Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:389 Manitoba Bigfoot Encounter

Episode Date: December 15, 2017

A listener writes "I have never told this story to anyone. At the time it happened I was coming to the end of a messy divorce after a more than 20 year marriage. I truly felt if I said anything, those that cared about me, they would have thought I had cracked under the emotional stress of the time.In the spring of 2007 I was making my way out of a long term less than uplifting marriage. I had lived in the small town of Pinawa for more than 20 years at that point. It is located in the eastern region of Manitoba; it is rural, with a population at that time of about 1200 people. I had trained as a Veterinary Technician, and prior to marrying I had worked for the government vet clinic in the area, mostly a large animal practice. But because we were the government vet, at times we had to deal with wildlife matters, so I was not stranger to animal behavior. After I had children and was a full time mom, I also did some injured wildlife rehabilitation for the DNR, on limited bases. The local DNR supervisor for the area was a neighbour and a friend, and it was an unofficial position, helping him out at times, and giving my children a unique opportunity to interact with animals that otherwise would be off limits. I say all this because I feel it is important to stress that wildlife and animal behavior in general were something I was very familiar with. Bears were very much a part of everyday life from early spring till late fall. The town site, teams with an overflowing deer population. The large predators ( wolves, coyotes, and the occasional cougar) in the area seemed to have pressed the whitetail deer into the sanctuary of the town site. As well as the buffer zone that existed for the deer when hunting season was on, the town site became the haven for deer that it is still is to this day. The walking trails around the town site are superb. https://sasquatchchronicles.com  

Black thing go from left to right, and I thought, I'm going to die out here and no one's ever going to know. I couldn't believe what my eyeballs were showing me. I'll never forget how evil the eyes were. It was horrible. I mean, I've never seen nothing that evil. It ran towards me at a rate that I can't even explain, turned and stared at me. And this look of, I just want to kill you. I want to say it was human, but it wasn't.

He was yelling out, and he grabbed a gun, grab a gun. I was like, for what? He said, just grab a gun. And there's footprints all the way to the door of my house. It had went inside my garage all the way to the door. 9-1-1. What are you reporting? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about 6'9, I don't know.

Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. Uh-oh. You're listening to Sasquod's. Chronicles. Check us out online at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. If you've had an encounter, email me. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you tonight. I'm going to be speaking to Petra, who comes to us from Canada and had a very interesting encounter out there in Manitoba several years back, and she hadn't

told anyone about her encounter. A lot of personal things are going on in her life, but her encounter was frightening and fascinating, all in the same breath. She has so many great details, and Petra worked as a vet tech for many years, and so she used to work with animals, and she had the soundness of mind after her encounter to go down and write down everything that she saw. A very, very interesting encounter. 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 the website, Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Let's jump into it tonight. I really want to get into it with Petra. Petra, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being here. Hi, Wes, how are you? I'm good. I'm good.

Now, you had a very, very interesting encounter in Canada. If you would for the audience, maybe kind of start from the beginning. Tell us what you were out doing and just kind of walk us into what happened to you. Okay. It was 2007 and at that time I was going through a divorce and I lived in a small town in eastern Manitoba at the time. It was north of Winnipeg, which is the main city, northeast of Winnipeg. And I would just want to kind of describe the area a little bit. It's on the Canadian Shield. It's forested, boreal forest,

granite outcrops, lots of lakes. In fact, this area runs those that are familiar with the Snell Grove Lake encounter. This area is very much that kind of terrain and there's lots

of protected parkland between Snell Grove Lake and the town I lived in even though it straddles Manitoba and Ontario. They're in fairly reasonable proximity to each other. I don't want to give the impression that I lived in a fly-in community because I didn't. I lived in a town that was very much accessed by highway, had people.

It was a little town, but had a few little subdivisions in it and right along the forest. I mean, it was the thing next to us was the wilderness. there wasn't a lot of urban areas out there. So that's where I lived. And because I was in the midst of going through a divorce, I was getting up very early every morning, and I would go up for a walk for at least an hour just to try to get my gang face on for the day.

I was depressed, I guess, sad, grieving out the whole, you know, leaving a marriage of more than 20, years and what it's all going to mean. And so for at least six months, I had been doing this morning walk, trying to just get my head together to walk through my day, whatever I needed to do. So it's the month of May. I think it was about mid-May. It was sometime after the 14th.

I'm not sure the exact date because I didn't note the date. But it was May, Manitoba. Spring is in the air, and I'm out walking, and it's probably just after five in the morning that I left. I leave the town and walk down towards the lake, and I need to explain, too, that this town had one road that went into it, and that was it. You couldn't access it from any other direction unless you were coming by boat. And the road that led into the town was a secondary highway, that left the main highway, which was 13 kilometers away.

So there's no villages, no housing, no other structures from the main highway to this little town. It's just wilderness and crown land. And a great deal of that eastern northern Manitoba area is crownland. It is not, can't build on it. It's owned by the government. and it's a beautiful, pristine wilderness, a great deal of it. I also needed to say, too, that my background is a vet technician, and I worked for the government vet in my early days.

And I just wanted to say that because part of my experience was animal observation. And when I left working for the government vet, I kind of kept my hand in industry a little bit by helping rear some injured and orphan wildlife for the DNR on a very limited basis, and it was voluntary, and I don't want to imply that, you know, I worked for the DNR. It wasn't like that at all. It was just a friend of mine that was a DNR supervisor, would sometimes get my help with wildlife. So I had some background with animals and some background also with wildlife behavior. So that's who I was the day I went into this encounter.

And I'd left the house very early, walked down to the lake. And the first thing that I thought was odd about that day was I was heading on a path that ran along the waterfront. And I found on the path. two garter snakes that had been tied in a knot. Individually, they'd been tied not together, but they both had been tied in some sort of a knot. That's not weird because kids do weird things like that.

But what was weird about it was it's sometime after five in the morning, probably about 20 after five at this point, and the sun is just starting to, you know, come up and there's that soft light, but you could clearly see everything. I'm looking at these snakes thinking, like, well, if the kids did this last night, why are they still here? Because where I was standing was an area I walked regularly, and I knew there was a fox den a few feet away from me.

I knew the otters would come up the bank right at that spot. And there's no way snakes are going to be left sitting on a path when there's such easy food. So I thought it's weird. Why didn't an animal pick this up last night? You know, it just seemed out of place. And one of the snakes was actually still alive. So I knew this had been done really recently. Like it's not like kids did it yesterday afternoon and they're still here. This snake was still quite alive. One wasn't. But I just kind of took my foot and moved one off the path and I picked a snake up that was alive and put him in the grass. And I didn't even bother to untie him because I thought, well, he's not going to live too much longer, but some

critter will find him. So that was the first little thing that just went through my head is like, well, this is a bit odd. And I'd probably spend about, I don't know, I'm going to say five or ten minutes, just kind of looking at this, the ground and wondering, you know, where all the critters were that usually are in the area because these shouldn't be here. But didn't really give it any more thought, continued along my path, just a short little distance. And, Where I'm standing right now, I want to describe to my right-hand side, I have a lake that has a horseshoe bay right near where I'm at. And to my left, there's a ravine that has a river that's at the bottom of this ravine. At one time, at the beginning of the last century, I guess they had tried to divert a river.

to go to a hydroelectric dam. So they had blasted a bunch of granite. And it had caused there to be this little causeway that I'm going to walk across into paths that went into the deeper woods. So I'm on a causeway that's about the size of a single lane on a road. It's just a dirt causeway that's built there. And off to my left, like I said,

is this ravine that's about 60 feet to the road. water maybe. I don't know. I'm not great with distances, but it's a ways down there and to my left is the lake. And just as I approached this causeway, growing up or living in an area where you have a lot of wildlife, bears were a common occurrence. And because it's early spring, I'm checking for sounds with cubs because you just don't want to get between one of those. I wasn't afraid of the bears. You just kind of know how to handle yourself in the wilderness. You're cautious, but you're not fearful of them. So I'm just scanning for bears ahead of me, and I didn't walk quietly. I always made a point of when I'm walking to whistle or sing or I'm not a stealthy walker and

had no intention of it because I do I did at that time live in bear country but at any rate I'm on I'm approaching the causeway to cross over and I'm about halfway there and I look up and I'm seeing a bear standing in at the top of this horseshoe bay on the lake and it's I think you know it's closer than 200 feet I'm I'm thinking closer more like a hundred feet away, maybe a little bit more, somewhere in there. And there's this bear, and he's pooping in the water. He's on all fours. He's pooping in the water, and I'm thinking, oh, man, I swim there. Like, you're having this massive dump in my lake, gross. And just as that thought kind of formulated in my head, I thought, that is the weirdest looking bear I've ever seen. And just as that thought

is kind of formulating, my bear stands up, and it's not a bear at all. And he's kind of sighed on to me, and he's moving in a way that defies all the laws of nature that I know at that point. He's coming up on the bank in such a fluid motion, it looked like he floated from the water to the bank. And I can't even explain it. I don't have the words to even try to explain what I'm looking at, except that it looked like he floated because there was no effort in the step that he made,

which I'm thinking it's at least three feet that he's stepped from the sandy bank of the lake up to this grassy, tufty causeway that he's about to step on. So I was like absolutely dumbfounded and he sighed on to me at this point and he turns his whole upper body, not his neck, his whole upper body, pivots. And he looks at me and makes the most fearful, grimacing face at me twice, like showing me his teeth grinning in a kind of a creepy way. and made this massive rumbling gruff noise. Like, I don't know, it was a growl, a gruff at that point. He just made this loud noise that emanated from this guy. I think he was really tall.

I'm going to say eight feet that, I mean, everybody says eight feet, roughly, but he was roughly eight feet. he moved in such a bizarre way. In one of my notes, I had written town that it looked like he was forward moonwalking, like Michael Jackson. And I think that's kind of an odd way to describe it, but, you know, I think the first time we all saw Michael Jackson moonwalked, you know, 30 years ago, it was like, how did he do that? It was that kind of a moment where it's like, how is he moving like that? He moved like he was on skates and he just kind of floated towards the tree line. And as he approached the tree line, he's still kind of sideways to me,

but he's slowly turning his body so that he's not really going to be side onto me. As he gets to the trees, he's now facing, looking in my direction. standing in front of the trees. And this is going to sound ridiculous when I say it, but he didn't move into the trees. It's like the whole forest moved around him. But he didn't conceal himself. He was still just low brush and scrub in front of his legs,

but his whole upper body and to his waist was very visible. This all, I'm sure, happened in a really short, amount of time, but I don't know. Time stood still in that moment. I really can't say how long I'm looking at him, but it was quite a while, like several minutes. And I'm aware, as he's looking at me off to his, or off to my right, I guess it would have been his left, there is a kerfuffle in the bush. I can't exactly tell how far back in the bush, but it could have been 10 feet. It could have been 30 feet. I couldn't tell how further away this thing was, but there was a creature that I think was even bigger than the one I was looking at because it was just massive. It was like a

shadowy image. I couldn't quite make him all out, but I knew he was there. And this one was losing its mind. The one that was concealed in the trees was absolutely losing its mind. It was snapping off trees. It was shaking trees and it gave a roar that just made my knees go to jello. I felt like I was about to fall down. I don't know if it was just fear or that I got such an adrenaline dump that it just made me go weak. I don't know what that was, but it was truly terrifying. And I was so scared.

And all I could think to do was I have to get out of here. I have to back up very, very slowly and deliberately. And for goodness sakes, lock my knees because if I go down, I'm never getting up. Like, I really felt all the blood drain out of me. And, you know, I was shaky, real shaky at that point. So I'm slowly backing up. and I am on this little causeway, so I have nowhere to go. I can't go left or right.

I have to take one foot and just go backwards and slowly try to get out of there. But on either side of the pathway, you know, prior to entering the causeway, there are these huge piles of granite boulders and rocks that have been stacked from the century when they did the blasting. So at the top of them, some of them have little scrubby pine trees that have managed to grasp into these rocks. Some of them have a little bit of grass. But for the most part, I'm looking at Canadian Shield Granite and, you know, a little bit of dirt

or whatever, but it's mostly granite rock piles. And I'm just thinking, okay, I've got to get to where the rocks are. And I'm just backing up and I hear what sounds to me like smaller rocks falling. on the back of the rock pile that was to my left. And I thought, oh, no, there's one there, and somehow he snuck up behind me. So he had to have been across the causeway long before I ever was there to look at those garter snakes.

And I had no clue it was there. So that was, once I knew that I had to go past these rock piles and there was probably one just on the other side of that that had caused the rocks to fall just made me feel absolutely sick. But there was nothing for it. I couldn't go forward, could not go to the left or the right, and I had to just take my chances and keep to try to move backwards. So I got probably parallel with the rock pile.

Not certain at this point. if there was a creature on the rock pile, but kind of feeling suspicious that there might be because I'd heard this tumbling of rocks. And sure enough, I think the creature was crawling up the rock pile on its belly. The only thing I saw was Auburn brown hair on an arm that kind of was hugging this rock pile midway up. And the creature was definitely. flat against the rocks. I never saw its face or head. I just saw one shoulder, a bit of one shoulder, and a massive arm.

But it's close to me. Its arm, hand, was, I'd say, six to eight feet above my eye level, or six to eight feet off the ground. So it's like at my eye level. And the, um, it was just massive. It was so massive. And it's like about 10 feet from me. So I've had the feeling this arm could have just reached over and grabbed the top of my head without any trouble at all. And I'm just trying not to panic and run. And I'm wondering now, is there another one back behind me where I can't see? Because between these two rock piles, I had to back up a little bit of a rise on the pathway. And I couldn't tell what was on the other side of that rise.

And I thought, this is it. This is where it all ends right here. And I just remember standing, looking at the arm. Every time I'd hear a rock fall, I would just freeze. I wasn't sure where the sound was coming from. I thought it was the rock pile, but oh goodness, what if there's another one a few feet back? I don't know what's going to happen, but it's not going to be good. So I had several minutes to look at this arm that was so close to me.

So I got a very clear look at that. So to make a long story short, I'll go into the description of what I saw a little bit in more detail, but I was able to back out. There wasn't another one that I'm aware of on the pathway, and I got, I think, maybe about six or 800 feet away from the path that I had entered, and I was basically on my hands and my knees throwing up. And again, I don't know if that's adrenaline. I don't know if the roaring that had happened had infrasound.

I have no clue. Or is it just sheer terror and fear? I don't know, but I was a mess. I, you know, and I got home and lived another day. But, you know, back to what I saw, I was able to grab some notes that I had made. and they're not at all in any kind of cohesive order. So I'll try to explain what I saw. The one that I was looking at that I was stuck as a bear was the same black bear kind of a color,

except I noticed it seemed to have a little bit of red tingees here and there on its coat, but it was black, except it had a little red in it. I don't know how to explain that, but that's how it appeared to me. its overall body was huge. It seemed, if its height was eight feet, its shoulder width was four feet. It seemed twice as tall as it was wide, but that's huge. To be that wide, it was huge wide. The other thing that I had written down here is massive barrel chest.

When I was looking at it from the side, it's unlike anything. you could not mistake this as a human being. Like it had this beryl chest that, like a greyhound almost, a massive rib cage that stuck quite far out there. So that's the thing I had noted about that one. And I also had put written down because I got a fairly good look at its face. It's lip, its upper lip, is thin, but it's huge.

And also the distance between the bottom of its nose and the top of its upper lip is double than what us humans have. It's a very big distance between those two spots. I had noted that down. The other thing I had put down, its mouth is huge like a garbage pail. And what I think I was trying to refer to is, you know, a trash can where you step on the pedal and this massive lid opens up. That's how the mouth appeared to me.

And the other thing I put, wrote down, was that the bottom jaw, it's like a Roman helmet. And I don't know exactly what I mean except when you see some of those old Roman helmets. There's this massive big leather piece or whatever that kind of protects their jaw line. but its whole jaw looked like that. It was just this huge, I don't know, this is big gaping jaw that was incredible. I think that's all that I really had written about that one in particular, except that it definitely was hair covered,

the hair on its head, and the top of its shoulders I had noted here seemed to be about six inches long, and it was like it was wearing a cape, and the hair on the arms was also seemed to be long like that, but over the rest of the body, I said two to three inches overall.

But then the one that I saw it hand, because I was so close, the hand, the thing I seemed to really focus on was the knuckles. The knuckles were bulbous. They looked almost swollen. They looked almost deformed like somebody who has severe arthritis. So that could possibly be what I was looking at.

I don't know because I'm looking at one hand on one specimen. I have no clue if this one is an anomaly or if it's a representative of the species. but I'm looking at a hand that I noted here was so big that it had a big palm, a big hand, longer than any humans. I think it's perhaps more than 12 inches. The hand was massively long and very wide, I said as well. I also had an interesting note that I said the right hand has a break, a proximal, balance break of the index finger. So why I put that down is that its index finger stuck out at a very weird angle. And it's not normal.

Like if it was in a person, somebody had broken the joint between their, their knuckle and the bend in their first finger. So I thought that was an interesting notation. I had forgotten about that. The other thing that I had said about the hand, I wonder if they get Vidaligo. And Fidiligo is a pigment disorder where all the pigment color leaves an area.

And I should say on the black one that I had seen standing up, It appeared that its skin was dark gray on the face and where I could see it on its hands. It appeared dark gray. The Auburn one that I'm looking at, it also appeared to have dark gray skin that I could see underneath the hair. But wide written down that it seemed to have vitiligo. I said there's a white patch on the hand at the base of the index finger. But this also could be scarring from an injury. So I don't know if they get Vidaligo, but that's what it looked like to me because it was so close.

And let's see, if I had anything else that I'd written down. One of the things about the hair on this arm that was hanging out across these boulders was that, again, the hair seemed to be at least six inches that was hanging, very uncapped and scraggly looking, the interesting thing was, is that on its hand, I don't know, I guess if I, I mean, I didn't really think about Bigfoot back in those days, but I would have made the assumption that the hair would have gone all the way down the back of the hand, but it didn't. It stocked almost like it was a cuff, like the hair came down its arm and it trimmed the back of its hand, but I know it didn't. It had hair that hung a little bit, but there was relatively little hair growing on

the hand. So I thought that was an interesting thing that I noted. Oh, and I had one other note about the big one that I had seen that had stood up. Eye sockets were huge and it had a very wide bridge on its nose far more than a human would have and its nose was fairly flat but it had downturned nostrils, not upturned nostrils. That was my other note about about what I saw, and I think that's all that I had for the notations on the description anyway that I had seen. No, you did a great job at describing it. I wanted to ask you about the head.

Was the head proportioned for the body on the one that you saw? You know, the jaw was huge, but the head, it's almost seemed like a pin hit in a way. Like it didn't seem like the head should have been bigger for the width of its shoulders. for the size of this creature, I would have thought it would have had a much bigger head than it did have. But saying that, I don't want to indicate that it had a small head because the head was huge. It was far bigger than a human head would be. So I don't know if that's just my perception because I'm looking at something that is so out of my frame of reference. And because its shoulders are so wide, does that make its head look too small?

I don't really know. It had what I would say, a little bit of that sageal crust that you hear about, but not as pronounced as a lot of people say. It definitely wasn't a roundhead, but it wasn't a pronounced satchel crest. There was definitely a little bit of peeking there, but not extreme peakage. No, I understand exactly what you mean. You know, it's interesting. I said that after my encounter, and I got beat up pretty hard,

about that. Because a pinhead, yeah, that's a great way to describe it. I said cartoon-like. It reminded me proportion like a cartoon. Yeah, you know, there's a weird thing. Every time I see it, if I've walked into a room and they're playing that movie, Men and Block, there's one moment where an alien, his head just starts to shrink. At one point, it's like, wow, that looks familiar. Like, it's just his, yeah, his head was just too small. Or in recent times here, we've had in the news about watching out for the mosquitoes, and if you're pregnant, it can cause all this microsuffly. And that's what this looked like a little bit. But not crazy disproportional.

It was just a little odd. And that was the other thing, like its arms were longer than they should have been if it was a person. And I clearly knew it wasn't a person, but just for comparison purposes, the arms were longer than a human. You know, by a significant enough amount that I noticed it, it appeared like the lower arm where the radius and ulna would be was longer than what the humorous was. But again, I'm not entirely sure if that's correct or if it's just a person. of it because it's got all this hair hanging off of it and and it is you know the hands definitely reached just about to the knees which is not the case with most human beings or hands don't go quite that low down and you know mid thigh maybe but not to the knees

so that that was the interesting I remember quite significantly was like where did this long arm thing come from but you know that at the I don't know. That's just what I clearly remember of looking at it. No, I understand. You know, and the part where you talk about it being barrel-chested, it reminds me of the Paul Freeman footage. And I know a lot of people out there think that that footage is fake. I personally don't think it's fake. I've talked to a lot of witnesses that have seen that. And the way you describe it as being very barrel-shaped. And I could see if one of these things were bent over and you were seeing it from the side, you would think,

wow, that's a bear. Until it stands up and looks at you, then you're like, okay, that's not a bear. but have you seen the Paul Freeman footage where the creatures... I think I have at one point because he had gone to look for tracks or something, and then I think that's the one where he goes or something, and he's watching it walk through the woods. I don't remember it well enough to, you know, comment on that creature, but, you know, when you're talking about you believe it, one of the things that struck me really interesting about it

is because a lot of people said it was a hoax. And I thought, you know, for a guy, that's going to go to all the trouble to create this hoax, why would he use a used videotape? It just, it made no sense because the comment was that

they couldn't extract better imagery off the tape because the tape had been used over and over and over again. He'd re-recorded over this. So I just thought, I don't know, if somebody's going to go to all the effort to make a hoax, why wouldn't they bother getting a new tape for their camera? Just, you know,

just, anyway, And neither here nor their point at this point. Yeah. The description, though, he talks about, and you see it in the video, it looks very barrel-shaped. The Sasquatch looks very much round, very much like a barrel from the chest and the way it's shaped. It's not like the Patterson-Gimlin film. It's very different from the Patterson-Gimlin film. But I've spoken with a lot of witnesses that say that's what they saw.

It was very much barrel-shaped from the chest down. and the head on it is kind of a smaller head. It's not in proportion for what the body should be if you watch that video. And again, I've spoken to a lot of witnesses that have seen it. What happened after you got home? I went to pieces basically. And I was in a precarious position at that time. I'm getting a divorce.

I don't want to tell anybody that's kind of, you know, hoarding me because I wasn't, I wasn't dealing internally very well with this. I mean, my ex and I had separated and were living in different parts of the house for like a year. But I was grieving the loss of the marriage, the loss of my home, the big move I was going to have to make the uncertainty of the future. So all of those things were, you know, hovering around me. And at times, I didn't take great care of myself. I wasn't, you know, eating right or sleeping right.

And I just didn't want to tell anybody because it's like, wow, they will think I had really gone off the edge now, like that this has just pushed me, you know, over the edge. So there's no point in discussing it with them. Anybody that I thought less than in my camp would just use it as fodder to, you know, say, well, she's an unfit mother. She sees things. She's crazy, you know. So there was nobody to talk to about it. I determined that, you know, I'm going to still get up every day. I needed to do that for myself at the time to go for that walk because it seemed to be the thing that would get me through the day. I could kind of rally my courage and face what was ahead. So I thought,

I'm not going to not walk, but when I go for my walk, I'm going to stay in town, and I am not going to go out of the view of any houses, and I'm going to go in the opposite direction. So the following morning I got up, got dressed, and when I went to leave the house, there was a snake on my doorstep tied in a knot. and that is truly the thing that has haunted me since this whole encounter, because I at that point really felt like these creatures knew exactly where I lived, and at some point they put it on my step.

Now, why I have no clue? Was it vindictive? Was it a gift? I don't know. I really don't know. Except to tell you that in the six months that I had been going for these walks, I was probably doing some bizarre human behavior. If they were used to seeing people at all, I was really a nutter, I'm sure, as far as they were concerned,

because there were moments that I would go down to the lake, and it's like bitter winter, and it's frozen, and you'd hear the ice popping, and I'd get down to the lake, and I'd scream my head off, like in anger, frustration, upset, just, you know, scream it out, and then I'd turn around and go home for the rest of my walk and go home. if these creatures were indeed somewhere within the vicinity, they probably thought, what the heck is she doing? There was other times I went down and I just sobbed my eyes out at the lake and just cried, bitter tears and cried and cried and cried.

And other times I would go down and sing, and I'm not a singer, but I would just self-comfort, I guess. I would go just down and sing and try to suck in nature and, use that as my inspiration to move forward. But twice in that six-month period, looking back, I now wonder if they weren't close because I at one point remember going down to Lake, and it was one of my days where I wasn't dealing especially well with everything that was happening, and I'm crying my eyes out.

And I'm thinking, that's weird. how come I can hear an echo. How come I'm echoing across the lake? Because it sounds like I'm crying over there and I stopped for a minute, but I could hear the crying sound that I was listening to, and it didn't sound exactly like me. And I thought, wait a minute, because it was cold and I'm just thinking it's like the snowy cold airplane tricks on me,

but I swore I could hear somebody crying when I was crying. And when I would stop, after a second it would stop. I'd just stand for a few minutes and I'd start thinking about things. And before you know it, I'd be sobbing again, this very pathetic sob. And I would hear that thing start up again. And it was just, it struck me as odd, but not enough that I gave it any more thought than that, really. It was just like, well, that's weird. It sounds like it's coming from across the lake a little bit.

So that was one thing that happened. A few months after that, I had been at the lake singing. I don't remember what I was singing, but, you know, just whatever song. And I heard somebody singing what sounded to me like opera, and not just opera, but Russian opera. And the only way I can describe it is that what they were singing was a little more melodic rather than phonetic. it sounded like there was some, I'm not going to even say words, but syllables in there, but it was definitely melodic. And it was very much like an opera voice, which I thought was crazy because, you know,

I'm not a great singer and I would never even attempt opera, but there's somebody singing opera and I thought, wow, maybe this is where they come to practice and they're just out here at, you know, six o'clock in the law. morning. But that only happened the one time. And afterwards, looking back, I started to give some thought to it. And I did begin to wonder, are these creatures, have they been around here this whole time? And I was completely unaware of it. I had lived in that town at that point for 22 years and had never, ever, ever heard anybody talk about Sassaf. Squatch, except for the town itself was built in the 60s, kind of as a model town, a research

place, and it was well-designed, well-executed, a beautiful place to live. My ex-husband, his family, had been one of the founding families that had gone there. And I'd heard through him and some of his friends, because he was born and raised there, that when the town had been created, there had been some footsteps, big foot footsteps discovered around a bulldozer or something that had been clearing land. But that was more of an urban legend, really. There was no concrete discussion about it. Definitely no pictures or anybody that I could actually say, oh, you were the one that saw it. So I don't know if there was any truth to it.

But, yeah, that urban legend had been around about Bigfoot footsteps. My own perspective was that I definitely thought they probably existed, but I really believed they were like a Rocky Mountain creature, that if they were going to be anywhere, they're out in the mountains, they're not here in Manitoba. That never really occurred to me. I had heard a couple of, I don't even think it's encounters, but a couple of anomalous things that happened over on the western side of the province,

but nothing where we lived. So I wasn't, I don't know, I don't know if I was just living in my own little world of oblivion and didn't really want to allow that thought to sink in, but it really hadn't. Except I should have been more, I don't know, more in tune with all of this. this because being a vet technician, you know, and working with wildlife, I just think there's a whole lot more out there that we don't know, and we just think we know everything, but there's a lot we don't know. And I'd also, when I got married and I had, you know, raised my kids and gave up a career to do that, was a full-time mom and very happy to do it, but kept a little bit

of working with animals. And if somebody's dog got, you know, a faceful porcupine quills, inevitably they'd give me a call and can you help us? And so I was still doing small little things like that around town, you know, putting a stitch in here or there, helping somebody with their dog that's been, you know, wrestling with a porcupine or whatever, and then raising wildlife for the DNR. But I'd also started working at home as an artist because I could be at home with the kids and watching them while they're doing their thing.

And so also while I was doing that artwork, one of the things I started doing to give a little bit back was I began working in a senior's care facility doing artwork with some of the seniors there. And the care facility was one that took care of people that had severe dementia and Alzheimer's. I didn't know an awful lot about either of those conditions, but I soon discovered that when people have severe Alzheimer's,

they really lose their ability to communicate often. And it's all still kind of in there, but the pathways that allow them to speak about, you know, the things they're thinking and feeling, I guess, become fewer and more far between, and so it's harder for them to access language. But if you can engage them in something, that brings up their past, they're often able to talk more.

So that was one of my focuses, was trying to do artwork with some of these people and find ways to elicit memories because those they hung on to the longest, the further back they went anyway. So one day, I had brought in a harness that I had for my own horses. I had draft horses at the time, so I had a big old harness and scotch top collar, and the horses had been wearing it, and they smell like horses. It smells like leather and sweat and horses. And there was a particular gentleman there that was, he wasn't too talkative on a good day.

You maybe get a sentence out of him, but most of his conversation was yes and no, and he wasn't the chatter, that's for sure. the day I had brought in the harness, you know, he grabbed the scotch-top collar and he's sniffing the leather. And all of a sudden he starts talking. And for the next hour, he just talked. And he had been a mail delivery man in that area in the 1940s. And where the hydroelectric dam had been built, he, I guess, used to deliver mail. to that community.

And he used to have to pick it up. I don't know how far away it would have been. You know, it's more than 10 miles away. And he would drive it down a corrugated road because the roads there in the spring, I guess, would just turn into mush and you'd sink, you know, beneath the mud. So on these corrugated roads, he said they couldn't actually drive a motor vehicle down them because it would just shake all the bolts

out of the trucks. So he said they still had to deliver supplies and mail by horse and buggy in the 40s. And that was his job, apparently. So he began telling me the day he did the last mail run, he had made it to this town, dropped off the mail and was heading back when a wild man came out of the bush. And I said, a wild man, and he goes, the rigaroo. And I thought he'd said a kangaroo. And he looked at me really upset and angry.

He says, Rigaroo. I'd never heard this term before. And after my encounter, I stumbled on it. And it's a term that they used down in the south in Louisiana, except for one band of Ojiboy Indians in North Dakota. And this gentleman had said to me, his Indian friend called it Rigaroo. So it just blended credibility to the story. He told me when I discovered that a band.

of Native Americans that was fairly close to where we lived also called it the rigaroo. So he described this creature as a tall, hair-covered, ferocious man that came out of the woods screaming and, you know, his horse bolted. And he said he was able to get out of there as this creature. ran alongside of the horse and wagon because he said, I kept my head down. I pretended like I couldn't see him and I couldn't hear him, and he said, that's why I lived. I just always thought that was a very interesting encounter. The other thing I wanted to mention about this fellow having Alzheimer's to the severity that

he had at that point is I don't think he could have, he would be capable at that point in the generation of the disease to actually make up a story. He was clearly drawing on a very vivid memory when he was discussing that. It wasn't, he wasn't searching for a, you know, a story to tell me. It was a memory he was relaying because he just didn't have that much language left to him anymore, except to delve into old memories. So whatever happened to him, he was absolutely certain, convinced, and it was truly a part of his psyche at that point.

So he believed it. There was no question about that. And I didn't question him. I didn't want to question him because you could see the effect it had on him. He was literally shaking as he told me this story. And it had happened, you know, 70 years earlier. So it was still an incredibly powerful memory for him. Yeah, it sounds like it.

And, you know, the way you're dealing with your divorce, you know, anyone who's gone through a divorce. sometimes it's easier to deal with the death in the family than a divorce. And I think going out the way you did is kind of a healthy way of dealing with it. What's interesting is when you're talking about crying and or seeing Doug Hichick, who had on the show for a monster quest, was talking about Snellgrove and how he had heard what sounded like an opera singer across the lake. He couldn't make out any words or anything, but he goes it reminded him of an opera singer. and there's no way there's no place for someone to be over there there's it's almost impossible to be on that side of the lake and i thought that was interesting because you had experienced the same thing

and i and i really think that these creatures mimic us whether it's us crying or seeing or talking i think that they try to mimic us which is really creepy for me anyway maybe not to the audience listening but for me it's creepy that they will mimic you in that fashion on what you're doing, whether it's crying, seeing, yelling, calling for your dog, calling for your wife, they will mimic you in that fashion. And that's odd to me. It is, but they're not the only creatures that do that. So it's not complete, I mean, they're in far more extreme, but, you know, a parrot mimics us. A parrot, if you've had a very playful parent, it wants to engage with you.

it will do everything it can, including stand on its head and thing for you. And it just likes to mimic. So I don't know, is mimicry a sign of intelligence? To some degree, I think it is. But I don't know. I just think they live in a very different existence than we have. And I think we try to humanize this creature. Now, could they be part human?

Yeah, they really could be. I think their capacity to care and to pay attention is probably greater than anything I've ever experienced in in the wild. But I don't know. One of the things I had mentioned to you yesterday when we were talking back in the early days, when I had shortly after I had become a vet tech and I had been working with wolves and hybrid wolves. And I had a First Nation stole that was kind of training me how to go into the wolf pack and how to prepare myself. And he said, you know, make sure that when you're going to go into the enclosure, that you're not in a low place. You're not at a weak point.

You go in there with a lot of confidence and you carry yourself that way. and he said, you don't go in sheepish and weak. And he said, you don't look them in the eye because it's a challenge, but he said, you carry yourself with purpose. Because he said, if you don't, they know it, before you even enter the enclosure. And so I don't know. I think that's an incredibly intelligent and perceptive creature,

but other creatures do that as well. Like I said, with wolves. And then I worked for a time with horses, with children who have disabilities, like whether they're mental or physical, and horses definitely picked that up. I mean, before the child has even set on their back, they seem to have an awareness and an affinity, especially with children that have some sort of disability. So what is that instinctual behavior in a horse?

I don't know, but it exists. And we, as a species, clearly use it to our benefit because it helps us with, you know, rehabilitation therapy when it comes to kids. So I don't know. They're incredibly fascinating creatures because, like you said, the mimicry, their intuitiveness, their perceptiveness, their desire at times to engage with us. And then they're also their desire to have nothing to do with us. So I don't know.

They're a real conundrum, that's for sure. Yeah, and you do such a great job at describing it. And I think part of that is, you know, working. with animals and being a vet tech and having the foresight to write down notes on what you saw. And a lot of your descriptions are right on. You know, you do such a great job, you know, like the forward moonwalk or how it floated. I get completely exactly what you mean because I've seen that. A lot of witnesses who've run into these things, they describe that exact same thing.

I wanted to ask you, because you did such a great job describing the face and the details that you saw, in your opinion, would you say it was more human-like in the face? Would you say it was more ape-like in the face? How would you describe, let's say Sasquatch, no one knew anything about guerrillas, apes, or anything, or Sasquatch. And you were trying to describe to someone the face. How would you describe that to them? Oh, gosh, I don't know. I guess it might depend on what day you asked me, because one day I may say,

Oh, man, they are just almost like us a little different. And then other days I go, no, they're not really like us at all. So I have grappled with this topic myself over the last 10 years as I've relived the encounter because there are features that they have that are so similar to us. And we do have that tendency to anthropomorphize everything. Like we, you know, we see faces in the clouds for crying out loud. So when we look at something that does resemble us, we are looking for where we are similar. So, yes, you definitely see it.

The one that I saw that looked at me with this massive eyes that are wide set and a brow ridge that stuck right out. and a nose that's just very human nose, not at all an ape-like nasal opening. This is a nose. But the mouth and the jaw were so peculiar. The huge stuff, this jaw, I can't even begin, and it didn't look real. It looked like it was wearing something over where its jaw should be,

because it was so broad, wide, and prominent. But I don't think they're human. And yet I look at them and go, yeah, but I could see why everybody says that. So I don't know. The answer is I don't know what they are. I don't know what I saw because I go back and forth between both things. And because I only saw the one face, that's not a good place for me. need to make a judgment on it. I can tell you what I saw, but my own feelings about it,

I don't think I've resolved because I've only seen the one face. I don't want to decide in my own mind that that's the representation of the species because, you know, in our human species, we have things at both ends of the spectrum, and then we have the most of us that are in the middle. But if you happen to look at something that's at one end of the spectrum, it's going to be vastly different from the thing at the other end of the spectrum. And both have some assemblance of what might be in the middle, but they don't compare very well. So I guess that's my point.

I don't know what I'm looking at. I've never, there's aspects of it that are very guerrilla-like, too, with the brow ridge, the scowling, the grimacing it did. Like this face grimacing, it looked like it was trying to give me a cheeky grin, if that makes any sense. But at the same time, it elicited all kinds of fear in me. So there was nothing playful about this grin. It was quite a ferocious thing, but yet the lips curled up in a really weird kind of grimace that is very human, too.

So I don't know. I'm not helping clarify anything here. All I can tell you is what I saw. Yeah, no, you're doing a great job. You're doing a great job. And, you know, when you and I were talking the other night and you were talking about the hand and seeing the nails. And what I thought was fascinating about your description. On the last show, I talked about the guy who had been out smoking weed and they were drinking and they were in a bus.

And he would describe the hand to me. And he said the hand reminded him of like a catcher's glove. And I said, what do you mean like a catcher's glove? And he goes, well, it was just that big. And he goes, the nails were, it reminded him of someone who had severe fungus. The nails were all cracked and yellow. And the hand, the bulbous, the way you described, the knuckles. and the fingers, and that's how he described it, almost to a tea.

That's exactly how he described it. One of the little, sorry, Wes, one of the little notes I had here, too, is it looks like he needs hand lotion. I guess, because this hand looks so leathery and dry and cracked in places, crusty and, you know, dirt embedded, and fingernails that were disgusting, just like, you know, lots of debris, under these unkept fingernails that a couple of them were clearly busted off. I don't know, does Sasquatch bite his nails? But this guy definitely had nails.

So if they do bite, then they don't bite them to the nail, you know, down to the tips of their fingers. I don't know how they would take care of their nails. Or maybe they don't even have to think about it because they're digging in dirt. And, you know, like a dog, they wear off their fingernails just by the fact they have to forage. But yes, the fingernails, that was something that I had mentioned to you was that the fingernails were very striated. It's like looking at almost a piece of petrified wood. You could see the striations in the nails. And so, I don't know, it's like somebody that does have fungus. They seem to be quite thick, like thicker than our human fingernails.

but definitely not nothing like a claw, not at all like a claw. It was a fingernail with a fingernail bed, and you could just clearly see a very almost human-looking hand except for the size. And the other thing that I noticed a little bit was I guess I had made an assumption somewhere along the way when I'd heard of Sasquots years and years ago that they would be physically a little bit like a chimp or a gorilla. I didn't think they would be so human.

And I guess I anticipated this thing might have a thumb, but like a chimp, their thumbs would be small. I worked with a vet at one point who did embryo transplants at a zoo, and I often assisted him when he was doing that. So I got to spend a little bit of time near an ape house that had a chimpanzee, so I would see that the care take this thing in and out. And one of the things I noticed with the chimp's thumb is that his thumb attaches further back on his hand, and it doesn't come up quite as high as ours does. And the thumb also isn't large. Like our thumb is definitely wider than our fingers.

Well, this chimp that I saw, and like, again, I don't know very many chimp. So this one maybe it was an anomaly for a chimp. But his thumb was not at all bulbous or large. It was pretty much about the same size as, you know, like his middle finger would be. But the big foot I saw, its finger, its thumb was large. Like our human thumb is large. So I thought that was an interesting thing. It wasn't at all chimp-like thumb.

It was very much more a human. kind of a hand I was looking at, even though it was huge. And the other thing I remember about the hand was while I said it looked like it needed lotion, and I also said that it seemed to be very greasy around its wrist. Just where the hair seemed to come from his arm to his wrist, the back of the hand there seemed quite oily. Now, is that off his coat? I don't know, or was he digging in something?

I don't know. But that was definitely the impression I had. There was no rain or hadn't been rain, but there is due at that time of the day. And with the month that it was, there would be due. But I don't think his hand looked wet, but definitely it had a glistening to the skin that I could see. And I want to be real clear, too, that, you know, I was under the impression way back when that Bigfoot was covered. in fur because he lived in the cold climate and he would need fur. But what I saw wasn't fur, it was hair.

There's no undercoat here. You could see when the hair parted at all, you could see down to the skin layer quite easily. And the hair moved a fair bit on this arm. It was flowing. And every time it moved, you'd see like a new little rivet of skin underneath. and it was consistently dark-colored all the way up its arm that I could see, except for the one little spot on the back of his hand that I had made a note to say, I wonder if they get Vidaligo, because he had a white spot on the back of his hand

just below his index finger. Why do you think the creatures didn't harm you? Right. I have no clue. I have no clue because I really felt in fear and threatened. but I think looking back at it that I wasn't a threat, that I had been going to that same spot for six months, that I would do some of these peculiar things that might have got their attention.

So maybe they noticed me and maybe I had become a bit of a familiar face. I also think, too, because I was in that very weak mental state and grieving, that they didn't feel any kind of threat for me. Plus, I'm a female. I'm less threatening than a male to begin with. I don't know. I think I was just lucky because I have heard since I started looking into this,

that their attitudes can change on a dime. And, you know, I could have blinked the wrong way and it could have been a very different outcome. I don't know. Or maybe that's just our perception because we get so filled with fear. Maybe in truth there's not very many people that have truly physically negative encounters, but they scare the heck out of us. So I don't know.

I don't know why they didn't harm me. I'm grateful. I don't ever want to see one again. I stopped going out in the bush or in the woods after that. I moved a province away, not specifically because of that, but I remarried and moved away. And I'm quite happy that I don't spend time in the bush because until this question is answered, I don't feel safe at all. And I guess we can do things to make ourselves feel better, to be safe, to carry a gun, to carry, you know, to not go alone. those things that I hear people say, but I have not achieved a comfort level. I mean, I'm talking

about this now relatively at ease, but we're 10 years later. I still won't go in the woods. I had nightmares for such a long time. I would wake up in an absolute sweat, just terrified and wondering if they had followed me here. Because once I became aware that they actually followed me home, it was horrifying. I thought, well, it's a wild animal. There's no way it's going to come in the town site. Like, it's just not going to do that. But clearly, it did.

So I don't know how they get in and out, and nobody has ever seen them. Nobody's ever talked about it, except for those few things that I've mentioned. But, I mean, I knew people that hunted regularly, had trap lines, cross-country ski, did all kinds of stuff, and I've never heard a whisper.

from anybody saying, oh, you know what? I saw this weird thing. And I'm one of those people that at that time, a lot of people maybe would have thought, well, I'll give her a call because she works with wildlife and she might know. And I had done some presentations at the school. Like I used to raise some of these injured and orphaned wildlife.

So I was a familiar face. Like I'd go to the school. I talked to the kids about, you know, wildlife and conservation and, you know, just show them the baby raccoons that they would love to hold and all that. So I know people knew who I was, were aware of who I was. And because I'd worked with the government vet for a time, people, you know, I think I would have heard about it from somebody, but I'd never heard a word.

So I don't know. Yeah, no, I understand. And, you know, it's not easy to come forward. I know it wasn't easy for you to come on the show and share it. And I really appreciate you sharing it because a lot of people, they have these experiences, and then they don't want to come on the air and share it, which I understand. But people have to understand there's other people out there who've experienced what you've experienced. And there's little details you can pick up from people's encounters, like the opera scene.

The minute you said that, I thought immediately of Doug Hichick talking about that on the Monster Quest episode. I thought, wow, that's identical to what Petra's saying. And I've heard that before from other witnesses. And so there's so many little details you can pull out. And like I said, it's little pieces of the puzzle. But this wasn't the only time something strange happened. Something happened to your ex-husband. Do you mind telling that encounter?

Yeah. I don't know what he would say about it to this day because he and I don't communicate her talk and it was kind of a bitter end. But three years before our divorce, he had taken. the youngest out to do some, you know, just camp, free camping out in the wilderness. And they would just, they'd go not far from the house and pitch a tent and make a campfire and roast marshmals and just giggle and talk and do all that kind of stuff, which is great. So I was totally in favor of that.

And he'd grown up in the area. He'd done, he was an extensive winter camper, which I wouldn't want to do. And in Manitoba, you know, minus 40 is common in the winter. So, you know, he was a bit of a tough guy, an Adela-Wus. And he took my daughter and they went to do this camping, and they were not very far from where I had my encounter. They were just down the river on that ravine I talked about, you know, with the drop that's like 60 feet below where the river is.

And they were along that edge. I don't know the exact spot because I wasn't with them. but that's where they told me they had camped. And they had been in the tent at night. They had our dog there. They hunkered down to go to sleep. And about 2.30 in the morning, they had deer just come bursting almost through the tent.

They actually said they felt like a deer had jumped over the tent. And they could, the bush was, there was a cuff. fuffle, there's noise, there's all kinds of commotion, the dog is shaking, there's crazy stuff happening, the X kind of opens the tent up to see deer scattering all around him. And he said kind of, as he opened the tent up and went to get out, he heard something large near him that he described as the biggest bear that ever was kind of stepped on the edge. of that ravine and it's pitch dark and there's no lights out there except for whatever starlight moonlight is created but this thing went down the ravine whatever it was and it's

at the bottom they they could clearly hear it splashing in the water down there but they said the screaming that started the daughter come home in absolute tears and he came home visibly shaken. And he said, I have never heard anything like this. I've never heard anything like this. The screaming, the roaring, the bellering, he said it blew right through you when this thing screamed. But he was certain it was a bear. Now, at this point, after having that encounter in that exact spot, I'm not sure at all that was a bear. I'm not a hunter per se. I mean, I've done some bull hunting and that, but I'm not a hunter. I'm familiar with bears, but I did not think that bears stock

deer. Now maybe they do, but I never heard of them chasing deer down. I know they'll snag a fawn, they'll catch one that's not looking so well, but clearly whatever it was had chased these deer for quite a way, caused all of this commotion. So they

left the camping equipment, everything, they ran for the truck, which had been parked at the edge of the lake. The dog had beat them to it. They hightailed into the truck, and arrived home. When they went back the next day to pick up the gear,

you know, when he came home, I said, you know, that took a while, everything okay. And he goes, yeah, I just said, we must have to really just, you know, upset everything trying to scramble a tent because everything was all over the place. And he left it like that. Now, of course, I wonder,

all these years later, if that was something other than a bear and if he didn't have the tent, you know, overturned afterwards when he had left the scene if something had come back later on to have a little. look around at what was there. But yeah, things were scattered about the camps. He said, to what extent I don't know. And I've never discussed it with him after my encounter. After my

encounter, I moved within that month and we were divorced and I didn't go back to that town. And it's, you know, not something that he and I would ever at this point discuss. So I can't really add a whole lot to that. I understand. What he talked about, except to say that it strikes me a bit odd now. Yeah, it does. It does. It makes you wonder what he actually ran into out there.

And, you know, your encounter is terrifying. I'm so glad that they backed off. And, you know, there's a lot of questions I have in situations like that. You know, why don't they attack you? You know, you're such an easy pickings at that point during your encounter, Petra, that why not attack you? you're easy easy pickings yet they don't um and they'll do sorry this is going to sound silly but i feel like they almost felt sorry for me and i don't know why even say that except i i kind of i kind

of feel like that and i don't know if it's because you know i've been this pathetic thing going to the lake for six months and crying and if they indeed have our emotions um or at least some of them some of our base emotions anyway. You know, sadness is a real thing. And, you know, there I am day after day, you know, crying my little eyes out. And if they're watching me, I just wonder if they felt sorry. I don't know. I really don't know.

I wonder, was the garter snakes a gift or was it a lure? Was the one that crawled up behind me trying to ambush me? or and was the whole thing of allowing it to even see it pooping in the lake? You know, was I set up? They would have known I was coming. Why wouldn't they just go hide in the bush immediately? Yet they made a choice I feel to let me see them. Why?

I don't know. I really don't know. But I don't think Sasquatch does anything by chance most of the time. I think they have a focus, and at times we happen to wander into whatever they're doing and we get in their way, and we might have an account to that way. And then I think there's the other kind of encounters where they make an absolute choice to interact in our world, whether it's just to cause mischief and mayhem, or it's just entertainment for them.

I don't really know. But I think that they had just been used to me coming down there. And the creepy part of it was the fact they followed me home into where I lived and left a marker that I would recognize from that day, you know, and a tied up snake, like something with a posable thumbs tied that snake up. That's the only thing. So it had to be a person or an animal. I'm out there at 5 o'clock in the morning looking at these two gartersnakes that have been tied in the knot on my pathway.

And finding that curious and spending time looking at it, if I'm being observed the whole time and they are indeed the ones that did it, which I now believe to be the case, I don't know. I think it was maybe just a reminder. Like, we're here. I don't know. Where are you? You didn't show up. I don't know. Or you ran away scared.

I don't know what the whole thought process is behind it. And perhaps if we ever catch one or are able to communicate with them, maybe we would know more or maybe we never will. I don't know. Yeah, it's definitely odd. It's definitely odd they would leave you a snake. But the encounter fascinates me. I mean, you can almost see three different personalities in your encounter. You can see the one just kind of grimacing at you.

and more or less just kind of give you a quick warning, don't come any closer. And then you see the other one throwing a fit off in the brush. So you almost see two different separate personalities there. Well, I definitely think you're right because I felt the one that was concealed deeper in the bush was the alpha. I somehow felt like he was controlling what went on. And I don't know why I feel that. I don't have any reason except to say that's how I feel. I felt like the one that was in the lake originally, he was supposed to draw my attention.

And I felt like the one that was Auburn was a much older creature. And this is going to sound crazy, but I almost wonder if it was female. There was just a real, there was no vast movements, no, I don't know, don't know why I say that. You know, maybe disregard it. it's just my own perception. And maybe that's what I want to think. So the only thing I can say is that the one that was in the lake made a conscious choice to be in the lake when I came across that path.

There's no way I stumbled onto him by accident. It wasn't like we just crossed the path because I came around the corner and there he was. He would have heard me coming because, like I said, down that road at five in the morning, there's no traffic, there's no sound of a community or anything like that. Everyone's asleep and they're, you know, further away. They're not, they're not within earshot. I'm the only one out there. I mean, there are people that jog and stuff, but they usually didn't jog down those trails at that time of day because you'd stumble and fall. Like, you can maybe go for a walk. I didn't meet other walkers when I'd be out at that time. As the sun was

more up, like after 7 o'clock, I often would see other people out walking, but not at like five in the morning when I often would leave and 5.30 just as the sun started to crest, you know, I never had seen anybody down there, but again, I don't know. He was, he was in a vulnerable position, though, too, being in the water. I thought that was interesting choice that he would stay in the water. I don't know. Maybe it's not. Maybe that is my own perception. Maybe they're such great swimmers that he was in the water because then he could have two points of exit there. He could go up on the causeway or he could swim out on the lake. I don't know. I'm not sure. But he clearly allowed me to see him. And he clearly took the biggest poop you've ever seen in the lake. And I

I wonder if that is a common practice that they have. If they have the choice to poop where there's water, do they do that? Because then we can't find their poop. Yeah, that's an interesting point. It's hard to say. I always get upset when my dog does that down the Columbia River. I'm like, really? Right in the river?

But, you know, it's hard to say. And it is a very fascinating account. I'm so glad that you made it out okay. And not only that, but through your divorce and everything, else. You know, a lot of times people bury themselves in a bottle when they go through hard times like that. And it's important to get out, let your emotions out. If anyone's ever gone through something like that, they can relate. And it's very healthy to do that. And for you to run into these things, it's terrifying. There's no other word to say it. It's terrifying to run into these things.

At that time, it was difficult. I think if it hadn't been an encounter that happened, maybe surrounding the divorce, I probably would have maybe talked to somebody and said something, but because of the circumstances of my own personal life, I just kept it to myself. And I think that that isn't a healthy existence because I know the monster in my head got bigger. The more I didn't speak about it, the more terrified I was. And this is where I have to just take a moment, and I know you're probably not going to like this, but because you're a very humble fellow, but I have to say something from the bottom of my heart.

I feel like Sasquatch Chronicles was a lifeline, and I literally was drowning in my own pain with this encounter. I think I had PTSD. I think that I was, like, truly struggling more than I would admit to anybody, including myself, because I would wake up in terror at times at night. And I have a couple of dogs, and I remember one time going for a walk with the dog. Now, currently, I live in the GTA of Toronto, which is huge. It's like New York City.

But, you know, I'm a little ways out of it. So I have clearly moved away from the wilderness. And I guess I kind of had this satisfaction of thinking, well, at least turn out here. I've since come to think twice about that because I think anywhere black bears can find habitat these creatures could find habitat and then some because if they're indeed that clever they could stealthily exist

not very far from our urban areas so I know at one point I had taken my little dog for a walk and we'd gone scrambling through a park and up a hill and through some trees and I saw a deer and I thought, cool, and then I saw a bear, and I thought, I got to get out of here. And I almost couldn't walk home. I was so terrified because it brought me right back to that moment. And I was having problems breathing.

I was like literally having a stress panic attack where I thought I was having a heart attack. But it was all, you know, psychosomatic, my own trauma from the experience. But when I found Saskatch Chronicles in 2013, I began listening to it. And the first couple episodes I listened to, I cried the whole way through because I felt like somebody understood. And when you feel so terribly alone after an encounter like this, the relief it was to find other people who were willing to talk about it, whether they came up with any answers or not didn't matter. The fact they were willing to talk about it, it gave me an opportunity. once a week to sit down and do a little bit of mental health. It was my therapy.

I should actually write you a huge check because if I had paid a therapist for this help, it would have cost me a fortune, but you and Woody gave it freely. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for that because I really struggled after this encounter. I really went through a difficult time of trying to wrap my head around what had taken place,

and feeling very vulnerable and afraid. And I no longer feel the same capacity of fear. I wouldn't say the woods are a comfortable place for me anymore, and maybe they never will be. I'm not certain about that, but I'm comfortable with the rest of my life, and I'm happy, and life took a really good turn for me, and, you know, I remarried.

I have a beautiful existence and a great life, and this is just one of those unanswered questions that still exists within my mind, and that what did I see that day? What is it? And so the question of Sasquatch is now part of my existence and something that I do devote a little bit of time to reading about and trying to research in a very quiet way. But I wanted to let you know that your gift to us, to all of us,

this community of curious onlookers has been something that I don't think we'll ever get the full measure of because you've really given something to all of us that's just precious, and that is the opportunity to speak to hear others, to hear their stories and recognize our own pain and our own victories in their stories. So thank you for that. Well, thank you, Petra. That means a lot. That means a lot to me.

And I really do appreciate you saying that. And it's not easy, you know, after you have an encounter, it's like I always say, who do you talk to? You know, you can't call, what do you do, call the cops? You know, I mean, they're going to laugh at you. And so I appreciate the kind words very much. It means a lot to me. And I really do thank you for saying that.

Thank you very much. It does mean a lot to me. And it means a lot to me that you'd come on and share your encounter. And I hope it helps someone else in the future. Well, I do too But I can't, you know I mean, without going into any details I don't want to, you know, take

credit for it. I was kind of forced into this in a way because I was outed by a researcher who, you know, published my story without my consent. And so I felt like I need to own this story. I need to take control of this because it's my story, my words.

And I felt the only people that I wanted to have this was Sasquatch Chronicles because you were the ones that helped me through it. And I just felt it was such an honor and a privilege to even be asked by you. So, you know, thank you to the one who outed me because, as I told you, I spent some time in a very uncomfortable position discussing all the silliness that goes in the Sasquatch community. Sometimes we're not very supportive of one another.

We act like it's territory instead of common ground that we should be cooperating on. And I know that you and Woody have been victims in this too. And I just really wanted to very publicly say that you guys have my support and my undying gratitude. And nothing is going to change that. I am very loyal. And I just feel that you've given our community a really great service that nobody else had quite touched on in the way that you've done it. And that's because your focus has been the witnesses and what they see, not the so-called professionals and the know-at-alls who are trying to promote themselves for some kind of gain, I think, in a lot of cases. but your focus has been the people.

And you've always addressed people over the last four years that I've been listening. You've always addressed people with a measure of respect and concern and compassion. And often you don't see that as well. So I'm just grateful. I'm grateful for what you've done because it's given me an opportunity to speak, which, you know, it's not something I would have chosen necessarily. And that's not a fearful thing about my encounter. I don't want people to think, oh, I didn't want to say anything because people would ridicule me.

I don't care about me. But what I cared about was my family and putting them in a position where they might feel the need to defend me or try to say, you know, don't think she's crazy. I just didn't want to have the pressure on them. And then my husband currently is a man of trust and in business. And, you know, he lives his life in a three-piece suit. And I didn't want to paint his world with the sometimes sketchy brush that Bigfoot can be. So, you know, I just wanted to keep very separate what happened with me so that no one would know who I am. But because I've already been outed, like, use my name, whatever, I don't care at this point.

I had Sasquatch Chronicles gets it all. And I'm just grateful to be here. and thank you very much for the opportunity. Well, the honor was mine. Thank you again. Thanks a lot. 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. Until next time, everyone. Being across the country faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your antidote. I'm Tom Barton, and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who will help build ESPN's brand. I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper. Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports talk with the same tired storylines. We'll give it to you straight here every Friday on Wagering Week. Don't gamble with other podcasts.

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