Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:1167 Abandoned: The History and Horror of Port Chatham, Alaska

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

Tonight I will be speaking to Tom and Larry Baxter. Tom writes "I'm not sure if this would be interesting for you, and it's a second-hand account. My dad actually had the encounter and he passed away at age 84 a couple of years ago. I grew up in the Albany/Corvallis Oregon area, and as a child, my dad would tell us his story of his encounter which occurred in the Silverton Oregon area circa 1955/56 timeframe. His story was a brief one, but very descriptive (mostly what others on your show have described it) and it did impact his life and thoughts about the experience over his lifetime, and it made my brother and I very curious as we grew up in the Willamette Valley area. He saw the creature from his car in the Central Howell area at the intersection of Silverton and Howell Prairie roads. He was with his girlfriend at the time and they saw the creature emerge from the grass field alongside the intersection road at night. Anyway, if you are interested in this, I can tell the brief story of how he described it, etc." We will also be speaking to Larry Baxter regarding his book, Abandoned: The History and Horror of Port Chatham, Alaska. Port Chatham, Alaska was once a busy fishing village. By 1950, every single resident had left the town, leaving it abandoned. Over the years, legends told that the residents fled because they were being terrorized by a Bigfoot-like creature the local natives called Nantiinaq. Stories of mutilated bodies, missing hunters and strange, otherworldly creatures have long been associated with Port Chatham. Retired police investigator, Larry Baxter, delves into the real-life mystery of Port Chatham and chronicles his research for the truth into one of Alaska's most infamous legends.

On a late November night in 2012, while driving in the foothills of Washington, two brothers were surrounded by mysterious creatures. Still haunted and forever changed, these men took to the internet, creating a forum for others. If you've had an encounter and no one else can help, maybe you can contact Sasquatch Chronicles. It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blinding. It either heard me or smelled me and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up and that shocked me. They don't make people that big.

The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything move like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language and they were chuntering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards. I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. Back on one, what are you reporting? Jesus Christ, you better. Care?

See you. Hello? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right here. Uh-uh.

Yeah, this is the macho man, and you're listening to the cream of the crop. Yeah, podcast, Sasquatch, Chronicles. Here comes! Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you. We'll be chatting with Tom. And Tom's email reads,

I'm not sure if this would be interesting for you. And it's a second-hand account. My dad had an encounter and passed away at the age of 84 a couple years ago. I grew up in Albany Corvallis, Oregon area. And as a child, my dad would tell us his story of his encounter, which occurred in the Silverton, Oregon area around 1955, 56. Normally, I don't like to do secondhand accounts, but in honor of Tom's father,

I invited Tom to come on and tell him. his father's encounter. We'll also be chatting with Larry Baxter. He's the author of Abandoned, the history and horror of Port Chatham, Alaska. And anyone that knows the history of Port Chatham, Alaska, it was a really busy fishing village, and by 1950, every single resident had left town. And over the years, residents would talk about they fled because they were being terrorized by this creature. I'm working on a live show for July 4th. I invited Chris on from last night's show, 1166.

What I saw changed my perspective. But I saw that, and it was, like I said, it was real dark outside, but I saw this black figure, and it looked like it was running on all fours. And it was coming across that field. And I thought, man, that, that's, that's odd. It doesn't look in the shape of any animal ever seen. It doesn't look like a horse or a cow or anything. It's weird.

It looks strange to me. So the more I started looking at this thing, and I'm trying to drive, and I see that it's running all fours, and it just looks like a weird-looking animal. And in my mind, I'm not registering what I'm looking at. It's the weirdest feeling, those who have seen one of these things or maybe seen another cryptic knows what I'm talking about. When you see something that's not normal in your head,

you're trying to rationalize what you're seeing and it's just not normal. There's something that wasn't normal about this animal. What that thing did next was really changed the way I viewed a lot of things in life. As it's running toward me, or not running toward me, but it's running at that angle. I've seen this thing from like two different angles from the, from like a side view of it and from a little bit from the front. I couldn't tell you if this thing had a tail. It was really dark.

I couldn't tell that. But the closest, what I did see was, was far enough, was enough. I don't, I don't, I don't ever want to see one again. Ma'am, I remember just like it was yesterday. This thing, this thing was running on all fours. It transitioned from four legs up to two legs. And that's what, that's what, I'll never forget that. I'll never, ever in my life forget that the way that thing did that.

It transitioned from four up to two legs. And when it, when it got up on two legs, Wes, it, oh, man. Yeah, it, it, it was running like it was, like it was hunched over. that's probably the best way I can describe it. It was running, leaned over. And it kept that momentum, that same momentum the whole way. It never, as far as I could tell, I never went back down on four legs. It was up on two legs.

And this thing was big, much, much bigger than it looked down on fours. I mean, it was, it was, it was a big creature. And not only did that really start to give me a lot of unease when I saw that. But then it looked and I look like it looked like you have the outline, man, it looked like it had the outline of shoulders, big, broad shoulders. And then as it got closer, then I hate to say this, but I, I hate to say this, but I, I, It looked like it had, I thought, I thought it looked like it had horns on its head. And all that sounds weird. But at the time, I didn't know what a dog man was.

I never even heard of one. I didn't know. I had no clue what a dog man was. I wouldn't even into cryptids that much. I'm a Christian guy. I believe in the Bible. I believe in God, things of that nature. And, man, I thought they were really strange.

I thought it was, I thought it maybe was horns. but I started looking closer as much as I could, the best I could. And it looked, there were ears. They were ears on the top of its head. And Chris shared this account. He was driving back from an oil field. In his words, what he thought he saw was a huge timber wolf. Now, this is in West Texas.

There's not much out there. But he thought he saw this huge timber wolf. And it was running across this farm. and this wolf got up on two legs and started running. And again, at the time, Chris didn't know what it was. He didn't believe in were wolves, but that's the only thing he could place it with. But we had a great discussion last night on theories. The whole conversation could have gone on for hours.

So I invited Chris to come back for the live show for the members. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Tom to the show. Tom, thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me, Wes.

Appreciate it. Yeah, and you had sent me this email about your dad's encounter in the area where he had the encounter. I know very well. But if you would, kind of walk me into this encounter that you heard growing up your whole life and your father shared with you. Yeah, happy to. So just a little bit of backstory to kind of put some context to it. My dad, so he had the experience, the encounter.

So I feel kind of privileged to share the story because I know he became quite passionate about the subject. matter of the Sasquatch. And of course, he passed a couple years ago. We're all from Oregon. So I grew up in rural Albany, Carvalis, Oregon area. Eventually, I moved my, we located my family, my wife and my kids to Florida. So I live in Florida now. My parents, my brother, they stayed back in Oregon, obviously. And my brother was the caretaker for. my parents and he suddenly passed away in 2018 and that left my dad to take care of my mom who was suffering from dementia. She was in her early 80s and so she passed and then my dad was all alone. So I told him that, hey, dad, you know, if you want to be with us and be close to us, you need

to move by me in Florida and, you know, come live over with me. And so, So he was a little reluctant because he grew up in Oregon. That was his home and was an avid outdoorsman in his youth. But he obviously wanted to be with family. And so I moved him close to me here in Florida and found the nice assisted living center for him, not far from our house. And so it was a little hard transition, you know, going through that. but he lived for two more years with me here in Florida, and he eventually became used to it and really actually enjoyed it in his final years.

He didn't have much to worry about just coming over a couple times a week, and we'd sit on our patio here. We have a nice patio with a pool and palm trees and such, so he would come over, and we would spend a lot of time on the patio, just talking about all kinds of things, you know. And he, you know, a lot of times it was about sports or politics or, you know, what ended up being oftentimes, you know, a lot of different things. And, you know, the topic of this Sasquatch encounter came up quite a bit.

And it was something that, you know, happened to him in the late 50s. So he was a teenager. And he told the story quite often to us, just within the family. And it was something that when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, my brother and I just love to hear this story because, you know, everybody loves a mystery. Everybody loves to, you know, try to envision some of these paranormal things and kind of

get a lot of excitement, you know, around the campfire or whether it be in the, you know, for whatever reason we'd be traveling. Oftentimes, my dad grew up in, you know, my dad grew up in, the Silverton, Oregon area, pretty rural farming and agricultural environment. Very small town, I think there's about 15,000 people that lived there today. But back then, it was even much smaller. And so, but we go to visit grandma and grandpa often. And we would drive through the area.

And we would go through the area that he actually had the encounter to get to my grandparents' house. And so obviously that would be the time where he would tell the story and you get all excited about it. And he told it a million times. So I almost feel like I experienced it myself just from my imagination and, you know, seeing all the reading about it, seeing about it. You know, we became really fascinated with it growing up. But we, my dad and I talked about it quite a bit. And he over time became very philosophical about it. I think when it happened in the early, it was like the late 50s, I think it was 57 that he saw it.

I think in his early years, he got a lot of ridicule over it. When he brought it up, you know, it was just that most people in those days, fantastical. And just, you know, he got kind of made fun of a lot. And so he learned early on to kind of hide this story and just didn't want to talk about it because he just, you know, I think he himself kind of tried to understand it, you know, like a lot of people do and they have an encounter. It's, it's, they're going back and forth in their minds trying to figure it out, make, make sense of it. Was it real? Was it fake? Was it what was it? What, was it? What, you know? And it really affects people, I think. And it affected him over time. But I can get, I'll kind of get into the actual

encounter and then we can kind of go from there. But mentioned that it was in. Silverton, Oregon, and he was driving with his girlfriend to a high school dance. In those days, the area was, you know, even more rural and foresty and farming, you know, all kinds of farming activity. But there wasn't a lot of infrastructure, buildings or commercial buildings at all. In a lot of those areas, if you ever drive through Silverton, it's, you know, today anyway, it's very much farmland and agriculture agriculture so he was driving to this dance with his girlfriend as they were this i think was about he said eight o'clock or some it was sometime in the evening and i think it was towards the late fall early winter time they were they were driving through the area this that would

call it central howl if anybody's ever been through there there's a place called central howl which is an intersection that connects Howell Prairie Road and Silverton Road. And at that time, it was pretty much all dirt and gravel road. I think he said that it was about 45-ish miles per hour, something that effect, just talking and having a nice ride to the high school. Very suddenly, this dark figure came out from the right side of the road. out of the grass, the grass field, and proceeded to walk in a diagonal manner right into the middle of the road right in front of his car. And, you know, it was kind of a mayhem in the car. My dad said his girlfriend just absolutely started screaming and very upset. And my dad said he was just

stunned, but it appeared to be a humanoid being walking on what appeared to be, you know, two legs and two arms. And, you know, I think at first he thought it was a person, you know, because it was his mind was trying to get wrapped around that it was, you know, walking on two legs and it was, and it had two arms. And, you know, is this a person in the few seconds that his brain was trying to get around it? And then this thing, it turned its shoulders. And, and, you know, it turned its shoulders and a little bit and with its head to its left. And it made eye contact with my dad. And he said he just was floored at what he was seeing.

It was kind of the way he described it. You know, it was a hairy, dark hair with an apish look to it, an apish face. It was clearly not a bear or any kind of, you know, an animal that you would immediately. think if this might be when you think about hair and things like that. It was a, it looked human apish is kind of how he described it. And it was just kind of a complete shock for him. He was all this while, you know, his girlfriend was just screaming. And the creature, one of the things he mentioned over and over again in the story is that it, it showed absolutely no fear. And he had to He immediately slowed down and literally swerved around it to avoid hitting it.

He swerved to the right of the creature. And as he was swerving around it and kind of, he said it was kind of almost like a slow motion feel to it, the creature proceeded to move to the other side of the road and then shifted its shoulders and its head to its right and looked at him again. and he said it had the very black eyes and showed no expression at all it was uh and the thing again it kept coming up over the years was you know this thing showed no fear you know you'd think if if it was somebody a human right um maybe it could be a hoaxer or somebody in a costume or something that the first reaction would be well i don't want to get hit by this car and maybe jump or be scared or run or, you know, take some sort of evasive action.

But this thing just kind of, it did, had no fear whatsoever and no expression on its face, almost kind of annoyed maybe that he was there and just proceeded to go at a consistent clip. You know, there was no like speeding up necessarily or trying to take any evasive action. It just kind of moved to the left side of the road. and then it kind of quickly turned it to its left and walked into the grass field and kind of started to proceed away. And at that point, my dad said his girlfriend just, she told him, get out of here. Let's just get the hell out.

Go, go, go. You know, so he floored the gas and they sped off. I think he said it maybe about five or six seconds after he was hit the gas. he suddenly, and it's still trying to process this whole thing, he stopped the car. And he looked at his girlfriend and he said, I need to go back and see what that was. I have to, did you see that? I got to go back. I'll never forgive myself if I don't try to, you know, see what that thing was.

And she looked at him and, of course, she was still a little bit hysterical. And she says, hell no, we're getting the hell out of here. Go, get out of here. I don't, we're not going back there, you know. and she had she wanted nothing to do with it she you know and so he he reluctantly kind of slowly proceeded to leave the area and on onto their trip over to the high school for that for that dance it was something that kind of overshadowed the entire evening he said it was just uh you know they're a little bit shock a little bit of a shock and awe type feel to everything just trying to

process what they'd seen and you know he even tried he said to chat with her about it because she saw the this this creature as well and wanted to uh and he wanted to talk about it and process it and you know and she just had wanted nothing to do that i think she had a little bit of PTSD about the whole thing and uh interestingly enough my my dad said that as the years went on it they didn't actually last very long. And I think he said sometimes he felt like that experience kind of ruined the relationship, you know, because it was kind of a little bit of a PTSD experience that he just kind of overshadowed any chance of having, you know, any kind of relationship. And, but he said he saw her occasionally as the years went on. And I think there was even a high school reunion or two

that, that they would, you know, see each other. And he said he tried to bring it up because again, you know, I mean, as time went on, it became a more interesting to him and fascinating, and he wanted to talk about it. And she just said, don't bring that up. I never want to talk about that again. So that's the basic story. It's something that, you know, I know. One thing I forgot to mention is when, I think it was in the late 70s, this was this experience he had was, I think 10 years prior to the, Patterson Gimlin film that happened where that I think it was what 68 when when they

Patterson Gimlin took that film of Patty and I think it was on the on a show that we're watching in the 70s called In Search of which was an old documentary serial television series that Leonard Nimoy from Star Trek he he would was a narrator for that show and I remember as a kid when that came on a few times on television, they would show that they showed that footage. And the first time that I remember, I don't know when it was, but I think it was the first time he saw that my dad was reading the paper in his chair. And he put the paper on his lap and he looked at it kind of like very almost like a shock kind of look to him. And he goes, guys, That's what I saw.

That's what I saw. If I had to explain somehow or visually what I saw, that that's it. He talked about the gait, the conical, look to the head, the way it moved, just kind of a grace to it, you know, and just everything about it. That film really resonated with them. And as the years went on, when that clip came on, you know, for whatever show we were watching, you know, mystery shows or paranormal shows or documentaries, you know, dealing with Sasquatch, that was something that he always kind of gave him chills because that was something that he said, that's what I saw, you know. But I think it really affected his, you know, I think it affected his life because, you know, he got, he got, he became very fascinated with the subject matter.

And he put a lot more thought into. In fact, in college, he went to the University of Oregon. He took, I think it was one of the literary class or English class or some class where he had to write a paper and an essay. And he actually wrote an essay on his experience. I think he called it mystery or monkey business. I can't remember the exact name of the title. But he kept that paper. He got an A on it.

In the paper, he wrote in an analysis of trying to get comprehend what he'd seen and kind of weighing the idea that could this be, could this have been a fake or a hoax? Or was this a real event, you know, and trying to kind of come to grips with it? Because he did, just like anybody, when they see something like this, you always want to, I would imagine, try to understand it. And could this have been a fake? Could this have been, you know, something other than what I would have. it, we think it might be this crypted creature of some sort. And I know that I think in the late 50s, I think the Bigfoot craze in the Northwest sort

started, you know, he said that there was kind of wise tales about sightings and footprints and things, you know, kind of leading up, that decade leading up to the Patterson Gimlin film. I think there was even some footprints that came out. I think there was a guide by the name of Ray Wallace, claims it. Lager claimed that he had taken some footprints or something of that sort. And it turned out, I think, in 2002, there was, it was claimed to be a hoax or something like that. But there was a lot of hoaxes and things going on. So at that time, and I think he was trying to understand could this have been a hoax. But he never really believed it because it was just such a convincing experience. I mean, it did not look like a costume. There was no, you know, I know that Patterson Gimman's film has been. critiqued over the years many times and you know a lot of people have opinions on it's authenticity or not but you know just especially in 58 it was hard enough in 68 to conceive of somebody making a

a costume in that way that could pull off that deal but it just he said it just had to be real it just and again that showed no fear so how could somebody be playing with their lives if it had it They'd have had to have gotten a seven-foot actor to play this role in a costume and have to show no fear, be no, you know, walk in front of a car going 45 miles an hour and take the risk with their life of getting hit by a car or something or, you know, shot or whatever. So, yeah, that's kind of the basic story that he really enjoyed, in our, especially in his final years, talking about it with me. And we always talked about, you know, speculating and, you know, the whole. concept of Sasquatch and he enjoyed the shows you know like finding Bigfoot and some of these television shows and modern documentaries and I would show him you know the the internet has some

interesting things but I know the BFRO has an interesting website that you can it shows a documented sightings by location by county by state you know so we would I'd show him some of this stuff you know, he wasn't computer savvy, but he enjoyed, you know, kind of looking at some of these things. And I think he kind of realized in the end just how the sheer magnitude of that this phenomena is, is that there's so many people that have seen and had similar experiences. It's a very, you know, with a lot of credibility, a lot of, you know, passion. And back in the 50s and, you know, when he was growing up, there was just wasn't the internet. there wasn't the medium to share stories with other people.

And I think he really kind of longed to talk to other people that have had similar encounters because I think there is kind of a little bit of a PTSD effect to it because, you know, it just is such an unusual thing and opens up so many questions that you can't explain. And, you know, a lot of the things that have come on your show from other people that have seen it experiences and feelings about it and things like that. Yeah, I'm honored you would come on and share your father's account, may rest in peace. You know, when you were growing up and he was describing this thing and he was looking at the face of it, did he describe it more like a man or did he describe it more like an ape?

He described it as kind of ape-ish, but not ape, if that kind of, you. any sense it wasn't a man it wasn't it was it clearly wasn't a you know a man with normal skin tone and and you know what not it was just a darkish kind of face with black eyes kind of a this apish kind of creature apish looking but not animal um yeah that's kind of the what i recall from his explanation did your father ever talk about what he thought it was or Was he thinking more of an ape, kind of a non-human primate? Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, we did talk about those kind of things,

and he kind of paralleled it to Native American in the sense that he had this idea or he created this, you know, after a lot of thought, that it was some sort of wild man-like creature, and obviously more than one, right? We're talking about a population of creatures out there. there, but that he paralleled it to Native American in the sense that these appear to be elusive features that are very smart and intelligent and can evade human detection for the most part

and have some sort of a, you know, a culture and way of living, almost like a survivalist type. I might say Native American, not like, you know, in the sense of a tribal, you know, type, but more behaviorally just living on the land surviving undetected largely and having some sense of intelligence that they're able to to do this you know they're obviously not industrialized like human you can't really say they're human obviously but in the sense that they're very intelligent and have a language and a way of living and behaviorally and i think there was one of the episodes that was interesting. I was thinking about this that you had,

maybe it was a year or so ago. I don't remember the episode number, but somebody was talking about how a deer jumped out of the trees, and there was kind of a group of creatures that, and I think it was the male leader of this group, was a hunter that took down a deer, and then they were all gathering around the deer. almost like they were appreciating the life that they're going to, you know,

sustaining from the hunt that this is, that, you know, they're appreciating their hunt. And it kind of reminded me of the Native American illustration again of how Indian Native Americans would hunt buffalo or hunt their game, deer, whatever. And they would, they would honor and respect the, the hunt, you know, and everything was used from the, from the animal. It was very much part of their culture that that was appreciated and taken seriously. And again, kind of maybe think about how my dad described it. Maybe they have some sort of native behavior that they can act.

They're very thoughtful and appreciate certain things that gives them that intelligence. You know, they're not full animal. There's something about them that is interesting in that way. If that makes any sense. Yeah, it does make sense. But what about you, Tom? What do you think Sasquatch is? Yeah, I think like probably a lot of people out there that have mentioned it.

I think it's some sort of undocumented, largely undiscovered creature that hasn't been discovered. But a lot of enough people have seen it that, you know, there's a lot of credibility to it. But yeah, some sort of undocumented creature, more probably. human behaviorally than we think, and less of an animal. But, yeah, I think I hope in my lifetime that something, you know, concrete will come out about it that will kind of solve some of that mystery. You know, I know a lot of people would like to have some, you know, proof and be able to understand it, you know.

Yeah, I appreciate your feedback. And I really wish I could have met your father. and had him on the show. You know, it's really cool that he shared this with you guys, you and your brothers growing up. And I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing your dad's account. Like I said earlier, I'm honored. Yeah, thanks, Wes.

Appreciate it. Love the show. And thanks again. Next up on the show, I want to welcome Larry Baxter. He's the author of Abandon, the history and horror of Port Chatham, Alaska. Larry, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me, Wes. It's great to be here. Yeah, I'm happy to have you. And, you know, I've been fascinated with this whole Port Chatham, Alaska account.

And back in the 50s, every single resident left the town. And there's stories about why they left the town. I know we're going to go into that a little bit tonight and talk about your book. And if you want to get Larry's book, it's on Amazon, abandoned. The history and the horror. of Port Chatham, Alaska. Before we go into what happened back in the 50s, you were actually in Port Chatham, and you had an experience. Tell me about that.

On the first Port Chatham expedition, I was looking through my thermal, and I saw something that... The only way I can describe it, man, is it looked like Donkey Kong, like a silhouette of Donkey Kong. It had, like, cone head, wide shoulders, kind of tapered down,

a waist and it was raising its arms up and down, you know, almost like hey, over here. And I saw it through the thermal, you know, we're doing a documentary on Port Chatham, which is basically about, you know, Bigfoot.

I see this thing through my thermal and instead of hitting record, I hand it to the person next to me. I'm like, hey, look over there. Tell me what you see. Because I'm not, I'm like, surely, I'm not seeing what I think I see. I handed it to one of the production guys, one of the assistants. He was kind of a young kid.

And he looks through the thermal and he goes, it looks like a dude. And the thermal kind of made its way down the line there of people that were standing there. And by the time it came back to me and I had the presence of mine to hit record it. It was still there, but it wasn't what I saw. It had started to kind of recede back.

So it was more of a blob squatch. That really like just the fight explanation for me. I could not figure out what that was. and it looked like what you would expect the silhouette of a Bigfoot to look like, the thermal. And, you know, of course, I always give people a hard time about, you know, they see Bigfoot and they don't get a picture. They don't hit record, you know, the curse of Bigfoot. And I kind of softened up on people a little bit since then because I had, it would have been a great thermal footage if I just hit record as soon as I saw it. But I went for the validation instead and handed the camera off to the guy next to me.

But that was, that's probably my big one, is that thermal image on the. Port Chatham. Yeah, I know that you've done a few documentaries, and you've had some experiences over the years. The thermal, though, you know, in Port Chatham, especially with the backstory on that place. I mean, that's kind of mind-blowing. There was an incident in Washington. This didn't happen in Alaska. It happened in Washington where I was walking down a logging road with a group of people.

We were filming a documentary called Bigfoot Encounters in the Pacific Northwest. and it was our last night there and there was a lot of, we were hearing a lot of knocks and vocalizations, but I hadn't seen anything. And I was getting kind of disappointed because I really wanted to see something. And so I told the group,

I was like, you guys, I'm going to take a leak. You guys, like, go ahead and I'll catch up with you here in a little bit because I wanted to put some space between me and the group because my thinking was,

well, if something's like following us or something tries to come up behind us, it will follow the group, and it won't, like, know that I've, got back. And, you know, I'm not thinking, of course, when I do this, I'm not thinking, like, well, this is how, like, every missing 401 story starts. I'm just thinking, like, I want to see

something, you know, like, this is going to be fun. So I'm just kind of sitting there waiting for some space to get between me and the group for them to go on. And I'm just fleering. I got a scout thermal, and I'm flaring the opposite side of the logging road. And so my back's up against the tree line on the other on the side of the road that I'm standing on. And I heard the weirdest, like it just sounded like somebody whispered in my ear just I could make out what it said or if it was even words. And as soon as that happened, it was like somebody flipped a switch and I felt fear. Like just, oh my God, it's going to get me fear.

You know, I, you know, I've been a police officer for a long time. I retired as a police officer. I've been in a lot of like, uh, Critical incident situations, you know, I'm not saying all that to brag. I'm saying, you know, I'm familiar with stress. I've been in stressful situations before. And this was, it was like an unnatural fear. It just came over me.

I couldn't explain it. I kind of, I didn't run, but I quickly caught back up with the group, you know. And I looked around when I heard it. There was nothing behind me. I even used the fleer and I couldn't see anything. I caught back up with the group. We went back to the camp. site and all night I was just sitting there by the fire thinking like this is it they're going to

come get us like I felt like there was a big hill across the road from our campsite and that's where all the activity was coming from was like up on that hill and I kept feeling the whole night I sat there and I kept thinking like Bigfoot's going to come over that hill like the Zulu Nation and get us and it was just this irrational fear and me and will only Lomber from Grassman 58 YouTube channel. He's a great squatter. I can't recommend him enough. He's very down to earth, very grounded.

He was setting up with me, and he was kind of feeling hinky, too. He's like, man, something ain't right. And we basically sat around that campfire with our guns. And about 3 o'clock in the morning, we hear this big boom. And it wasn't gunshot. It was just a big boom. It wasn't like a sonic boom. I can't even describe what it was.

It was just a big boom. And as soon as we heard that boom, Will looks over at me and he's like, is it me or did the atmosphere just change? And I'm like, yeah, you're right, man. I don't feel like, it was like somebody flipped a switch and I wasn't scared anymore. There's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. I cannot explain it. I don't know if Bigfoot had anything to do with it or not.

I mean, we were there looking for Bigfoot, so I kind of assumed Bigfoot was involved. But I don't know. And that was the weirdest thing. has ever happened to me. It was just like a switch was flipped. It made me scared. We heard the big boom sound. And then again, the switch was flipped and I wasn't scared anymore. I ended up crawling my tent going to sleep because I had to get up and drive everybody out of there the next day. But that's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. He's looking for Bigfoot. Yeah, that's a really strange account. Almost kind of sounds paranormal.

I'm not a paranormal guy. I mean, I think it's probably a undiscovered North American 8. But, I mean, that happened to me. Like I said, I don't know if Bigfoot anything to do with it or not. But I can't explain it. Yeah, you know, it's hard to say whether it was Bigfoot or not. Either way, it's strange. And there's a lot of strange things that come out of Alaska. And you wrote a book about Port Chatham.

For the audience, kind of give us a background on this Port Chatham, Alaska. So Port Chatham, from where I sit right now talking about, to you. It's only about 40 miles away from me. Port Chatham was a small village. It's often described as a fishing village, which is partially correct. And I'll get into that a little bit later. But it was a small village at the very southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula. It's not an island. And it was a small village. It was formed in the early 1900s. There's a lot of great resources down there at the southern tip of the peninsula.

There was a logging operation, which was actually what the economic center of the town was, was a logging operation. A lot of people think it was a fishing town, which it was. The fishing wasn't the primary industry. It was the sawmill. So there was a lot of logging going on. There was a lot of fishing going on. They had one of the first, like, cold storage buildings on the peninsula to store the fish that they caught.

And it was a small town. I think, you know, about 200 people. people or so. And what a lot of people don't realize is it was kind of like a company town. Like if you like I grew up in the south, you know, in coal country. And we had the coal, the coal company, you have a company town where the coal mine would come in. They would build housing for the workers. They would build stores like stores for the workers. And they would pay them basically in credit. And you would go to the company store and you would buy your groceries. and, you know, basically you're working for the people that own the town.

And Port Chatham was very similar, Port Lock, I'm sorry, was very similar to that. So Port Chatham is the name of the bay, the body of water. And Port Lock was the name of the town. And people up here pretty much use that in tandem. Like, you can say Port Chatham, everybody knows what you're talking about. You're talking about the area where Portlock is. It was very much a company town. One family pretty much owned everything.

They owned the Salomeil. They owned the fish processing plants. They owned basically everything. The company store where everybody went and got their food. So this one family owned pretty much the entire town and ran the entire town. And it was formed in the early 1900s. They employed mostly local native workers. The natives at one point just said, hey, you know, we can't work here anymore.

We're going to have to leave because this creature keeps coming in and bothering our families and stuff while we're at work. and the creature, so they call it, locals call it the Nantanak. And there's not really a good, like, translation for it. Like, you'll say, here's some people say, like, it means giant hairy thing. Or here some people say it just means, like, Bigfoot. And my favorite, the one that I like is that it just, there is no literal translation. Like, it's just, it's the Nantanok. It does not have a translation into English.

And they basically threatened to leave. to leave and stop working. The people that owned the town basically acquiesced and said, okay, look, we'll, you know, we'll hire some private security. And they hired some like Pinkerton. It wasn't Pinkerton's, but people like Pinkertons to come up. And basically patrol around and be armed guards while the people were at work. And that seemed to the work.

And you didn't hear anything out of Courtlock for a long time after that. Then by 1950, the town was abandoned. Like everybody had left, everybody just pulled up stakes and taken off. I think the postmaster was the last person in town, and they left it in 1950, which I always imagine, like, what was it like? Was he just hanging around? Because he's like, I don't have to do anything, and I'm still getting paid. Like, what was his deal? So by 1950, everybody was gone, and these stories started popping up about the town.

The Nantanak basically chased everybody out, they terrorized the town. And there's, you know, is it grew and spread, especially once it hit the internet. It just kind of turned into this like Bigfoot massacre story where Bigfoot murdered a lot of people in the town and drove everybody out. You know, in 2018, I got the opportunity. Stephen Major produced a documentary about the place and he invited me to go along. And so I got to go there. And we actually went there in 2018 and in 2019 to film an episode of the Alaska Triangle, a show which, Chook has been on as well

And so I got to go I've had a unique opportunity to go there twice And it's abandoned There's only a couple of structures left There's a couple of cabins still standing There's a certain section of the woods Where you can go through where you're just kind of

You're just beating the brush Bushwhacking through all this heavy foliage And all of a sudden you're in this kind of open area And there's all this like old abandoned machine Or you're laying around And these old like steam tanks and just all kinds of machinery and stuff just sitting there in the middle of the woods.

It's kind of surreal and creepy. But yeah, that's a basic history of porch out. It was a tiny little town. It was run by one family. And then, you know, in a span of 50 years, it was basically founded and then abandoned. Yeah, you're right, Larry. You know, there is kind of a narrative online

that Bigfoot caused everyone to up and leave and you'll read stuff that, it's hard to verify where people might have been killed or it's really hard to know what happened. And, you know, sometimes towns just die off. But one thing I will say about Port Chatham with the pictures I've seen, it looks like everyone just kind of up and left. This wasn't a town that just died out, you know, as some towns do. You being a former police officer, when you went there, what did you find? Well, West, you know, two things can be true at the same time.

There is, I mean, I can say without a doubt, there is a history of sightings of a Bigfoot-type creature in the Port Cauterlock, Port Chattameria. 100% can say there were sightings. You know, I had my own strange siding through the thermal. I don't know what it was. But also, because the town was abandoned, I think, you know, just. a mystery crept up around it. In most cases, West, with ghost towns, the story goes, they find gold or get oil or whatever resource. They build a town around the resource.

They mine or consume the resource. Then it runs out. Then the town dies. That's how most ghost towns are created. With Port Chatham, it doesn't quite. fit, it doesn't quite fit the narrative because, you know, the resources were the trees, the resources were the fish. And when the town was abandoned, those resources were still there. You still had plenty of trees to log. There were still fish in the water. So I think that kind of

contributes a little bit to the mystique around Port Chattam being abandoned. And then plus, you do have these stories of the Nantanak. And something that I like to point, point out that a lot of people don't realize, you know, a lot of these, a lot of these stories and sightings of the Nantanak, this happened in the 20s, the 30s, the 40s. This was way before the Patterson Gimlin film. This was way before like Jerry Crew and stuff in the Pacific Northwest in California. Like all this stuff was going on up here in Alaska, way before Bigfoot was even a thing in the lower 48, you know, with the white men. And one of the problems that I ran into with my research is, you know, this, this is Alaska, all this stuff that I'm telling you about,

most of it happened before statehood, because Alaska didn't become a state until 49. It's very hard to find these records. The town was abandoned. You know, and plus it's Alaska, you know, I told you I worked in law enforcement here for a long time. I can't tell you how common it is if you're looking for information on somebody or a case file. you're trying to look something up and you call some village somewhere and you're like, hey, I'm looking for these charges or this case file on this person. And the person on the phone is like, yeah, all those records were out in the shed. And last year it collapsed under snow load and spring, they all got wet.

So we threw them all the way. So that kind of stuff happens all the time up here. So it's very hard sometimes to find documentation and records for things that you're trying to fine, especially that old up here. So it's very challenging. Looking into Port Chatham and the history, anybody that's familiar with the history of Port Chatham, of course, has probably heard of Mr. Andrew Camluck. He was a logger that was working in the Portchatam area and was killed. They say he was killed when a large piece of machinery struck him in the head and it was too heavy for Amanda Lyft. So those blamed it on

the Nantanak. And, you know, being a police investigator, I'm like, oh, well, this is going to be easy. I just need to find Mr. Kamlock's death certificate, see what the cause of death is, and see if it matches the story, right? So I just started digging around. I talked to the people at the State Records Office in Juneau, and because it's in Juneau, we'll often have somebody help you, you know, you can't go to Juneau yourself, so you're like, hey, can you please, help me look for these records? So I had this nice lady helping me, and we're trying to find his death certificate. it. And finally, you know, after several days, she just comes to me and she says, or she calls me, and she's like, I cannot find it. I don't know where it is. We don't have it. She said,

you might check with the Homer Police Department, which was pretty funny because I was working for them at that time. She didn't know that, but I was just like, I assure you, ma'am, they don't have it, which the Homer Police Department wasn't even around back then. So, yeah, it's a very difficult thing to research. Basically, you know, you're facing your research on the oral story traditions, you know, the native people around here, they're really big on the oral story traditions, you know, they don't write a lot of stuff down. So sometimes that's all you have to work with, which, you know, for skeptics and people that tend to, you know, we have to see it to believe it, it's kind of hard for them to believe that kind of stuff because there is no

written record or records. But I think, you know, there's definitely, you know, there's definitely, enough of a tradition of the non-ton-knock and non-ton-knock sightings. I definitely think that there's something to it. You know, they were seeing something around there, and these are natives. They grew up around here. They're familiar with the wildlife and the animals, you know. It's not like they're going to look at a bear and go, oh, my God, it's a big foot. Did the Native Americans there in Alaska with their oral tradition kind of go into,

if anyone had been killed? and my follow-up to that is, do they kind of explain what set this creature off? So, other than Mr. Camlock, you know, the Nantanak seems to be more of like a boogeyman type figure. They say don't go outside when it's foggy or the Nantanak will get you. It's very similar to a lot of other native myths and legends like the Kushtaka. If you're familiar with the Kushtaka from the southeast,

they believe that the nantanac can take you and turn you into a nantanac. There's a story about a hunter named Mumchuk who was out hunting with his friends one day, and he tells his friends, he goes, let me off of the canoe guys. I'm going to go into the woods and turn into an antinok. And they kind of laugh him off, and they're like, oh, you know, that munchuk. And he starts getting kind of violent and rowdy with him. And they finally, they're like, well, we don't know what to do with this guy. So they just kick him off the boat.

A couple of weeks later, he showed. shows back up in the village and he started to turn into an antinac. Like he's getting hairy. He can't really, he's talking in like grunts and whistles. He can barely speak anymore. And he tells, he runs into his friends from the hunting party and he tells him. He says, you'd be sure tell my wife and kid to stay in the house, especially at night, or I'm going to get them and take them to the woods and make them, make them Antenonok like me.

So it's very similar to a lot of other native legends where it's going to be. get you and it's going to turn you into one of one of it that's a big theme in a lot of these legends that are missed they're always after the women and children and if i had if i had to guess and this is i haven't really heard anybody speculate on this this is something that i kind of came up with on my own i think like i said i haven't heard anybody else said the reason i think that you hear about so many aggressive encounters with the nantanak especially in like the port Lockport Chatham area. Remember earlier, I was talking about how, you know, it was a fishing community.

They were catching all the fish. There was a logging operation. They were cutting down all the trees. They were taking the trees and turn them into the fish traps to catch the fish out of the water. So what they were doing was basically taking everything that's important to the Nantanaka way. They were taking away the environment. They were cutting down all the trees.

They were catching all the fish. They were probably taking a lot of food. You know, I'm sure, like the bears are. around here. I'm sure the Nantanaok or Sasquatch, I'm sure they probably partaking the spring salmon runs and eat on the salmon. So if you think about it,

it's almost a perfect storm for a violent Sasquatch encounter. You're taking the environment. You're taking the food. That would piss anybody off, who alone, an animal. Yeah, that's definitely an interesting take. And I hope people go out and get the

book. I know I ordered my copy abandoned. The history and horror of Port Chatham, Alaska available on Amazon. And you know, Larry, I had Chukon. I know he's part of your research group up there in Alaska. And we were talking about how Sasquatch seems to be more aggressive up there in Alaska. But as you've done your investigations and you've spoke to eyewitnesses, is there one account that kind of still stays with you today? I think one of my favorite ones. I think one of my favorite ones, that I had reported to me was a man and woman, a husband or wife couple. They were kayaking in this lake where I've been to many times.

It's in the area where I like to spend time. And I've heard vocalizations and found some other things there. And they were coming around the bend in this lake. And this woman looks up and she's like, oh, there's a man standing over there. It's a big dark figure. And he grabs these two big pine trees, one in each hand, all those like ski poles. Only they're very thick trees. And he starts shaking them.

And the woman's like, what does he do? And then she realizes like, I don't think that's a man. And he shakes the trees, you know, kind of in an aggressive manner. And then eventually he just kind of turns around and walks off into the tree line. And later her husband, you know, gets off there where that figure was standing. And she's like, my husband's like six foot something. And he was dwarfed by this thing. and I think that's probably, you know, you hear a lot of that where somebody sees the Bigfoot,

the Bigfoot will do some kind of intimidation behavior like shaking trees or maybe making a vocalization or something like that. And then eventually the Bigfoot, you know, wanders off or the people weave. And you hear about that. I don't necessarily think that they're more aggressive up here. I think it's probably they have less contact with humans here than probably other Bigfoot do in Lowell 48. and I think that probably leads to some more intimidation behavior. You know, what are you doing here?

Why are you here? You know, like you're the first humans here in like years or months. And also, you know, Alaska's so big. People just, it's hard for me to explain to you how big it is. You kind of have to experience it for yourself. But there's so much room up here that if Bigfoot don't want to be in contact with humans, they really don't have to be. It's not like in the World 48 where you'll have some choke points where maybe

there's 10-mile strip or something between cities and maybe they have to funnel through there on their way to more food sources or water or something like that. Up here, if they don't want to be around humans, most of the time, they can just go a couple of miles in the other direction. And they'll be in a spot where human beings never stood. So I think that's a reason for a lot of the more aggressive, intimidating by encounters up here, is just they're not used to that contact, that coexistence. and I think it puts them off when humans show up in a place where they don't normally hang out.

You know, like if you're off in the bush somewhere off, somewhere where people don't usually go and you run into one. And I think often, I think it's like any other animal. I think the encounter is dictated by the circumstances. If the Bigfoot's just hanging out, setting himself on a rock or something and a human shows up, I think most of the times the Bigfoot will probably just get up and leave. If there's food or young, you know, babies or young nearby, then I think you might be in store for a more aggressive encounter where the Bigfoot will try and make you leave or protect its food or young or something like that. So, I mean, that's my theory. I don't know anything.

It's all, you know, hypotheses in theory. But I think that's probably the reason for a lot of the more aggressive behavior up here is they're just not that used to being around humans like the ones in the old 48 are. Yeah, that is a creepy account. I can't imagine a man grabbing two pine trees and kind of shaking them. I think that would have been the first giveaway that's probably not a man. You know, I want to ask you, Larry, I know that you feel like Sasquatch is a non-human primate we just haven't caught up with. And after all these years, what kind of makes you feel that way? I mean, no one really knows what it is, but what makes you specifically feel that way that it's, non-human primate?

Well, I think it's probably the simplest explanation. You know, Occam's Razor, as of right now, and I'm open to the possibility of it being something else, paranormal, interdimensional. I'm not saying that that stuff doesn't exist. I'm just saying for right now, with the information I have, I'm going simplest explanation first, and maybe if I see one walk through an interdimensional doorway or disappear in front of me, I'll be the first person on here and change my tune. But I've got to see it.

You know, I was a police officer. I'm very evidence-based. I have to see it to believe in it or have very convincing evidence to the contrary to convince me that something like that exists. And that's just kind of how I approach it, you know, simplest explanation first and then, you know, work out from there. Yeah. Well, fair enough. And I could definitely understand the way you feel, Larry. I mean, like I always say, no one really knows.

but I can't wait to get a copy of my book, Abandoned the history and horror of Port Chatham, Alaska. And Larry, I really appreciate you coming on and talking about Port Chatham. Like I said, I've been fascinated with it for such a long time. And it was a real pleasure having you on, Larry. Thanks so much for coming on. Well, thank you for having me on, sir. I really had a good time talking to you.

I love talking about Bigfoot in Alaska and two of my favorite things. And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.