Bigfoot TIW 347: Summer of '75 Mildred Runs Into a Bigfoot

Mission Mission Mission Mission Mission Mission Mission Mission Mission Mission Through the broken pines Shadows stretch like crooked lines Stones are flying in the midnight air Bill and Kevin's where they saw it there Tearing the woods tonight Branches crack no mood inside Always carry more gun than you need All the yo-wee will make you bleed Tracks too big for any man A howling cry across the land Is it far or is it fog I see Something's out there watching me A flash of eyes that glow so red Is it alive or am I misled Tearing the woods tonight Branches crack no mood inside Always carry more gun than you need All the yo-wee will make you bleed Tearing the woods tonight Branches crack no mood inside Always carry more gun than you need All the yo-wee will make you bleed Sasquatch whisper through the trees Leaves are rustling like a breeze Legends rising hunters fall Who's the predator after all Did I know? Did I know? Did I know? Did I know? Did I know? Did I know? Did I know? I'm doing great, Bill, and I guess by activity you mean purchases. I'll be honest with you, Kev, you and I are not in this for the money, right? We both work a lot. Thank goodness. Yeah, because I'd be on welfare. But, you know, folks, I put a lot of effort and thousands of dollars into setting this shop up. And to be honest with you, the sales kev aren't really where I'd like to be. But, you know, I've learned in this business of writing books and doing things as a labor of love that everything doesn't just pay off, you know, hence doing all the different things we do to earn a living, you know. Absolutely. But the podcast is not one of them. So we can enjoy ourselves, but that doesn't mean that, you know, I wouldn't like to see some fruit from the labor I put in. You know, if you plant some seeds in your garden, you want to get some tomatoes. And by the way, you got some cool tomatoes on that website, BigfootTarenWords.com. There's some good stuff to shop for. Yeah, no, it's good stuff. And we try to... And as you know, I bought some stuff and it looks good. It's comfy. It's nice. We tried to pick out all of the best things we could through the outfit that makes it for us. And by the way, all of our shirts, hoodies, whatever you're getting are printed on two sides. And they're multicolor, you know, and this stuff costs money. And made in the USA. Correct. You know, we got a place in California that people are working at, making the things. We tried to source everything we could that wasn't in China. And so, you know, I'd like to see people showing a little support, you know. And California is still part of the USA, right? Yeah, no comment. You know, when I... Ow! I got a big foot there. Listen, Kev, when I talk to my logger buddies out on the West Coast... Uh-oh, be careful. Yeah. I mean, the things they tell me that are going on there, for instance, there is now a law going into effect. I don't know if it has or they're trying to pass it, where people will not be able to hunt or fish. And I don't know what you think about that, but try passing that on Long Island. Yeah, fishing. No fishing is strange. I mean, you know, most of the serious fishermen are catching release anyway. Yeah, well, look at me on Long Island. The striped bass limit, I have to check it this year. This year it was one fish between 28 and 35 inches. And if by chance you happen to catch one fish over 35 inches, you had to let it go. Yeah, we have the same slot rules. We call them slot rules down here in North Carolina and it's tough, you know. Now, I mean, honestly, I'm fishing for the sport anyway. Of course, of course, but it's the idea. But I understand people that aren't fishing for the sport too. You got to eat, but like we can't catch flounder here, Bill. Yeah. No flounder. Yeah. Remember how many flounder we used to catch? Yeah, well, it's a different, you got all of these long haulers and netters. Oh, I know. They just dragged the bottom. Now, I'll tell you something else, Kev. Not only folks, you know, Kevin and I get sidetracked a little bit here, but it's just conversation. We're going to come back to it. Yeah, we're coming back. But as you know, the coastal waters of Long Island have now been declared a white shark nursery. We have, we've always had. Are you going out there with like a little bottle? No, no, but we also. You build a little crib. We are also starting to get a fairly robust seal population. Hmm. And seals eat a lot of flounders and fluke. And great white shark. Eat a lot of seals. Correct. So, you know, I saw, I was with Paula one day, God rest her soul in January at Shinnecock Inlet. And I saw a seal floating along on its back in some rolling waves with about a 25 inch striped bass on its belly. Hmm. This was in January. Wow. So there are fish at Winterova, but yeah, I mean, it's tough. And if you consider that the investment you have in rods and reels and tackle and gas, and if you happen to have a boat to go out and not be able to target and keep something for your investment. Yeah. Okay. So you're in it for sport. But what if you want to take one home and eat it? Well, that's it. But I understand the limits, but the limits shouldn't be zero in most of these cases when you still have all these long line fishermen and stuff like that. Right. I mean, if you really have nothing, you know, and you're outlawing everything to save a species. Okay, fine. But a lot of times, you know, what I read about, you know, it's like, you still have these massive dredging nets and stuff like that, which that's causing all the problem. Well, Kev, right out of Shinnecock, we've got the boat docks over there, the commercial docks. Yeah. These guys go out dragging every day with their nets and they pick up everything that gets caught in the net. Most of it dies and then they throw back everything they can't sell or use dead. So I mean, that's why you got a great white shark nursery there. But God bless you because I spent a lot of time in the water here in North Carolina and so far we don't have a seals, any seals and we don't have a great white shark nursery. And that's good for me because I don't like those critters. Because I know they mistake people like me once in a while for a seal. Yeah. Well, you know, folks, if you guys remember Jaws, Frank Mundis, the guy that that crazy captain in the boat was mimicking. Yeah, dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum bizarre account, was shared with me by Mildred Shanks, a long time resident of Eastern Pennsylvania. This is what Mildred had to say. In the late summer of 1975, my cooking of dinner was suddenly interrupted by someone pounding frantically on my front door, screaming my name at the top of their lungs. My husband, who was in the basement at the time, started shouting, what's all the ruckus about? Before I could answer him, I was already going to the door, seeing my neighbor Tina through the windows. I turned the knob and Tina was in such a state that she almost fell into the house instead of walking in. At the very same moment, my husband had come up the stairs and was also entering the living room. As Tina began ranting about a huge black bear walking next to her outbuilding, she was in such a state that we immediately sat her down as my husband wasted no time getting his shotgun. Two minutes later, my husband told us to stay inside and out the door he went. Tina was shouting, please be careful, but Mike was already out of the door. I stayed with Tina trying to calm her down and console her when literally minutes later two shots rang out and we ran to the window. We went from one window to the next looking for Mike and then the front door came crashing open with Mike coming in with his gun, looking like he just saw a ghost. I said to him, what's wrong? Did you get him? Mike looked at us and said, that's no bear. It's some kind of monster. Hold on. Tina looked at me and me and her as I said, what are you talking about, Michael? Mike said he saw what he thought was a black bear walking on all fours along the fence line in Tina's yard next to the outbuilding. Coming up on the corner of the building, he leaned his shotgun on the siding and fired both barrels at the bear, hitting it cleanly with both rounds or so he said. He went on to say that the bear or what he thought was a bear leaped up and turned in one quick movement and now standing on two legs began to run towards him across the yard. By no more shells with him, he himself turned and hightailed it back to the house, which is why he came crashing through the door. He went, got more shells and told us to go lock ourselves in the back room until he said to come out. I could hear one of the back windows being forced open, which was stuck shut from painting. And this was followed by two more gunshots, which rang through the house, filling the room with the smell of gunpowder. The next thing I know, I was hearing the sound of the telephone dial ratcheting back and forth, which was followed by Mike calling the police to come over. We waited for about 10 minutes until the first officer had arrived. Moments later, the second pulled into the drive as Mike and the first officer were already talking things over in the driveway. This is when I first heard Mike say that it was a huge gorilla type monster, not a bear. Up until that point, Mike hadn't explained to us all that had transpired. I guess he didn't want to frighten us. Tina and I now watched from various windows in the house as best as we could, as Mike and the two officers made their way cautiously into the yard behind Tina's house. We suddenly heard one of the officers shout, look out! After which three shots were fired from what sounded like one of the officer's revolvers. It was almost 20 minutes later that the three men had made their way back to the house and had come inside. Tina and I were literally on pins and needles, not knowing or seeing anything in regards to why the shots had been fired and at what. As the conversation unraveled, this gorilla had darted from one side of the yard to the other as the two officers and Mike had split up, walking along both sides of the outbuilding. According to the conversations, the police were calling it a bigfoot and described it as being about seven feet tall and running very quickly on two legs. Apparently Mike thought it better not to tell us it was a bigfoot and not a bear when he had seen it. Apparently Mike thought it better to not tell us that it was a bigfoot and that it was a bear when he had seen it. But the truth came out in the end anyway. The police had openly said that reports of these things had been investigated through the years within the state. But this was the first time that one, as far as they knew, had actually been seen and shot at. About 20 minutes later, our yards were crawling with police and canines running out into the property and picking up the scent of this monster immediately. The police and two dogs were in the woods for a good hour or so before coming back out. Our officer had found some footprints along the fence line, which were quite large that they were photographing and that was the end of it. We never saw nor heard anything else regarding this bigfoot. And Tina had sold her house within six months of the sighting, with us following in suit the following year. After this event, we were afraid to go anywhere out of the house and especially coming home after dark, which was impossible. I cannot emphasize just how much this ordeal had shaken us up, but it did. So I had asked Mike for some more details, folks, having seen this bigfoot at close range a couple of times. And this is what he said to me. When I first saw it, in my mind, it registered as a bear. But in my heart, something told me otherwise. It was way too big and sitting much too high in the hind quarters. Really I had never seen anything like it, but at the time it was on all fours and dark with fur. Fearing an attack and not really knowing what to do, I fired two successive rounds right at it. And that's when things got weird really quick. A bear would have either dropped or took off in a hurry, but this thing did neither. I had squeezed off round two right after round one and this thing was already rising up and turning towards me. It had stood up and turned so quickly in one fast movement that in the moment I was caught off guard. That lasted all of two seconds before I turned and randled while this beast had stood, turned, and was already in its first step before I had even moved. I didn't look back. My assumption is that when I had bolted, it must not have followed. I say this because I don't believe I would be here today had it done so. Its first step in turning had to have been six feet or better, which told me it could have been on me lickety split. And there would have been nothing I could have done about it. My gun was empty and there would have been no way to defend oneself against such a monster. My gut tells me close to eight feet tall, possibly better than a thousand pounds if that's possible. I was so close when I fired that I could see the wrinkles in its face when it turned to face me. It had long arms and banana like fingers with dark gray skin visible around its chest, face, and hands. The feet had overhanging hair on all sides, which gave the appearance of fringe hanging off of them. I wouldn't have believed it, Bill, had someone else told me the same story. But seeing is believing and there is no doubt in my mind that what I saw was a big threat to my foot that day. Whether anybody believes me or not. How about that, Kev? Yeah, scaring them enough to get out of Eastern Pennsylvania. I'll tell you right now, I ain't moving over there. Kev, I have... Passes for sale. We gotta go. This is folks, this is no BS. I have a search and rescue fellow who's listening to the podcast, I'm sure. His territory for him and his crew is the Olympic National Forest in Washington state. And last we spoke, he was purchasing a house on a property in an area that is said to be rife with bigfoot. He's quite happy about it. Now, I have to tell you, man, to each his own. But I was pretty sure, Bill, I mean, I don't know, you know, I don't. I'm sure that he's carrying more gun than he thinks he's going to need. Well, listen to this. As I learned many things from my listeners, particularly those who are professionals, if you can believe it, these guys are search and rescue people in the deepest woods you could imagine. And Washington state does not allow them to carry a gun. When I heard that, he said, we're allowed to keep it in our truck. Well, good for you. How the hell are you going to get out of the woods when you need a gun? Say, hey, wait a minute, Mr. Cougar. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. You got to get back to my pickup truck up the road about two miles. Just freeze for a minute. Don't bite me. Come on. I know what you I know. You know what I'm saying. Just chill out a minute. You cannot make this stuff up. And yet it's all true. So I told you, Bill, when I was in the Canadian Rockies last week and the Grizzlies were awake and 700 bound Grizzlies that were hungry because they were sleeping all winter. And you know, our guide had a little can of bear spray. I was like, yeah, you don't have anything else in that backpack. Yeah, well, I tell you, Kev, that would have canceled the hike for me right there. Yeah. But I mean, you do what you do. I do what I do. I would I would not be in that woods unless I had a big side arm and a pump action 12 gauge with six in it. Yeah, I'm going to be chucking lead, banging off rounds. I have a little band to Leah like the Frito Bandito around my neck. Yeah. Hey, I am the Frito Bandito. Remember that? I do. By the way, that's a great account, Bill. And it's interesting how the guy is shooting at this and by telling the family that it's a bear, which, you know, you could understand that, right? And don't have them flipped totally out. There's nothing they can do anyway. Right. He's already freaked out. Yeah. And I guess he figured protect the women and, you know, just don't let on, you know. Yeah. But I like that the woman had said he looked like he had seen a ghost. I bet he did. A furry ghost. Yeah. I would imagine so, man. You having a counter like that, you got to be a little bit shocked, you know? A big furry ghost. You know, hey, Kevin, it brings me back to the cop upstate New York and Whitehall. Yeah, Whitehall. He was standing, what did he say, like 10 or 15 feet from that thing? Oh, listen, that it was like across the hood of his patrol car. Can you imagine he's got his gun drawn probably six or eight feet away, face to face with this freaking monster. And he says, I'm looking at something that I was told didn't exist. Exactly. I love that quote. He must have been like shell shocked. Like, what? Absolutely. Oh, my God. How could you not be? I don't know how you don't pull a trigger. Yeah, but he was like, remember, I forget his words on that front, but he was basically thinking this thing is some living intelligent creature, you know? Uh-huh. Well, here's what I say about that. I'm going to bury his intellect with some lead. When I'm done shooting at his head, he ain't going to have no intellect left. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I'm telling you, man, I don't know how these people hold back. Geez. I could see that, though, this police officer, you know, so much training in that. And then he's looking at this thing and, you know, it's not snarling at him or feeling like, you know, he's not feeling like his life is in danger. All of a sudden, he's seeing what he's been told his whole life did not exist. Yeah. But it wasn't trying to kill him at that moment. Now, maybe it would be too late if it did, but I could see him having second thoughts there. Well, what do you think would have happened? How long do you think it would have took that thing to jump the hood and beat on him? Well, but the whole thing is too. Could he kill it? Yeah, that's it. That's the thing. I mean, that's, that's like the argument, by the way, about the side arms and grizzlies in the Canadian Rockies, because it's like, you know, a lot of people are carrying a gun that can't put the thing away anyway. So then he's just getting in the matter. Well, I, I'm like, I want a couple of big, like fire extinguisher size, bear spray, and something that can throw some lead too. I told you what rich, my buddy Rich told me about the guy that took down that monster grizzly at close range that was trying to tear him a new butthole with a surprise attack. He took it with a couple of rifle shots at close range. And when they taxidermed it, they found six 38 caliber slugs in it. Well, and they say these like big grizzlies, which I can't say a big foot is different, right? I just don't know. But these big grizzly, some of these smaller caliber handguns bounce off of their head. Well, you look at that, for instance, to me, that means one thing. Somebody had a police special, an old 38 revolver, unloaded every round of it and probably got killed. Yeah. Well, it's a very popular gun. Yeah. So the bear obviously lived. Yeah. You know, they took the slugs out of it when the rifle shots had done it in. Yep. Wow. So you want to hear something else? Yeah, let's go, man. All right. So you're going to think this is a strange title for a big foot account. And I named this Frankenfoot as in Frankenstein. However, even stranger than the title is the sighting, which is about to unfold as told to me by Edith and Brian Snedekor, a couple from Bangor, Maine. Here is what they had to say. I'm going to begin with Brian. Edith and I were and still are extremely outdoorsy people. We had moved to Bangor after completing two simultaneous careers in the finance industry, spending 30 years in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan and having raised no children. Generally speaking, at least three or four times a year during that time in our lives, we would leave the confines of the rat race and head out for the sticks, having been in 37 different states and some of them more than once with Maine being one of those. In 2003, we purchased a beautiful, well-kept older home in Bangor and spent our winters in Florida in our second home. Between the two of us, we wanted for nothing financially, with our only regret being not having had any children. Money is nothing if you have nobody to share it with. But Bill, that's a story for another day. Now here's Edith. It was the summer of 2006, Bill, that the two of us had gone northeast of Bangor to spend a few days hiking around Pasadumkiyag Mountain, P-A-S-S-A-D-U-M-K-E-A-G, Pasadumkiyag Mountain, which is an extreme wilderness area in the state. It was on our second day in the forest, having seen no evidence of human existence, which came upon an enormous teepee-like structure in the deep woods. It was comprised of about 60 or 70 trees, somewhat loosely woven together and leaning against a large, overhanging limb, none of which came from the forest we were hiking through as best as we could tell. We had seen these trees actually growing in other areas during our hike, but not so much as a sapling of these species was in the area where we were now standing. So she's pointing out already these trees had been brought from somewhere else. There was an opening inside of the teepee, in the side of the teepee, which actually began about three feet from the ground. And the inside of the structure was filled with pine cones up to the opening's edge and flowing up against this back and side. So she's got this, it's like, who knows, three feet deep of pine cones and whatever else was in there. Excuse me. How many there were in there? We didn't know. But it had to number in the thousands of pine cones. It was the most unusual spectacle we had ever seen in all of our adventures in the woods. And believe me when I tell you, there was no evidence of human activity in this forest. For all we know, no human beings had ever set foot where we were. This was pristine wilderness in every sense of the word. The next day, having camped not far from the structure during the night, and having seen or heard anything at all the rest of the day or night, we arose early and began to trek up the lower side of the mountain. Brian was the first to raise his hand saying that he just saw something dark pass within the trees below a vantage point on the mountain. The two of us got into a crouch position, fully expecting to set our eyes on a black bear passing below us. For 15 minutes we sat watching but saw nothing. Whatever Brian said he had seen, apparently had entered a dense grouping of trees and bushes below us and had stopped. Now back to Brian. Excuse me. Edith and I then rose to our feet, slowly began to move in a direction which we hoped would put us in a better vantage point to see whatever it was. No sooner had we begun to move than did this thing expose itself, walking down the slope into what was a field of tall grass. Well Edith looked at me and I looked at her. As the two of us were now witnesses to a huge, darkly colored bipedal creature walking through the grass. We were only perhaps 200 feet away as this thing began entering the grass heading away from us. As if seeing this was not enough bill in and of itself, this thing was walking with one stiff leg and a left arm. So it had a stiff leg and a stiff left arm being on the same body as the leg. Okay, that's a little redundant. The arm was also very stiff and hanging out on a forward angle away from the body. Almost like this thing had a stroke. Long after the fact Edith had said it looked like Frankenstein because of the slow and rigid way in which it was walking. At the time the thought had entered my mind of someone who had a stroke. Okay, here we go. In which one side of the body remained paralyzed. Could this monster have succumbed to the same? It was slowly making its way across the field while dragging one leg through the grass. Its body looked somewhat withered in comparison to its height, which had to be close to nine feet tall, giving us the impression that it was possibly either very sick or starving to death or both. Its shoulders though were still very broad, somewhere in the neighborhood of three or four feet across in my estimation. But its body seemed to be somewhat emaciated in comparison to the size of its frame. Giving us the impression at the time this thing may not have longed to live. At no point did it turn in our direction, with a view of it being from the side and then the rear. We sat watching it as it lumbered across the field and then disappeared in the general direction of that teepee we spoke about, having seen that the day before. I think I speak for the two of us, Bill, when I say that neither of us had ever given any thought to the existence of the creature known as Bigfoot. But now in our opinion we had seen one alive, albeit apparently not well, in the northern woods of Maine. To this very day, the two of us refer to this sighting jokingly as the Freakened Foot Monster. Pretty wild, Kev, huh? Frankened Foot. Frankened Foot. And where was that, Bill? Well, they had a house in Bangor, Maine. Oh, Bangor, Maine, okay. But they were by this Pasadumkeg mountain. Oh, that's right. Glad you were saying that and not me for a change. Again, like northeast, Kev. You know, all the Indian names around Long Island and up there, all these Indian tribes were over here. So I guess there was a tribe called the Pasadumkeg or something like that. I don't know. But very interesting, you know, Western Pennsylvania and Maine. And by the way, folks, you know, I put together a series of books called the Regional Series, in which I compiled all of the stories from certain areas of the country by state into these seven books. So the northeast is one of them. Pennsylvania and Maine are in there for Montenegro, New Hampshire, New York. And so you can take a look at the Regional Series and look at your state or the adjoining states. And you might find that very interesting so you could hone in on where you live. And you know, Kev, it was interesting when I was putting this together. Which took quite a long time. I realized that other than the northern border and Texas, the central United States, there were almost no big foot sightings. I'm talking like the plain states and whatnot, you know. OK. Oklahoma. Yeah, it just tells you something about, like, the United States. Like South Dakota. Kansas. Yeah, Kansas. You know, the name slipped me right now, but it was interesting how there were almost no sightings. In fact, I had a couple of states that had zero. Now, again, that's anything that I had come my way. I'm not saying there isn't a sighting, but I had nothing in my books relative to them. So I thought that, you know, it kind of showed that it is a regional thing and they're looking for certain kinds of habitat. Sure. Woods or water, you know, that they're comfortable in. So you need a place to hang out and hide. So, bro, what do we have in a list in a mail? Anything cool? Oh, not a little. Crypto in the New Yorkers and other oddities. Exactly. Don't jump the gun. No, no, you know how I am. So settle in, folks. Grab your coffee. Grab a glass of bourbon. Maybe some bourbon in your coffee. And we're going to take a journey backward in time. Okay. Okay. The year is 1811. Okay. 1811. So no cell phones, no GPS, no all terrain vehicles. Not even any high powered rifles. We're stepping back into the woods and the location is the freezing, uncharted and unforgiving wilderness of the Canadian Rockies. Uh-oh. Yep. And I never heard about this guy, Bill, until I was in the Canadian Rockies a couple of weeks ago. Okay. And when I asked my guide, I told you, I asked my guide about Bigfoot and that and he hadn't seen one, but he told me this story about a guy. He was a trader, a trapper by the name of David Thompson. Wow. And this was from your guide? From my guide, yeah. And I looked it up though. It's legit. Yeah. And it's interesting, Kev, how I always say this, breaking the ice in a conversation, you never know what that may lead to. And apparently it's true for you. Yeah. And this guy, David Thompson, it turns out is pretty famous fur trapper. And I mean, the stats on him are unbelievable. So, you know, he arguably was one of the greatest land geographers and map makers back then in the early history of North America. And over his career, he mapped over 1.5 million square miles of North America. Wow. Yeah. And get this, Bill. His journal showed that he covered an astounding 65,000 miles on foot, horseback and canoe. That is insane. It is insane. Holy cow. And he's, yeah, he spent a lot of time with the indigenous people and they respected him deeply. They called him Cuckoo Sint, which translates to the stargazer because he was constantly looking at the heavens. He had a sextant back then and he was calculating his exact coordinates. He was a man of science, a man of precise measurement and a man of logic. So, he didn't make things up and he certainly didn't frighten easily, having covered that much land, right? You know, it's crazy, Kev, what some people did in the past and took on with so little. I mean, it's like a Lewis and Clark expedition and they have. Oh, yeah. And if you see the land out there, Bill, near the continental divide in the Canadian Rockies, I mean, today you wouldn't hike over it. With all the equipment I said that he didn't have. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's just so harsh. It's incredible. It's like Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone, you know, just getting lost in the woods in a harsher landscape. In a harsher landscape, right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So, this encounter by him is widely considered the very first documented discovery of Sasquash tracks by a European explorer in North America. Hmm. All right. So, it's January 7th, 1811. It's a wicked cold, right? And Thompson and his crew are trying to forge a new route for fur trade across the continental divide, right? So, the highest peak there in the Canadian Rockies. They're near what's called the Athabasca Pass, which is right in the heart of modern day Jasper National Park in Alberta. So, Jasper National Park is just kind of to the northwest of Banff National Park where I was a week or so ago. And I've had a number of accounts actually in Jasper. Yeah. And in Banff, however they pronounce it. Banff, yeah. Wicked cold, fresh layer of snow, about six inches deep, sitting on top of a solid river of solid river ice. They're completely isolated from the rest of the world. And while he's there, so these Native Americans, or I shouldn't say that, you know, they're not Native North Americans, right? First people of Canada, as they call them, First Nations. They were telling him, hey, we're here, we're helping you. But if we come along, you know, this Sasquatch creature or whatever they called it in their native tongue, a lot of them were Cree Indians up there. They said, you know, if we come along this creature, and he didn't know what they were talking about, like we're out of here. Right. Just so you know. Right. We like you, we like you, we admire you, but we come across a hairy man. You know, you're on your own. Yeah, I've heard of this type of activity with natives before, Kev, where they're like, just because you don't know about it, we do, and we're not hanging in his neighborhood. And we're not in. Yeah. Yeah. So they stumble across some tracks and here is exactly what David Thompson meticulously recorded in his journal that evening next to the fire. Okay. Okay. And it's a little awkward because it's a little bit of old English. Okay. He says, continuing our journey in the afternoon, we came on the track of a large animal. I measured it four large toes each of four inches in length to each a short claw. The ball of the foot sunk three inches lower than the toes. The hinder part of the foot did not mark as well, but the length overall was 14 inches by eight inches in breadth. Walking from north to south and having passed about six hours prior. So 14 inches long, eight inches wide, four distinct toes, each one about four inches long. But the detail that really gets to me is that the ball of the foot sank three inches deeper than the toes in the packed snow and ice. So, you know, pretty big beast, whatever made that print. Also notable is that he as the expert trapper could tell that this creature had gone by about six hours earlier. Yeah. He could, his study of tracks and the snow and conditions told him that there was a time frame attached to when whatever this was had passed where they now were. Yeah. And very importantly, Bill, building on that a little bit. These are hardened men who hunted grizzly bears with black powder muskets and bow and arrows. They knew every single animal in these woods. Absolutely. You know, because their survival depended on it. That's right. And they're like, what the heck is this? Yeah. Yeah. So when his guides or, you know, his party, you know, companions saw this, they were completely spooked and they refused to follow it. And Thompson again wrote in his journal, and it's a little weird, but awkward. But he said, we were in no humor to follow him. The sight of the track of that large beast staggered me. And I often thought of it, yet never could bring myself to believe that such animal like this existed. Wow. You know, Kev, I mean. People can call you bluff. People can say, you know, horse spooky. They can say whatever they want. This guy's legit, which sounds to me like he is very famous, recorded, cartographer, map maker, well known and respected. Obviously, there's a lot known about the man to calculate how far and why he traveled his map making abilities. Why on earth, like Teddy Roosevelt's American Hunter book, would this guy even bother telling you such a story if it didn't happen? No, no. So, you know, we're getting close to the end here, but it's pretty interesting. Yeah. We flashback a little over a year prior to this sighting to September 28, 1810. Okay. Thompson's meeting with a highly respected Kootenai leader named Chief Ugly Head. Don't mind the name. Don't mind his face. They're sitting together. What's that? Don't mind his face. Exactly. Ugly Head. But this Chief gives Thompson a very specific, very serious warning about a local creature that he may encounter. So the Chief says, and I quote, In the woods in these mountains, there lives a very large animal that never lies down and has to sleep by leaning against trees to take its weight. It has no joints in the middle of its legs. The Chief added that they had never killed one and they had never found the remains of one, but they knew without a doubt that they were out there. Now, Kev, I have to jump in here. That is, it's incredible that you dug that up from this Chief Ugly Head because if this is true, this is the explanation for the spider crawl. Because I have long time said that too many people have said they saw this thing, including Philip at the Fondi mine, the Fondi Mountain coal mine where he had his siding. When he first saw this thing, it was down on all fours and he couldn't quite make out what he was looking at. The only thing he could fall back on was a bear. But I have often said, how could they fold their legs at the knee? You couldn't do it if you had a hind joint like we humans have with our femur and our tibia. You can't collapse that. It can't fold in or out. It goes one way and we all know what happens to a football player when they take a hit to the side. It breaks. And this Chief Ugly Head, what was his verbiage now? He said there was no... Well, they're basically saying that like there's no knee. But I think what they're really trying to describe, Bill, is that like it has a really funny gait when it walks. Right? Like if you look at the patty film and that, you know, kind of that weird, kind of stiff legged gait. I think that's probably what he means, but nobody knows. Well, I always thought the patty film, the creature looked a little knock-kneed. In other words, like, yeah, like a little loose in the knees. Like there seemed to be a little flexion going in and out as the creature was stepping. You know, if it was a human being, we would say the girl or the guy was knock-kneed. In other words, the knees appeared closer than a quote, normal posture. Right. But if you're looking at it from the side, I think what they're saying is that like the knee is bent, but it doesn't really lock when it walks. Okay. Right? You know, it's fluid. You're moving, but it's not really locking. And I think, you know, in the patty film, that's kind of what you see. I got to go back and look at it again. Yeah, no, but that's how this guy's describing it. Good old ugly head. Wow. And here we are. Not to be confused with Chief Ugly Face. And here we are with the Kootenai again. Yeah. And I think I was telling the other night, Rich is definitely having some UFO activity up in Northern Idaho. Yeah. And there's a Kootenai Indian. They have, you know, they still have a presence up there in modern day. In one, I keep forgetting the name of this major city over there. And he had talked about a UFO sighting that he had had. So these tribes are still around. Their traditions are still around. The oral traditions and the passing down of wisdom and knowledge is still present. So I bet you there's somebody up there that still knows Chief Ugly Head. And if you're out there and Rich, if you're listening and I know you will be, see what you could do if you know anybody up there that goes back to this Chief Ugly Head. See what you could dig up for us. That's interesting, Keb. That sounds good. Wow. So good one. And then my friend Andrew, my new friend Andrew, my guide from the UK, now a Canadian citizen up there in the Canadian Rockies told me that story. Nice. Pretty cool. Yeah, you got to like it, man. You got to like it. Yeah, it's awesome. All right. Now how about some listener mail? Fantastic. All right. So I got an email bill from Debbie and Debbie's from Stockholm, Sweden. How cool is that? Really cool. Yeah. And she says, hello KJ and WJ. One of your listeners on podcast on March 15th had trouble finding all your episodes in the app. And yeah, Debbie, we hear about that all the time. Yep. I had the same problem till I switched to an app called get podcast where the majority, if not all episodes are available. Yours is my favorite podcast overall. And I'm making my way through all the episodes. I especially enjoy the Harry Man accounts and those pesky black eyed brats. Brats. I don't know Debbie. I don't like being called a black eyed brat. Do you mind if I use my phone? Maybe we can sit down. I'd like to call my mother and see what she thinks about you calling me a pesky black eyed brat. Just let me in for a minute so I can use your phone. Let's sit down on the sofa and talk about it. Let's talk about the anxiety you have about us. And she writes, blessings to you both from Stockholm. Debbie, thank you Debbie. And that's cool tip. I never heard of get podcast as an app. And folks, like I always say, they're all out there. Maybe you got to reload your favorite podcast player. I know that you do have a hard time finding the old ones, but they are out there. I promise you. I check all the time whenever I hear this. And then by the way, I always say it a little bit of a warning. I don't know if you want to go back to those really early episodes. If you think the quality is challenging now, whoa, be careful about that. Now, you know what it is. So Kevin, it's all cool. We're talking about stories, accounts and the early ones. We were doing the same thing, man. I mean, this. Oh, I know. They're great accounts. I just mean, yeah, yeah, sometimes the recording quality is, you know, a little rough. Well, better than a couple of cups in a shoe and a string. I was going to say a little rough or at least a little rougher than it is today. All right, Bill. So great podcast. Thanks folks for tuning in. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the mail to keep writing in, you know, right to us at on the website, BigfootTerrorinowoods.com, under the contact us. We'd love to hear from you, even if you're just saying hello and telling us that we brighten up your day or something like that. So thank you very much. Yeah, awesome. And by the way, folks, if you should find yourself walking along the woodline in eastern Pennsylvania, perhaps in northern Maine, Alberta, Canada, you best remember one thing, my friends, always carry more gun than you think you're going to need. Sleep tight.