mask off doesn't seem so bad now right now but it would never know okay pretty sweet looking area yeah look at all this oh wow these look like moose drives yeah look at that oh yeah look oh that's perfect so we are now in the Boreal forest huh this is it this is the basically the largest type of forest on Earth I mean between all the land in Canada Alaska Russia we're in the Boreal belt [Music] [Music] the so-called Boreal belt also known simply as the Boreal forest or the Taiga is one of the largest biomes on planet Earth comprising over 6 million square miles and 11.5 percent of the earth's land mass it stretches across much of the far northern hemisphere of the world from parts of Northern Europe such as Scandinavia Crossing most of Russia and into parts of Northern Asia and into most of Alaska and across the entirety of Canada even stretching into parts of the Northeastern United States the Boreal forest habitat is comprised mostly of coniferous trees such as Spruce Pine and large [Music] foreign little pellets have to do some research and see what that is wow pretty disgusting I don't even know if the camera does this any justice it's how many are on means his hat right now spray by the way bug spray doesn't work on the Alaskan state bird just gonna stand here and I don't know if the camera will pick any of this up amount of mosquitoes right now is just pretty obscene they like drowned in my hat so many dead mosquitoes you hear that Luca but I thought I heard something move up there nope going on your face I got a hood on so I came here as well okay I did think I thought I heard a snap back over there though just keep your eyes peeled we'll go this way [Music] yeah I just don't know if something lived here I mean what a miserable resistance look at that that's uh foreign so we're not that far from the road huh so out here I guess it's probably good to stay closer and we could just go off in one of these directions and disappear forever out here very easily people do you could walk that direction until you hit the Arctic Ocean I mean you would probably die first yeah right but take your heck of a long time there's not much between here and the Arctic Ocean but this unending [Music] but uh yeah I didn't really find a whole lot out there really difficult conditions we're just kind of gonna hang out here [Music] here's Alaska for you 1105 right now sounds like shining got sun on a little Hill over there 11 p.m at night so This Little Piggy put his tent together with the flat closed and this little piggy did not and what happened I don't know I just have uh more than a bit of a colony in here I mean there's just mosquito City I mean you can't even see I don't even think the camera can catch him when you're in here [Music] the following day we tried our best to explore some of the area around camp and by the road but with conditions being less than desirable we mostly ended up hanging around Camp eagerly awaiting our departure from the area the following morning [Music] well I wasn't very successful here we're gonna call it and get out of here way too many bugs not really want to complain but they're very incessant so we're wrapping up here beans what do you think well I think this area has a lot of potential um I just think we're probably here at the wrong time of year yeah the roadside Crossing that kind of brought this area to my attention happened in September that's probably the time to be here the bugs are just swarming it's the mosquitoes are bad yeah you can see we're all wearing mosquito Nets poor Alex he got bit all up he's all scratching and itching but yeah I think this area does have potential unfortunately I mean it's so far away from me it's not like I can just hop up here and and stay for a weekend right uh and this you know I came up here for the Expo this was an opportunity for me to get up here and I had to check it out but um yeah it's a promising area it's just uh you know that and it's so it's so large you know yeah there's nothing in either direction of us um and you know we we could be here at this area and there could be a ton of Bigfoot like two valleys over we'd never know it so uh I think uh I'll keep concentrating on the Kenai Peninsula like I do and um keep an ear open for any reports coming out of this area but it's not easily accessible for me so Alaska is huge yeah it's one of the biggest uh states it is the biggest state biggest state but it was it was still fun it was still an adventure and you know now onwards to other other locations and stuff so hopefully uh less buggy locations yeah yep all right well there you have it while out there we got a small taste of what the vastness of interior Alaska is like this area was luckily connected to the very limited Road system in Alaska whereas most places aren't and can only be reached via airplane or boat Through Rivers and bodies of water this leaves small communities including many indigenous villages in very remote areas that are not easily accessible the vast expanses of interior Alaska have inspired many strange stories aside from those of oporial Sasquatch type creature stories of hairy Giants far larger than your typical Bigfoot roaming the barren Northern Landscapes as well as those of little people a common folklore Motif throughout human history there are rumors of thought to be extinct animals like woolly mammoths still grazing the Alaskan Tundra some of these stories are more far-fetched than others I for one could see how creatures like woolly mammoths could have possibly survived in Parts of Alaska for far longer than they were supposed to have one type of story that seems to persist across Alaska but especially in the interior is that of UFOs and strange objects in the skies with a large presence that the U.S military has maintained in Alaska since before its statehood that perhaps can explain some of these stories it's no surprise that Alaska is still considered to be a hot spot for UFO sightings some of you will recall the news from February of this year of a mysterious object allegedly shot down by the air force over Alaska during the Chinese spy balloon incident but UFO stories in Alaska seem to predate the modern UFO topic as well as aircraft and balloons altogether chook told me of one particularly interesting story I felt was worth sharing even if not directly related to the Bigfoot topic my grandmother is not alive anymore she was a teenager when she translated the kobuk river people for the University of Alaska press now this book was a series of oral Legends so this was legends that have been passed down generation to generation I remember as a kid reading one of them in particular because I somewhere I have a copy of this book and there is a story called the eye shades people now the eye shade people are called I shade people because they were these curious beings that had rock or they called it Rock in the story because they hadn't come in contact with metal at that time but they wore eye shades similar to the inupayak people with their sun shades but they were these Rock eye shades so the story of the eye shade people happens on the kobuk river near the village of shungak someday I want to travel to this place because the story describes it near the village of shungak by a mountain that has a crack in it there was a glowing Rock that made the sound of cranes when it flew it was round and there's this Hunter and The Rock abducts his wife so he becomes very angry he uses some traditional powers and consults with some wise women that live under a lake they give him a feather that allows him to float up to this flying Rock there's a door in The Rock he is able to enter it when he goes in he flies into a rage because he sees these beds there are small beans they all have the rock eye shades and then there's one big massive Bean a giant who also has an eye shade they're all asleep and he sees his wife naked on a table and he goes into a rage he has this sword made of slate Rock and he beheads all of these alien creatures after he does that he jumps out of the rock with his wife holding the feather floats to the ground and this is what fascinates me because this is an oral tradition it's it's hundreds of years old before the Europeans made contact you know people didn't know about lasers they described a laser weapon or a particle beam as he was jumping down the groin rock made a strange sound and something shot out from it and cut off part of his parka once he reached the ground the old women told him that he would be safe once he reached the tracks of the village in the snow so they ran and ran but the rock came back to life started spinning and whirling making the sounds of a crane followed them shooting at them but once he made to the Tracks Of The Village The Rock stopped they went into their Hut because people lived in kind of these Dome Huts that were dug out and the Rocks started making more noises spinning it dove into the ground burrowed underneath his house and then came up and it shape-shifted the rock or metal became flat and for the rest of their days they had a Hut with a completely smooth flat metal floor and it was like the machine just shut off and became their floor and so that's an ancient story and it just boggles my mind because it's you know the giant reminds me of the Bigfoot stories the little people in the floating you know metal sphere remind me of alien abduction stories and he was able to you know use his anger to defeat them and kill these creatures and save his wife but just a wild wild story and uh it's not typically a story you would hear an oral tradition because it describes technology so you again you said your grandmother helped translate as a teenager yes so it was a very old story and it was kobuk River people all pre-contact stories all oral Traditions so really amazing this story clearly has a very folkloric nature but to the kobuk river people it carried some significance ancient people often prescribe many mystical qualities to the things they observed in nature but something like this story seemed a little different than most Native American stories I've heard we're likely to never find out the answer but if we as modern humans are seeing UFOs nowadays why wouldn't people in the past see them to some degree as well moving back to the Bigfoot subject something I've been wanting to do more with this series is following up on topics covered in previous Expeditions and films over the years with how much I've focused on Alaska over the last year there are a few follow-ups in this episode to topics covered in previous works with that being said after those few days at manly Hot Springs while back in Fairbanks from there we headed to an area of interior Alaska that we'd previously explored last year [Music] thank you [Music] at over 6 million Acres Denali National Park is known around the world it is famous of course for being the home of North America's tallest mountain known as Denali or Mount McKinley at a stunning 20 310 feet [Music] when we visited the area around the national park last year we interviewed eyewitnesses and researchers alike for various small town monsters films which have since come out such as the Last Frontier land of the missing as well as my own beyond the trail searching for the Alaskan Sasquatch film foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] wanting to return to this area once again in order to follow up on some old threads with new leads Healy Alaska lies right outside of Denali National Park the infamous Stampede Trail starts at the end of town and drifts into the endless Alaskan wilderness this Trail has been immortalized by the story of Chris McCandless of into the wild Fame who was last seen alive on the Stampede Trail but the Stampede Trail itself has somewhat of an unusual history last year in our video I read an official National Park Service report that described the vandalization of some remote cabins in 1992 during the same time period McCandless was living in the surrounding Wilderness at Park Service employee hiked Overland from the Park Road at the teclanica and he hiked into the cabins that are there and there's there's a few cabins there's a Park Service cabin just inside the Wilderness boundary and then there's three at that time three cabins just outside of the Park Service boundary on private land um he found the park service cabin and one of the private cabins extensively damaged Windows Broken Out In the case of the Park Service cabin the roof was dented which is peculiar um the other private cabin the heavy wood stove had been carried out of the cabin and deposited outside and a carpet had been dragged out of the cabin foodstuffs as I recall were not missing the places were trashed it was very upsetting to people the denting of the roof was chalked up to somebody grabbing a splitting wall and hitting it I've been to that cabin I've slept in that cabin the roof Eaves are fairly high that they're about seven feet up it just seems odd that somebody that a vandal would go after the roof there were a whole lot of other things to vandalize in that cabin so just it seems odd so McCandless was blamed for this you know he was kind of a an Into the Wild guy and they thought that well of course he had wandered upstream and found these cabins and for some reason vandalized them even though he was living in a bus rather than just moving into one of the cabins where he'd be more comfortable also the cabinets had food in them if McCandless had vandalized the cabins earlier in the summer it seems a little odd that he would have then gone back to his bus and starved to death that doesn't make sense to me but people who at least one family that owns one of those cabinets they blamed McCandless for it I don't really buy it the vandalism too seemed random enough McCandless you know he was weak to carry a wood stove out of a cabin that probably weighed 250 pounds or so it just doesn't seem it doesn't click for me I'm pulling the rug out why would he do that it was pretty messed up when I got to the rug and it was covered with mold so I've always just thought that didn't make sense um it seems to me more more likely that it was vandalized by one of our friends but I don't know just a suspicion Park Service also had at the time they would do a wildlife report of the latest sighting since last report about once a month and one time on the report shortly after hunting season they actually in that report mentioned that Hunters had reported a sighting of they said it was a Sasquatch but described it as half pig half bare half Sasquatch or something like that and they did it very tongue-in-cheek but I think they actually did get that report and that would have been out the Stampede Trail that's that's where they said it was my guest is close to the teclinique out there there's good moose hunting grounds out there and I think a group was harassed by a Sasquatch out there that was much more recent uh 2000 and 15 or so thank you when I first visited the Stampede Trail area last year it was covered with too much snow for us to even attempt to make it very far into the bush returning to the area this time around would prove to be different with full-on Summer conditions there is also another reason for the visit a story I was told at the Boreal Bigfoot Expo which we decided to follow up on while hearing Healy we would meet with the man who told us the story on location along with Norm accompanying us as well all right this is this is basically the end of Stampede Road right Norm yep we enter the maintained part and so what is it 17 miles down from this location is where the bus was more like 20 25 25 oh wow somewhere in there it's quite a waste right so that is quite a distance and we're obviously here as I mentioned earlier we met up with John should I call you John or do you want to use like a code name John John okay sounds good codename John yeah we're here uh John had something interesting happen out here and we'll let him tell his story kind of when we get to the spot of course but uh yeah just for my own memory just talking about being out here last year and how different it was a little over a year ago just so snowy there's that funny sequence we're in Eli and I tried to go follow some moose tracks and we're basically an almost way steep snow that was that wasn't too fun everyone kept yelling at us get some snow shoes I I did not we did not expect that you know Rob Roy did not have any snowshoes in his camper van so I'm blaming Rob Roy for this one just kidding just kidding but yeah so yeah could you just run us through kind of what exactly happened out here just kind of the full story you know what you guys were doing all that sort of stuff so we came out here to see the open glow on the mountains out there and of course Joe and partying listening music and then dogs was running around and one of them comes back with a caribou foot in its mouth when you're standing just over there and I'm like I'm gonna go find this thing because why not and I walk over here to where the easiest way to get into the brush was from right here so then I walk in here and I go out there and that's where I found um the footprint when you found the the footprints what kind of what did you think right away when you sort of noticed that um I looked at the footprint and thought that's a Bigfoot that is a bigger print than my foot literally a Bigfoot literally a Bigfoot and I was just standing there just standing there looking at it for like I felt like minutes was going by I'm just thinking this is huge and I looked and notice there's more of them and then I look around and there's more than just the trail I was at there was another Trail to my left I went to my right it was just multiple Trails going and then I came back and I've taken the picture and I came back and I grabbed my buddy um I'm like hey come check this out so we both go out there and he brought the dog that brought the care that had the cariboufoot and we go out there and I show him and he's like what the hell and then the dog just kind of starts falling the trail so we followed the dog and the dog leads us to a tree and at the bottom of the tree was a bunch of hair and blood that belonged to a character so it was Caribou here and what did you did you notice anything about like the tracks was there any kind of stride or anything like that or what what formation kind of how are they going the tracks um very human-like like like if I was walking like this almost okay okay playing long strides I had the I had to bend very low like this to like kind of keep up with stride with this thing interesting and all the like the other Trails were very similar in that stride stuff and it was all in um what is this called a Boston Likens moss and Likens it was there wasn't any snow or anything else that you said no it was almost like it okay cold enough or like an Indian it'll stay for a little bit what do you think Norm I think we should check it out I like that yeah absolutely well I mean if you want to lead the way oh [Music] it was like around this area right here and when I brought my buddy back out the dog kind of started going that way that way behind Norm yeah and that's where the tracks that's where the tracks are headed yeah the trailer we follow another set of tracks was going out past Luca there and another one was kind of going that way a little bit and some of them were right next to each other and then splintered off in other directions right on and then um I guess just uh take us to the tree where you found the uh was left in the Caribou yeah so was it just blood and hair here were there actually any bones or any it was just blood in here I walked up we saw the hair and deeper inspection when we got close we could see like traces of blood and stuff around okay I mean it's been so it's been almost probably a month since it was 19. it's the 14th so almost exactly a month this kind of stuff doesn't doesn't last very long I'm pretty sure it's this one because I remember just kind of remember looking and the dog was going straight that way down this like straight line I can't see much anything here so did you guys follow it any further from here um after we found the blood we kind of walked a little further in that way because that's where the doll went was like straight that way but and then after that nobody decided yeah let's go back I'm like that's a good idea well I mean I'm down to keep going that way [Music] yeah to talk to those old Towers yeah Grizzly got a calf there just a couple weeks ago yeah I remember that no kidding so let's try to go moose calf or uh newscast yeah and in the subdivision on the road you stayed at last uh just about three days ago a yearling showed up dead right next to the road with what was described as a bite taken out of it which would be interesting to see that yeah they hauled it to uh one of the grapple pits which I've got stories about that spot too the Gravel Pit yeah I'd be kind of interested in just circling for a bit see if we find anything sure but typically with the road right there I suspect if it wasn't nighttime they probably just hauled it out of here one place I could see is a potential end point as there is a hill off the end of the turnaround maybe another quarter mile I I found stuff on top of Hills before it seems to be a place where they feel maybe a little safer to sit down you know that Forest right there I mean who goes over there right oh yeah you know any Huntersville pardon any hunters or anything that would go down there yeah but that's very much late August September what other motivation would you have to really go down there I want to be careful we don't confuse the loose tracks now but that's kind of intriguing it is interesting look at that size yeah that's what 15 inches or so right there I forgot the tape measure in the truck sure ideas I can test out this 3D scan thing let's see that's going to start uploading and we'll see we'll see how it looks we'll see if it looks any good I mean [Music] we didn't find much in the area aside from a few ambiguous tracks so we made our way back towards the road where Norm shared a story of a missing person case from just last year right after my last visit to the area do you mind telling us a little bit about that no I I don't mind at all that was Mary Dawn Wilson she was uh as I recall about 62 somewhere in there she was traveling in a vehicle with a child of a friend of hers she wasn't the grandmother sometimes it's reported she got about a mile and a quarter down the Stampede Road East from where we're standing now the story is that she got stuck in the mud and she then left the vehicle apparently to try to get help she unfortunately walked away from help apparently she headed in this direction she left the child locked in the car and she walked to within about a quarter mile of us that way where they found clothing items unspecified in the roadway and the Alaska State Troopers who investigated said there was no sign of Foul Play or animal attack on the Alaska State Troopers just kind of put their hands up in the air they don't know what happened there was a massive search it involved helicopters fixed-wing aircraft four-wheelers people on foot drones I volunteered myself and I circled right in my Lake which is down there thinking well maybe she saw that cabin down there and headed that way but I think it had been well covered before I was looking just about a year ago today is when she disappeared no sign whatsoever of what happened to her she just vanished and then John here finds interesting tracks right here which um I don't want to think Sasquatch had anything to do with it but kind of out of ideas it's weird I mean I didn't know she was in her 60s I mean that's this is physically challenging for us to get through young guys in uh I mean imagine someone and what kind of mental state she had to have been in for that whole incident take place that's just a that's very strange yeah if you can imagine just getting half a mile through this stuff not easy somebody of that age it was hard to explain how she could have gotten far enough to not be found um it's also hard to explain why she left clothing items behind and I've never been able to find out what those clothing items were I suspect they might have included shoes but I don't know and that's the most recent sort of kind of high profile missing case in this area in this area yeah I haven't heard of any others actually in this area lately people get lost in the park fairly often sure sure yeah I mean even getting to like a mountain just right over there that's that's a halt yeah yeah that's that's three four hours to get to the top of that for somebody in shape yeah and I don't know I should head that way it's weird I mean Alaska a lot of people just kind of go missing truly it's I don't know I don't know what to make of it but uh yeah I don't know if it's just more in Alaska than other places or it's just kind of a perfect storm of different things it's perhaps more opportunity here because there's so much Wilderness Area and there are some predators but it is it's a little and of course you know the can't be understated how relatively close we are to where the whole Chris McCandless Saga happened as well so this area does this road have kind of a notoriety because of that I mean people come to sort of it's like a pilgrimage it is I in fact I used to call them the pilgrims they don't do it so much now that the bus has been right I think some people still want to get out to where the bus was but yeah you used to build it the turnaround you'd find hiking gear there people would come back they bought bear spray trekking poles Etc and they would just leave them there because they didn't need them anymore all they came to Alaska to do is try to get to the bus yeah wow and yeah occasionally people will get into trouble and there'd have to be SARS events going out there at the locals found that frustrating yeah yeah well I don't blame them they were mostly very nice people a lot of Europeans sure that's what I heard it was a couple of the people that have Willie's one of them was maybe an Italian or something that had passed away out there I know a French woman French woman definitely did you can find at the Savage River or marker there for one of the people that died they actually died in the tech but they got to the Savage and they decided that's far enough yeah right now [Music] the following morning as we left the Healey area mountain alley hid itself in the clouds leaving us guessing as to where it could be we were headed further south towards the Talkeetna mountain range and the Matsu Valley North of Anchorage [Music] while we had exclusively been using the road system so far most of Alaska cannot be reached by automobile in fact the area is connected by any sort of vehicle routes are very tiny compared to the landmass that is Alaska thus getting around by a small bush plane is quite common in Alaska especially for some small out of the way Villages scattered throughout the interior such as the one mentioned in the eye shade people Story by chook earlier for this reason I had planned to try and use a bush plane to get out to a remote location towards Denali National Park in order to camp and explore for a day or two I found a pilot named Matt who happened to be a fan of small town Monster's work who agreed to such an undertaking unfortunately this particular summer was very bad weather-wise so we had to cancel the plans multiple times all we managed to do is get in the air for a short Recon flight to see how the conditions might be but alas it was not in the cards with the bush plane idea being unsuccessful I turned my focus to another area we had previously visited last year while not exactly deep into the interior of Alaska the area around Willow Creek and Hatcher Pass sits right at the start of the Talkeetna mountain range which pushes towards Denali and other areas further into Alaska last year Rob Roy Menzies helped us showcase this area which has a long history of Bigfoot stories as Rob Roy has been taking stories and visiting the area for a number of years this year we explored the area for a little bit but overall it was pretty quiet recently would you hear not probably nothing major what does it sound like no I just probably just meet here in the creek okay I visited on a separate occasion along with chook but the visibility was non-existent [Music] as we begin to wrap up this video there is a follow-up on something from last year I'd like to share while we were here last time we visited a local store in Willow where we were shown an interesting alleged Sasquatch footprint from the area at the time we could not take pictures or video of the track so we drew the footprint to the best of our ability a few months after that original video came out in June of last year I received an email from somebody who claimed to know the original owner of the footprint they sent along a host of pictures they had taken from 2010 a year or two after the cast had been made the email read as such quote The Story Goes that after two weeks of rain property owner was checking out his perimeter and found this print like it was brand new in the mud end quote the emailer indicated they had a size 10 woman's shoe I guess our memory based drawings weren't too bad after all I shared the photos with Dr Jeff Meldrum who raised some concerns about the anatomy of the alleged foot being one of the most foremost authorities on human and primate foot morphology with arguably one of the largest collections of alleged Sasquatch Footprints in North America I take what Jeff has to say seriously about these sorts of things he mentioned the toes looking peculiar as if constructed by hand as well as the foot having more of a human-like arch foot shape not typical with supposed Sasquatch footprints overall he felt the footprint was dubious at best likely a creative hoax perhaps whatever the truth behind this footprint is at least it's a little bit of closure from last year's trip [Music] so there you have it some Tales From interior Alaska looking back on it there were certainly things I would have done differently and attempted to get even further into the bush to areas not accessible by car but alas with such a large area of rugged Wilderness the dwarfs most other states by size alone interior Alaska is not easy to venture into stay tuned for other upcoming beyond the trail films there will be one more Alaskan film this time covering the Kenai Peninsula which is home to places like Port Chatham Area a and more from there the focus will be on British Columbia the land of the Sasquatch and indeed its Origins [Music] foreign

Channel: Small Town Monsters

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Length: 63min 3sec (3783 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2023