“He kept steady steps, walking in a dedicated manner ... like a “man on mission” As I sat there in my car, just two meters away from him, he did not look at me, did not even acknowledge the presence of my car. Then, as he approached the lamp post he started becoming somewhat transparent. I could see right through him. Then puff, like magic he was gone.”

—From an interview of a sighting, Whitehorse Yukon

Report # 7

TAKHINI REGION

Sighting by Long Lake Road, in 1978

Location: Coord. 60o 43’44 N 135o 03’08 W (Map: Whitehorse 105 D/11: GR 971 328)

Going through some old report, I came upon one from a young First Nations boy, 15 years of age at the time, originally from the Kwanlin Dun First Nation (KDFN), mentioning that he observed what he refers to as a Sasquatch, close to the Yukon River, downstream from the Robert Campbell Bridge, within city limits.

Encounter: The young fellow in question was on his way to his favorite fishing spot at around 0800 hrs (8AM), in August of 1978. Walking from downtown Whitehorse, he first crossed the Robert Campbell Bridge onto the east side of the Yukon River, then turned left, walking in a northerly direction on a gravel road leading away from the bridge in the direction Long Lake, (One of 203 lakes named Long Lake in Canada) on a road commonly called the Long Lake Road by the locals, but which actual name is Wickstrom Road, this road follows the Yukon River on the east side of river. From Long Lake on, the road becomes the Livingstone Trail, eventually reaching the former gold fields of Livingstone Creek on the east shores of the Big Salmon River.

At one point, after climbing a small hill and going down the other side, he turned left onto a smaller trail which would eventually take him to the river’s edge. Some six km from the bridge, as he mentioned. As he approached a large clearing, just past a small utility shed, he noticed a tall and thin dark black figure, top heavy with a slight hunched back and long arms at a distance of about 30 m away (100 ft) or so and just about in the middle of the clearing.

The figure was sort of jumping and dancing around a tall aspen tree with his arms flailing about in an excited manner, looking as if it was amusing itself. At one point the figure, which the witness later identified as a Sasquatch, moved closer to the tree then put his hand out reaching for and grasping a large branch at about shoulder height. The creature then made what appeared to be an attempt to climb the tree.

The reporter then states that, as the creature tried to lift himself up, the branch he was holding on broke with a loud noise, and the creature fell to the ground. While all this was taking place, the young man was hiding behind the shed, so as not to be seen by the creature, but was still able to observe the action. When the creature fell to the ground our young fisherman took advantage of the distraction and started off running back to town.

A few days later our young fisherman mentioned the incident to his friends and his family, however they mostly regarded the event as wild imagination on the part of the young fellow and total nonsense.

The day after he mentioned the event, the young man went back to the sighting location with a friend to look for the broken tree branch and maybe some footprints, by all indication he found the tree in question but he could not locate the broken branch and did not notice any tracks in the immediate vicinity of the tree or in the clearing, the reports states the clearing to be located about 6 km (4 mi) downstream from Whitehorse, on the eastern shore of the river at a distance of about 500 m (1,650 ft) from the shores of the Yukon River, as written by the young fella.

Investigation: During my investigation of the sighting, I walked along the Yukon River from the Robert Campbell Bridge to locate the exact sighting location. I would dispute the location as described by the witness. As the 6 km (4 mi), he stated in the report, would have required him to climb one of the steep hills located before and another one past Long Lake and then walk down a sharp treacherous incline to get to the river bank, which distance at that specific point would have been much further than stated.

There is no mention of Long Lake itself in the report, except for the name of the road, therefore the location in question had to be before Long Lake. That lake is 4 km (2.5 mi) down the road from the Robert Campbell Bridge which crosses the Yukon River in downtown Whitehorse leading to the sub-division of Riverdale. The Robert Campbell Bridge is presently one of three ways to get to the east shore of the river, one of the other routes, is to cross at the power dam, which is usually closed to any public traffic anyway, and the other way is to cross the Millennium Trail pedestrian bridge, which did not exist at the time of the reported sighting.

Distances for a young person who does not drive a car can be very confusing, especially if you have to walk to get where you want to go.

Therefore, I would place the actual sighting location close to what was then locally known as the old fox farm, about 1.6 km (1 mi) down the road from the bridge. All other description of the location would fit with this site. The buildings around the site burned down in 2000 and new housing has sprung up in the area. This location is presented because I was a resident of Whitehorse in 1980, two years after the reported sighting took place and that is the only location that would fit in. Being an avid fisherman myself I used to fish up and down the Yukon River in those days, and probably fished the same spot. In case anyone wonders; I left the Yukon in June of 1983 and returned for good in August of 1986.

Our witness was a young fellow in his mid-teens at the time who had been residing in Fort St John, BC, with his KDFN mother and had been spending the summer visiting his divorced father, in Whitehorse, and was on his way to his favorite fishing spot, where he had fished on many occasions before. The young fellow in question only reported this encounter in November of 1995 and I became aware of it in 2010.

Local History: Prior to the full-time settlement of what is now the City of Whitehorse, by the first Caucasian folks during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896, this part of the Yukon was inhabited by the Indigenous people of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation (KDFN) and the Ta’an Kwatch’an Council (TKC). Members of these First Nations would fish at the Whitehorse rapids, located by what is known today as Miles Canyon and Schawtka Lake, for various types of salmon and other fish, mostly in the rapids downstream from the canyon and hunt for caribou, elks and moose around the near-by mountain slopes.

The Kwanlin Dun First Nation People would winter in the immediate area while the Ta’an Kwatch’an People would winter on the east shore of near-by Lake Laberge, about 30 km (21 mi) downstream from Whitehorse. Soon after the discovery of gold in 1896, thousand of mad gold seekers travelled the Chilkoot Trail to Lake Bennett during the following two years, build boats of all sorts and as soon as the ice broke would have been on their way, Klondike bound. Many perished attempting to navigate Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids, but most just carried on to the Klondike, driven by the overwhelming madness of getting to the gold fields ahead of the others and claiming all that gold. This madness became known as gold fever and many people perished by it, or actions resulting from this madness. Starting in 1897 and during 1898 small paddle boats were constructed at Bennett City, at the end of the Chilkoot Trail, at the far end of Bennett Lake and these paddle wheelers would take the gold seekers and their kit as far as Canyon City, where they and their goods would be unloaded from these small paddle boats and transported by horse-pulled tramways. The first such tramway was located on the east side of the Yukon River, then as business competition would have it, another one started operating on the west side of the river. Both tramways ended downstream from the rapids at a location that is now the City of Whitehorse and the goods would be re-loaded in larger paddle wheelers for the journey to Dawson City and the Klondike Gold Fields.

The resulting camp, downstream from the rapids, originally became known as Closeleigh for a short period of time in 1898 and the following year the name was changed to Whitehorse. These rapids became known as the Whitehorse Rapids, as its turbulent waters looked much like the head and mane of wild white horses and is the source of the name “Whitehorse”. In 1899 a railway line reached the then small settlement of Whitehorse, which soon became the centre for rail transportation between Skagway, Alaska and Whitehorse, Yukon and the centre of river transportation and navigation as well, between Whitehorse and Dawson City in the Klondike Region where the famous gold rush was happening. The arrival of the railway to Whitehorse meant the end of the paddle wheelers on the upper portion of the Yukon River and the southern lakes, from Bennett City in BC to Whitehorse in the Yukon.

Many of the First Nations people became wood cutters at the time of the gold rush and for some time after, providing fuel wood to the paddle boats, some worked as river guides and river pilots, their intimate knowledge of the river and the land became in high demand.

As well, a large number of the First Nations people were busy hunting for fresh meat for all these newcomers and it was noted that as a result, games were driven further and further away from their regular locations, closer to the Yukon River. The Yukon First Nation people were employed in those capacities until an all-seasons road was built between Whitehorse and Dawson City in 1954, thus killing the paddle wheelers and all its related employment. As these logs were cut for some 60 years, the northern boreal forest was decimated for quite a distance, on both sides of the Yukon River, between Whitehorse and Dawson City. We can still see the scars of old tree stumps and remains of old wood camps when walking around the forest today, just about everywhere you venture along the river. Most trees one sees today are second and third generation growth.

Geography: The area where the sighting took place is part of the northern boreal forest with small sandy rolling hills mostly covered with aspen, birch, black and white spruce, lodge pole pine, poplar and willow. As well there are many small pot-hole lakes, remnant of the last ice age and a few rocky outcrops that can be located in the immediate area. Eventually these rolling hills would join the rocky slopes of the mountain known locally as Grey Mountain, AKA Canyon or Cap Mountain, which raises to an elevation of 1,836 meters (6,023 ft) some 6 km (4 mi) in an East-southeast direction from the sighting location. Past Grey Mountain to the east and north is pure wilderness for hours of flying time with many high mountains and deep valleys, part of what is known as the Yukon Plateau, and where very few people have ever set foot in. There are plenty of animals roaming the boreal forest around the Whitehorse area today, as this is now a no hunting zone, amongst those animals one would often come across bears, caribou, cougars, coyotes, deer, elks and moose. Smaller animals would include beavers, frogs, grouse, hares, lynx, otters, rodents and porcupines. Along lakes and water ways one would see ducks, geese, swans and many other types of large and small birds as well as large numbers of fish. As well, there is also about a thousand varieties of plants around the area, most of them edible, each specific to its growing zone and much too numerous to specify. Suffice to say that there is plenty of food for Sasquatch to survive all year round.

Other Occurrences: To my knowledge there are a few more sightings in the immediate area of Whitehorse prior to this one. As well, I experienced an unidentified, strange foul smell close-by, I observed a series of large foot impressions and a number of tree related events close to where these sightings took place.

Further Investigative Comments: This report was made in 1995 about an encounter that occurred in 1978, the reporter stated that he remembers the sighting quite well, but it took him almost 17 years to make a report. No specific reasons were given as to why it took him so long to come out and report it. However, one has to consider the human aspect of this Sasquatch phenomenon.

This is a sad but true fact that people have a feeling of being ridiculed and are scared that they would be made fun of when reporting such occurrence to the authorities.

I know the area in question very well, my residence is presently located 3.5 km (2.3 mi) away from where this sighting reportedly occurred and I used to fish the very same part of the Yukon River when I first resided here from 1980 to 1983. The only details of value being presented by the witness about the ambulating entity sighted by the young lad are that he was tall, thin, with dark black hair with long arms and the figure observed was top heavy, which I take as meaning that the observed entity was muscular around the upper body. The figure was slightly hunched back, which I take as possibly describing an older creature, yet still black, but then again, he was described as “prancing around”, sort of dancing and jumping.

If you were to notice a human being doing the exact same thing, s/he would have a slightly hunched back as well. The approximate height of the Sasquatch is not mentioned anywhere in the report. At one point the witness states that the reported Sasquatch reached for a branch at shoulder height, but he does not mention which hand was used or the height of the branch. The reported creature’s noticeable excitement towards the tree may well have been the result of having cornered some game animal in the tree in question, such as a porcupine or squirrel for example, expecting it to be his next meal.

Just for the record; according to my calculations, based on research work and with data compiled from many scientists and Sasquatch researchers, the average Sasquatch would be 238 cm tall (94 in or 7 ft 10 in) and weigh about 295 kg (651 lbs). Such creature would have a footprint of about 39 cm (15.5 in) and a step of 152 cm (60 in or 5 ft), measured from the tips of the toes of one footprint to the tips of the toes of the following footprint. To maintain healthy activities a Sasquatch of such height and weight would need about 6,688 calories of food per day.

Other reported Sasquatch sightings in the general area all indicated that the entity being observed averaged a height of about 213 cm (84 in or 7 ft), such would indicate a footprint of 35.5 cm (14 in) with a step of 138 cm (54 in or 4 ft 6 in) and would weigh around 267 kg (588 lbs).

There are a few other reports mentioned for the area, afoul smell occurrence in 2010, report # 44 and a foot track in 2011, report # 11.