October 19, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode, Fred from Alaska hosts a conversation with special guest Sonny Grant from Juno, Alaska. Sonny, a full Tlingit, shares his deep family history in the region, recounting personal and ancestral stories about sightings of Sasquatch and cannibal giants.
The discussion includes detailed accounts from Sonny's youth and his family, including notable encounters in the Knick River Valley, Mount Juno, Thomas Bay, and other locales. Sonny also touches on cultural traditions such as canoe building, and highlights the ways in which these creatures have been a part of Tlingit folklore for generations.
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00:00 Introduction and Welcome 00:09 Sonny Grant's Background and Early Sightings 01:52 Thomas Bay Expedition 02:53 Encounters and Strange Phenomena 07:02 Cannibal Giants and Family Stories 11:36 Hunting Stories and Sasquatch Nests 15:58 Warrior Clan and Cannibal Giant Battles 20:14 Burning the Cannibal Giant 21:20 Ancient Stories of Cannibal Giants 22:13 Wolf Pack Behavior and Human Encounters 22:45 Sasquatch Sightings and Encounters 30:24 Cultural Significance of Carving and Canoe Building 37:23 Hunting Traditions and Techniques 40:32 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sasquatch-odyssey--4839697/support.
The discussion includes detailed accounts from Sonny's youth and his family, including notable encounters in the Knick River Valley, Mount Juno, Thomas Bay, and other locales. Sonny also touches on cultural traditions such as canoe building, and highlights the ways in which these creatures have been a part of Tlingit folklore for generations.
Get Our FREE Newsletter
Get Brian's Books
Leave Us A Voicemail
Visit Our Website
Support Our Sponsors
00:00 Introduction and Welcome 00:09 Sonny Grant's Background and Early Sightings 01:52 Thomas Bay Expedition 02:53 Encounters and Strange Phenomena 07:02 Cannibal Giants and Family Stories 11:36 Hunting Stories and Sasquatch Nests 15:58 Warrior Clan and Cannibal Giant Battles 20:14 Burning the Cannibal Giant 21:20 Ancient Stories of Cannibal Giants 22:13 Wolf Pack Behavior and Human Encounters 22:45 Sasquatch Sightings and Encounters 30:24 Cultural Significance of Carving and Canoe Building 37:23 Hunting Traditions and Techniques 40:32 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sasquatch-odyssey--4839697/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
on here, something just cause my dog. Something killed your dog,
my dog. We're flying through the or over the tree.
I don't know how it did it. Okay, Damn, I'm
really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat what
(00:38):
are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
around out here? Did you see what it was? Was?
It was standing enough. I'm out here looking through the
window now and I don't see anything. I don't want
to go outside. Jesus Chraice you by hello, get somebody
(01:04):
out here when I'm out there. I thought of a
bit just about TIX fort nine. I don't know easy
out there, Yeah, I'm right, okay.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Greetings, This is a friend Alaska. Thanks for joining me
today out here in Kinnick River Valley. I got Pine
of peakup behind me. Here. We have a special guest today.
I'll turn it over to him.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Hello. My name is Sonny Grant. I'm from Gino, Alaska.
I'm full clinket, born and raised in Juno. My family
goes back thousands of years in that area. I shared
two stories before. Once was on the West Glacier Trail
in Minhall Glacier where I had a siding back around
(01:43):
two thousand and three. I had a sighting when I
was very young, when I was seven on Mount Gino.
Also talked about Thomas Bay because I went there when
I was a teenager. When I was growing up, the
harry Man wasn't really talked about too much. I always
heard a lot of stories about the cannibal Giant. My grandfather,
(02:04):
Austin Hammond, would tell me those stories. As I got older,
I found out that the cannibal giant stories originated in Haines,
which is where I'm from. So I thought that was
very interesting. When I had that sighting on Mount Gino,
I was only a seven. That's when I knew about
these creatures. I lived in Geno, which is pretty urban.
(02:29):
In Haines or cake smaller villages where they knew more
about these creatures, I knew they were real just because
I saw it on the mountain and I saw a
walk I knew it wasn't a bear because it was
so big. As I grew older, I kept hearing more
and more stories. We started hearing stories about the little
(02:51):
creatures around Thomas Bay. I went to the exact location
where the things happened during that interview.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
It was hard to make out and there's some technical
issues as far as recording went. Can you just walk
us through that portion again, because you guys were on
a boat if I remember right, and you guys pulled
in there.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, Thomas Bay is about a one day trip south
of Gino. It's about sixty miles in the water, so
it took all day to get there. In fact, we
camped somewhere, so it took more than a day. I
realized this was back in the early seventies. Were you
guys paddling, Yeah, we were on a twenty four foot bayliner.
(03:33):
We got the strangest story ever told, which is a
book written about the encounters there about those little people.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
The way it was written, they were a smaller version
of the harry Man, hideous, smelly with stores with a
horrible stench.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
They're like three and a half four foot at the
colust Apparently they kind of looked like they were but
they only walked on their hind feet. They sometimes walked
on all four.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
No, it wasn't there an ancient village that was wiped
out over that way.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, there was a village on half Moon Lake. I
tried finding that lake on the map, but all those
lakes back there are unnamed on geological maps. We anchored
in Thomas Bay. As you go into Thomas Bay, you
had the south side. We anchored up there and we
had a little skiff. There was like seven of us
(04:29):
on board, and it took us two trips to get
all of us ashore. I think one person was left
on the boat just to watch it. We made it ashore.
We started hiking right up this river, because that's where
the prospectors in the story said they got ashore. Once
they got along that little river, they hiked right up it.
(04:52):
We did the same thing, and we started going up
a ridge. The ridge wasn't too steep. It's kind of
like this. The ridge over here is all sick spruced
western amlocked red ceedar, very thick forest. It was a
beautiful sunny day. We started going up. We all noticed
(05:12):
that it was so quiet. Whenever you go anywhere in
the woods anywhere in Alaska, you'll always hear birds, animals,
sign We didn't hear anything. When we took breaks on
our way up that ridge, we noticed there's no mosquitoes.
We thought that was very strained because we had insect
(05:33):
repellent with us, and how once did we ever have
to use it. It felt I don't know if strange
as a word. We had a feeling about that area,
uneasy or unsettled, unsettled. I wasn't sure why we all
felt that way the night before on the boat. Because
we got to Thomas Bay early evening, it was too
(05:54):
late to do anything. We just anchored, We sat up
and we read that stories. Took us a couple of
hours go all the way up to the top. I
mean the ridge leveled off. In the distance we saw
half Moon Lake. They had been like four miles away
or so we knew we were in the right area.
We didn't go any farther. We just wanted to see
(06:18):
if we can see that lake. And once we saw it,
mission yeah, we started on our way back down. I
wish I could have camped there a couple of days,
because I supposedly if you camp and hike around Thomas Bay,
you'll come across sixty to eighty years worth of old
campsites like Prospector type thing. Prospector. There's a lot of
(06:42):
people that go missing in Thomas Bay. The compass's spin
and Thomas Bay. Really yeah, our compass on the boat
was spinning.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I won't have to ask one of the lay line
things they talk about, or some kind of magnetic anomaly.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Supposedly there was one mountain I had a lot of
high iron in it. I just knew about a lot
of planes seeing things up on the ridge Gino. In
the newspaper, there was a pilot on lab which is
airline that's no longer there anymore. They were flying south
of Gueno, probably going to Petersburg or something. They saw
(07:20):
a creature walking. It was definitely harry Man because the
pilot said it was really tall and their feet was
really spaced apart as steps. Pilot circled several times. Each
time he went lower, he got closer and closer to
the steps the tracks. He got a photograph it's in
(07:41):
the newspaper in the Guno Empire of these tracks.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Do you remember what year that was, because I'm sure
they got archives and might be able to look it up.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It could have been late sixties, early seventies, around there.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Because some people like to look into that stuff, not
for any kind of a confirmation, but to check it
out for themselves. So anyone out there that to like's
looking at the old archives and digging back in the
area the Juneral Empire.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, you might have to go to the city library
in general to look at those because it's still on
microfige that's not on digital yet.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
You had mentioned before hearing about the cannibal giants when
he went to Haines and kick were. There's certain things
family members that shared with you over the years when
you're learning about it and first hearing about it.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
My aunt and my cousin had stories of sasquatches coming
to there. We call them sasquatches in Southeast. There's a
clinket name. I'm just not sure the name of it,
besides cannibal giant. They came to the house and they
went underneath the house. Here's like a three four foot
crawl space underneath the house. I was up on pilings
(08:47):
and I heard it screwing around underneath, and every once
in a while it would hit the floor. I just
would freak everyone out. Some of the guys would have
to go out there and chase it away with a gun.
These creatures are so fast there's no way you can
catch up with them. I know my aunt said there
was sightings all the time the village's cap. It's an
(09:11):
old village, has been there about five hundred years, and
the same location. They seen sasquatches around the dump. We
used to go to the dump all the time just
to see bears. Over the years they would see these
creatures and they were really huge. I don't think they
were on the island because it's on Koupernof Island. It's
(09:33):
a kind of a nice size island where the village
is on. I don't think they're on there all the time.
Sasquatches are incredible swimmers. They can swim across a river
at no time. I know some of my family have
seen them swimming. Had another aunt up in Haynes who
saw one. She was on a gillnetter. This is between
(09:56):
Gino and Hanes. She went out on deck to have
a cigare at Lynn Canal is a very deep fjord.
He can go twenty feet off the beach and it's
already three four hundred feet deep. It drops down to
two thousand feet deep. She was very close to the
shore looking at the trees. She saw branches open up
(10:17):
and then a big face poked his head out. She
just couldn't believe it, said, the creatures were looking right
at her, opened a brush and a big hairy faces
right there. Then it closed and it disappeared.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
She said.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
She finished her cigarette and went inside. That was her
only sight. And she always knew about these creatures, and
she believed them because she heard a lot of stories
of seeing them, especially with the relatives out there hunting,
like up in Hanes there's moose hunting. There's a lot
of moose. They go up there along the Chokat River.
(10:55):
They've seen them at some point on the hunt.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Speaking of hands in the cake area, I know that
I was sent some anonymous footage where it was stabilized,
where this thing was reported ten foot tall, five foot wide,
black skinned, blonde haired. You can see it on the video.
One person commented, Oh, it's just a bear doing bear things.
I commented back, Oh, you must work for fishing game.
That's generally the same area you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, the Chuca Valley is really wide. It's a pretty
wide river. It's not as wide as a Copper River.
You get down to the delta down there, and it's massive,
but it's still a big river. There's been a lot
of sightings over the years in that area. I can
just go over the cannibal giant story really quick. My grandfather,
(11:40):
Austin Hammon, they would tell these stories, said the cannibal
giant something that's been seen around Haynes and clockwe and
they always warned the kids not to go in the woods,
not to play in the woods, not to whistle. Always
be wary. Adult always had to be with the kids
when he got in the woods. Growing up in Haynes,
being with my grandparents and some of my older relatives.
(12:05):
When I was young, I didn't know what to think
about those stories. My grandfather told me how they would
capture kids. They were so fascinate'd grab one or two
and you couldn't catch them. They tore up in the
woods and that was the last they were ever seen.
Apparently they killed them and they ate them. In my
tribe a long time ago, we were real warriors. We
(12:30):
fought the Russians, the Spanish, the French, the British, and
the Americans.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Battle for sitkas where they were going to make negotiations
and overnight the chief was free and captain was missing.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, there's a lot of old stories about these creatures.
I want to go back to the hunting thing. And
Uncle I hunted with all the time on Albert Island
and other islands. He also hunted down on Prince of
Wales Island. He told me stories about Prince of Wales,
theirs sightings down there. It would be out mostly deer hunting,
(13:04):
a lot of deer in Prince of Wales. It's a
good place where deer hunt. Every once in a while,
you feel something in the air, something strange. Foreboden they
come across these piles of deer bones. It was in
the perfect little circular pile. When he looked at it,
the bones were clean, and even the larger ones were
(13:24):
split apart. Something ate to everything split the marrow on
the bone a and it figured it was the Sasquatch.
I did them, He says, one off, you see those
piles of bones, be very wary, be very careful. Listen.
You might not hear them, but you'll hear how nature responds,
(13:46):
how quiet it could be. He said, he was very
wary when he found two piles of bones because there's
no one that does that.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
No scavengers scattered everywhere.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
People don't do that. I had a cousin and I
lived on Prince of Wales Island. Once she was very young.
Her and an older relative and a friend, they knew
of a cave right off the highway or a little road.
Supposedly it was used by Sasquatches because there were always
(14:20):
sightings along the road right near there. They knew that
cave and they were just teenagers and they wanted to
go explore it. I probably would do the same thing
if I was their age. They went up to the
cave and they went in, and the cave went back
about one hundred feet, and they had flashlights and everything.
The cave had a musky order, a kind of like
(14:42):
wet dog or something. They went back there they found
a nest and the nest was about six feet diameter.
There was something looked like curs on the bottom, but
the branches are all around it set it looked like
a really big verd and as her ego nests to.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Stay tuned for more Sasquatch out to see women. Right
back after these messages.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
It still smelled like something was just there, so they left.
She never saw them, but she always heard about it.
Cheered from family would see them. That would be something
to see a nest. I've never seen one.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I've never seen one like that. But everyone shows these
structures online of like cheepy looking things. I've never seeing that.
That's usually kids doing stuff. The ones I've seen are
woven in a way people don't do that. It's not
just slapped together.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Some of my family worked for Klukwan Inc. Kluckwant Ink
because a native corporation. They ran lumber company on Prince
of Wales Island. This had to have been in the
late eighties early nineties when I was really in full operation.
They were cutting trees in pristine wilderness. People always heard
(16:01):
stories about sasquatches. They started coming across the nest that
would get uncovered. Some of the nests look like they
haven't been used in a while. They all thought it
was very odd to find something like that in the
middle of the woods. They kept finding the trees upside down,
stuck in the dirt. Apparently you can still go to
(16:23):
Prince of Wales Island and there's some people that can
take you to those trees. They're really big they're like
twelve fifteen feet tall. They're almost two foot wide, but
they're just jammed in the ground really hard. When you
try to move it, you can't. It's in there. Took
a lot of forests to shove that into the ground.
(16:45):
And apparently those were markers, not just a theory, a
boundary or something. People said, that's the edge of their territory.
My family that lived on Prince of Wales, that's my
family on my dad's side. I went to Prince of
Wales Island. I was only there for a week, but
I didn't have a car. I think if I go
(17:05):
there again, I'm gonna have a car, take the ferry
over and explore because there's a lot there.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I may have interrupted you when you said you're from
a clan of warriors. I had spoken about the Battle
for Sikh and I wasn't sure if I derailed where
you were going with that portion of it or not.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
That was about the Cannibell giant. My tribe have historically
been known as fierce warriors. And when those kids got
grabbed by the cannibal giants and got taken off into
the woods, ten fifteen warriors when chased them. They tracked it.
(17:40):
They went up on the side of the hill and
they went up quite a ways and they found where
the cannibal giant was living inside this cave. They said
they knew it was their home because they saw light
coming from the cave. They had a little fire, So
apparently passquatches back then can make a fire.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I've heard of one report where I think it's titled
stolen fire. As a matter of fact, recently, I believe
it was Carl Clark in Facebook. He posted a picture
him and his wife and kid and dog were out
Snake Lake, which is between doing him and electnic Gig.
They had situation going on. They got a picture of
a twelve foot paul creepy looking. It's on Facebook under
(18:23):
a Carl Clark if anyone wants to look that up.
Like you were saying, whenever you'd go back home and
you would just hear about it, there a whole bunch.
It's the same thing for me. I'll get calls from
the village and it's amazing and one forty five minute call.
The amount of information shared between a couple of natives
versus the outside world would boggle their mind. So was
there any other family members that have had experiences.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
My grandfather said he saw one. He said he saw twice.
When I talked to my grandfather, he was already in
his eighties, so he was pretty old. This is all
on Haynes. She didn't give much detail because I was
asking them about it, and I told them about my
sighting up on Mountain Juno. As I've gotten older, I've
(19:09):
come to realize that these cannibal giants are harrymen or sasquatches,
But in the stories and Haines, there's been sightings to
them fifteen twenty foot tall, just massive. I was always
wary of that. I had that in my mind when
I was hiking around in Choka Valley, like the one
(19:30):
I saw on West Glacier Trail, I estimated to be
about ten twelve foot for sure, because I me and
my brother went up on that trail twenty eighteen. I
found the exact spot where I was standing. I saw
the tree where the sasquatches behind, and I estimated how
(19:52):
high it was. Then from there I looked at where
it was on the tree and then went down to
the ground because it was on a hail, so most
of the sasquatches below. That's how I estimated the height
and had it been twelve foot, it was huge. Same
thing in the Chokav Valley. The ones I've been sighted
(20:15):
there were just massive. It's like going way back here
where there was nothing there wild, just open country, just nature,
bears and whatever else is back there. It's like that
in the Chokav Valley.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Where we sit now. There's plenty of encounters and sightings
around here.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, I was thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
We creak up that way Friday Creeks. Metal Creeker has
been over the years. From what I've heard, going back
to the seventies in this area that's been discussed.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
The hunters found where they lived and drew them out.
Didn't really go into detail how they did that, but
the cannibal giant came out. They surrounded and started attacking
this cannibal giant. Some men were hurt, but they were
able to bring the cannibal giant down to the ground
(21:07):
and they killed it. You think about when they did that.
They didn't have rifles back then. They were using most
likely spears. The Athabaskans are known to kill a big
charging bear by letting them charge and let the bear
and pale themself on a big spear.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
That's just my guess that takes big brass ones message.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Anyway, they killed it, and according to the story, it
spoke and it says I'm always going to be around.
In fact, that was the origin of the mosquitoes because
they burned them. They didn't know what to do with it.
They cut it up and they put it in the
fire and they burned it. It's just really curious about
(21:49):
all those other stories that talks about them doing the
same thing. They didn't know how to dispose of this
creature because it's so big.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I promised the elder. When he was talking about the
one they burned up Copper River Valley somewhere, he said
that it was intact when they were burning it, and
as it heated up, there was noises being made with
the lungs and the heat. The way he described it,
though I think he was mostly clinking in part, heida,
if I remember correctly. He since passed away, but he
was ninety four when he shared those experiences. Wow, it
(22:21):
was really hard to interview them because he's from that
old school where you'd be quiet and listen, you know
what I mean. It's hard to question anything because that
old school kind of. Oh yeah, but yeah, very interesting guy.
The way he talked about that thing making the noises
when they burned it, Oh good god, I could only imagine.
You said, that's where the mosquitoes came from.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
They burned it and the ashes that flirted up in
the air turned into mosquitoes. That's a very old story.
No one knows how old this is. This story was
first recorded, probably eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
When it was first recorded.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yeah, I don't know if it was Asian Orthodox priest.
It was a priest of some sort who wrote down the.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Stories, kind of like the old school missionaries.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah. Yeah, But the person who told the stories back
then said, these stories are very old. My grandfather told
me other cannibal giant stories were they were able to
kill them. I think they remember who the bad people are.
They cause harm to a hairy man. The other hairy
man know about it.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
It's kind of curious, and they don't have meetings, will
be like, oh that's some bit Fred shot earl up
on the New York KUK.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Look.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, kind of makes you wonder. But then again, there's
that study with the wolves up in Dennalei where a
lesser pack and a larger pack. They were collared in
each of the groups, and the larger group was sixty
miles from its boundary areas territorial area sixty miles away,
and the lesser pack crossed that boundary and within two minutes,
(23:53):
according to radio tracking caller, that larger pack was on
its way back to Interceeds. And that amazing from sixty
miles away. Wow, kind of makes you wonder how they
read the energy or how that comes about.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, I was thinking back to the sighting I had
on a west glacier trail and Gino where those two
there was running up the hail towards me and it
surrounded me. Had a little light on my sony camp quarter.
I already was filming for a couple hours on a glacier,
so my lamp was very dim. I was thinking maybe
(24:28):
those sasquatches saw me, notice that I was clinking. Leave
this guy alone.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
They're probably telling stories about your drive around their campfire.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, because apparently they caught several up in the Haynes area.
You know where the cannibal giant story originated. Because those
cannibal giants they were all captured and killed. I know
there's been sightings of them on the Haines Highway. You're
going up and you go through the border and you're
(24:57):
in Bridge, Columbia. But just above, near the top is
the summit of the road. It's thirty five hundred feet
up and then it slowly starts going downhill a little
bit as you go towards Ane's Junction. There's been a
lot of sightings along that route. People would pull over.
(25:17):
There's a turnout like this one siding I have heard of.
There's a guy he took a break and was drinking
coffee or something. He noticed those three creatures up on
the ridge, the ridge above the highway. It's not that high,
it's only forty feet. It's pretty open, and Barren went swept.
(25:38):
It was this little ridge and he saw three figures
walking and they walked down and one came closer and
he realized what it was because at first he was
thinking in my seeing things, But when it got close
he realized it was a hairy man. It was a sasquatch,
something that he's always heard of, but he never seen one.
(25:59):
It just stay there for fifteen minutes. He doesn't know
what it was doing. He didn't want to leave. He
was in this truck. He felt safe if he had
a firearm or rifle in the truck with him. He
just wanted to watch it. Alaskans, we can carry firearms
only transit through Canada, as long as you get all
the paperwork. If you're going to go ont in the
(26:21):
interior and you leave from Haynes and you go through Canada,
you have to have your bulk somewhere else, your rifle
somewhere else, and your ammal somewhere else, not.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
All together and not all together. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah, these are recent sightings, probably the last ten years
that I've heard of people seeing things up there. I
have a family. It's half clinket in half I think
Northern tishone. I'm not sure it's one of those groups
up in the Yukon.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
There's what the Tashoni are in Glitchin, right, there's another one.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
They're different from Gwitchin, but they're very similar. I made
that mistake because oh, you're pert Gucchin. Oh No. I
had a friend who saw one sheep mount up near
Kilwawnee Lake. There was a real distant relative. I think
we had one relative and common so I knew he
was a very distant relative. He told me a story
(27:17):
that he was operating a Greater up in the Yukon.
We used to make fun of the Canadians how long
it took them to do any kind of road construction,
because we passed many times going to Anchorage from.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Haines, Sa.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Man. They've been working on this stretcher road for ten years.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, a half mile stretch.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yeah, it was like six seven miles when they were done.
It was the finest road you would ever see. None
of us could match how beautiful the road was. He
was operating a Greater. Sheep Mountains, a pretty big mountain.
I'm not sure what the elevation is, but it's definitely
at least two thousand feet above. And it's called Sheep
(28:01):
Mountain because myself, I've seen as many as forty to
fifty mountain goats up there. When I was passing through
there a week and a half ago, I didn't see
any mountain goats up on the mountain. He was operating
a grater and he upened a glance up on the
mountain and saw all these white specs running down the mountain.
He had a sliding window right in his cab and
(28:23):
he stuck his head out to get a better look.
It was mountain goats running down the mountain. Then he
noticed a black speck right behind it, and I said
it was pretty big. He knew what it was. It
was a hairy man running down after these mountain goats.
It caught up to one mountain goat and grabbed it
and did something. He's a good mile away, but he
(28:46):
obviously killed the mountain goat, which is really quick. It
was chasing another mountain goat while he's still carrying his
wand mountain goat, and he caught it, probably snapped his
neck when he had two of them. Then a stopper.
I just started walking to the left carrying two bound goats.
That would have been something to see. I have a
(29:08):
good friend named Ben. We went deer hunting a lot
on Almalty Island, which is a big, huge coastal brown bears.
It's a very thick brush and all of a sudden
I turned around and there's a massive bear was ahead,
this big. We're just looking at each other and we
just turned around and the left. It just reminds me
of that area. Those bears are really huge. Stewart and
(29:32):
Hyder which is under border British Columbia and Alaska. There's
a well known story that happened there. I haven't been there,
but apparently there's a walkway that goes along this little
creek that's full of salmon. When you walk there in
the late summer, you'll see bears down there eating salmon.
(29:52):
This one time, it was a big brown bear eating salmon,
and a sasquatch came out, grabbed one of the the
brown bears, snapped his neck and carried the bear into
the woods. You know, big brown bears.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Are coastal brownies eating salmon, getting massive. Yeah, it was
massive to snap his neck and just toted it away.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
You know, that's the place I want to stop at
on my way down south real soon. I'm going to
go to the same place.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
They give any reference on where it happened or was
this somewhere along that path there.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
That happened right along the boardwalks. Have you been there?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I haven't, but they got similar stuff around yeah over here.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard to find. Other than that,
there's a family that heard them screaming in the woods.
While they're a gill netting, because a lot of the
sightings I know from my family were gillnetters. Do you
make a set, your net is a good five six
hundred feet long, and you go out. You let a
(31:06):
float for four hours. Some people would let a float
for five six hours. Even if you see a lot
of action out there, if parts of your corks are
bobbing up and down, you got some If you see
that happen a lot, you've got some salmon. And you
haul the net and gillnetter's fish all hours, NonStop. Many
(31:27):
times in Southeast they'll be anchored somewhere. I would hear
some yelling going on from shore. You're very close to
the beach. You hear something roaring. I said, man, that's
no bear.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, I get your attention.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yeah, the news something was out there. They all knew
most likely it was a sasquatch. Is at the length
of the roar and how loud it was, they knew
it wasn't a bear or a wolf.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You had mentioned the canoe building. When you're down southeast,
you mind us speaking a little bit about that part
of your culture.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
I have a couple uncles who were well known carvers.
One was Leo Jacobs. He was my great uncle. He
was a very well known totem pole carver. He did
a lot of really big project He did a couple
of the totems around the Seattle Center. He sometimes will
see those totems, like during a Seahawks game. If it's
(32:25):
a well known game like Monday Night Football or something,
they might show a scene of the totem pole and
then right behind it you'll see the space needle all
that up. So I always see it on TV all
the time, and I knew my uncle Leo did that.
I have another uncle. He's related to my grandfather, Austin Hammond.
(32:45):
He's the same clan, Sokkei clan. His name is Nathan Jackson,
and he's probably the top well known wood carver that's
alive today. There's a lot of carvers in Southeast who
are well known now, but a lot of them have
apprenticed under Nathan. He has to be in his nineties.
(33:09):
He's still carving, still carving. Yeah. I'm an artist too,
and I'll carve until I croak.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
That's what they'll find you at your work table.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah. I had just one artist who I apprentice under
he had been in his early eighties, and this is
quite a few years ago. He was still doing the
most beautiful work he ever seen. I have a friend
named Doug Child, and he started carving canoes. We started
a canoe society in Juno because we would have canoe races,
(33:41):
and these are hand carved canoes. A lot of the
canoes are like twenty twenty five foot long and carved
out of red ceedar. In our tribe, Doug was always
able to secure a log for us. He just had
a way of talking to the elders and see Alaska
or something, and next thing we know, we had a
log and we started carving canoes for our canoe society.
(34:05):
Doug Chiltern was the president of the canoe society. We
went down south to Haida and all the way down
to Vancouver Island. We met other tribes. Our canoe group,
we were all clinket. We went all the way down
there and we started hearing stories about Sasquatches, which really
(34:27):
interest us. Every night when we got ashore and after dinner,
we'd be sitting around the campfire. Some groups around the
camp there's many campfires because there's four or five canoe
groups so there might be eight canoes. So there's many
little campfires on shore. I was always on around the
campfire where we were talking about Sasquatch. Right, there's other
(34:51):
drumming groups here and there and other people, but I
was always with the Sasquatch group talking about our encounters.
They all told us they don't allow children or women
to go into the woods by themselves. I remember thinking
that's very interesting. It's similar with how it is in
(35:11):
southeast Alaska.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Where I'm from. We're always told they'll scary and ichi.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Every night we heard different stories. And as we went
down south from Port Hardy on the east coast of
Vancouver Island all the way to Victoria, we kept hearing
more and more Sasquatch stories because our group was getting big.
When we first left Port Hardy, it was only four canoes,
(35:38):
but by the time we got to a midway down
there was about twenty of us. Twenty canoes, same style
of canoes, yeah, all hand carved. Some canoes were really large.
Our group became really good friends with Frank Nelson, who
is considered the father of tribal journeys. He's passed on,
(36:00):
but his canoe is a Juni disease. I know, I'm
probably not pronouncing it fully correctly. It's a female Sasquatch.
It's named after. He told me a lot of stories
on his end, which is very similar to what I had.
We had similar rules about when you're in the woods.
In fact, some of the native dancers would wear a
(36:22):
Sasquatch mask. The mask were all handcarved. They would dance.
I don't know if it was called junic disease, because
I don't know their language as well. Just at the
canoe we were on with Junior Cazise, which is a
female Sasquatch. We just thought that was really amazing. We
(36:43):
got to the Hand area, which is in the southern
part of Vancouver Island, and by this time there had
been about seventy canoes, about three thousand paddlers from all
over Oregon, Washington, all over British Columbia and the Yukon,
(37:04):
and some from even further east, some of the real
inland people. My friend Doug children told me of an
encounter that happened. They went to a smokehouse, they had
a ceremony where they went back there. They said they
were getting ready to do a sweat lodge, a sweat
lodge is very sacred. I've made a few sweat lodges
(37:27):
myself over the years. As they were getting ready to
go into the sweat lodge, they kept looking up in
the woods and by this time it's dark, so they
had a big fire. There was a couple of fires
going on. The fireman was heating up the rocks with
the sweat lodge and kept looking up in the woods
and said, felt like something was watching them. The fireman
(37:47):
looked up and noticed us looking up there. He says, Oh,
it's just that sasquatch.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
He's here, just nonchalant.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, I said, yeah, he's up there.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
He's just up there. Yeah, nothing to see here.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, they seem to get friendly down there, the sasquatches.
Further south you go, yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Know, I've always heard that too. And it's the further
north you get, obviously, the more extremely environment. And I
think that has something to do with it, because so
many of the encounters a resource gathering areas. I think
maybe we shot at them more. I'm not sure if
that has anything to do with it that or not,
but it's like the further north you go, the more
aggressive it becomes. Very patches hunting grounds, fishing, whatever it
(38:28):
may be, it seems to have at least play a
role in it because of the extreme environments in the
short season. I think it has something to do with it.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Yeah, hearing stories of the encounters down south, and man,
it sounds like they are up here, except they seem
to be more friendly or down there. Like up in
paines Chuka Valley. We knew there weren't friendly. There's something
we had to always be careful of. I'm always careful
when I go in the woods. I'm always listening. I'm
(38:57):
a deer hunter, so I'm always scouting the surroundings looking
for any kind of movement, just to be wary of
any kind of animals that could be around. Mostly worried
about moose or bear. In my tribe, I am Cagwantan,
which is a wolf. I belong to the wolf clan.
Tribal house is a good Chit, which is a wolf
(39:20):
house in Klukwan. One time I was in the woods
and I got surrounded by a pack of wolves. And
these wolves are pretty big. They all ran around me,
but they left me alone. I tried speaking to him,
how are you doing? Gucca's wolf and clinket. They would
leave me alone, so I never felt threatened by a wolf.
(39:46):
But if they were an attack, of course I would
defend myself. If they were successful in killing me, I'm
going to make sure I take a few of them
with me.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
If you don't mind masking. How old are you, Sonny,
I'm sixty eight. I'm sure we're going to wonder.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
I've been out in the woods since I was very young.
I was like four years old. I used to go
with my dad deer hunt. The earliest memory I have
is I was near the gear bag with extra gear,
extra rifle. He'd be out there hunting, and I would
wait there and he'd come back with the deer. And
(40:20):
there's many times I go when we were fishing. He'd
go shore on the small island I think it was
Pleasant Island near Glacier Bay and hearing three gunshots, So
I started preparing for three deer.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Usually three gunshots is a signal for help.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, I just knew because they weren't right in a row.
Oh okay, okay, Yeah, I heard one shot, so you
got a deer. And I was getting that ready, and
I heard another gun shot and got another one, and
then the third one, and sure enough, my dad would
come in dragon three deer. You would hang it off
the boat and just let the blood drip into the water.
(41:02):
My dad was always very good at hunting. And you
tell me hunting around Geno, there's thirty thousand people are
living Geno. You go off into the woods to hunting.
Pressure is really great, especially during deer season, Like right now,
people go out in the woods, they don't get in anything.
And this says you didn't go high enough. My dad says,
(41:25):
if you want to get a deer right now, you
have to go all the way to the top of
that mountain and then drop down. That's the only way
to get them because they're a pig. Just because there's
so many hunters out there. That's how I learned, was
going up really high and then dropping down.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
It sounds like you were raised one shot, one kill
as well. I was always taught you wanted to drop
where it's at immediately. For one, out of respect for it.
You don't want it to suffer. And two, if it
runs off, it adrenalizes and gets real gamy and tough,
cook it for twelve and chew it for eight. Yeah,
that's no fun. Yeah, that doesn't taste good. Hey, it's
getting a little chillier out here. The longer we shit,
(42:05):
We'll go ahead and bring this to a close. Thank you,
Sonny for joining us today and being willing to come forward.
Be who you are, share who you are, some of
your culture, and some of the experiences. I sincerely appreciate
you going through the effort being able to meet up.
I want to thank you for joining us, and we
will catch you. Guys on the next one.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
I don't want to be. We're all out.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Joy that cho everything, call me right, rocking back, Joy
from me, Joy, staying right, you call it run away,
Still Stay, Step Stills, Bassistant, Pass, State, My Side, Things, Ustass,
Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
on here, something just cause my dog. Something killed your dog,
my dog. We're flying through the or over the tree.
I don't know how it did it. Okay, Damn, I'm
really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat what
(00:38):
are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
around out here? Did you see what it was? Was?
It was standing enough. I'm out here looking through the
window now and I don't see anything. I don't want
to go outside. Jesus Chraice you by hello, get somebody
(01:04):
out here when I'm out there. I thought of a
bit just about TIX fort nine. I don't know easy
out there, Yeah, I'm right, okay.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Greetings, This is a friend Alaska. Thanks for joining me
today out here in Kinnick River Valley. I got Pine
of peakup behind me. Here. We have a special guest today.
I'll turn it over to him.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Hello. My name is Sonny Grant. I'm from Gino, Alaska.
I'm full clinket, born and raised in Juno. My family
goes back thousands of years in that area. I shared
two stories before. Once was on the West Glacier Trail
in Minhall Glacier where I had a siding back around
(01:43):
two thousand and three. I had a sighting when I
was very young, when I was seven on Mount Gino.
Also talked about Thomas Bay because I went there when
I was a teenager. When I was growing up, the
harry Man wasn't really talked about too much. I always
heard a lot of stories about the cannibal Giant. My grandfather,
(02:04):
Austin Hammond, would tell me those stories. As I got older,
I found out that the cannibal giant stories originated in Haines,
which is where I'm from. So I thought that was
very interesting. When I had that sighting on Mount Gino,
I was only a seven. That's when I knew about
these creatures. I lived in Geno, which is pretty urban.
(02:29):
In Haines or cake smaller villages where they knew more
about these creatures, I knew they were real just because
I saw it on the mountain and I saw a
walk I knew it wasn't a bear because it was
so big. As I grew older, I kept hearing more
and more stories. We started hearing stories about the little
(02:51):
creatures around Thomas Bay. I went to the exact location
where the things happened during that interview.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
It was hard to make out and there's some technical
issues as far as recording went. Can you just walk
us through that portion again, because you guys were on
a boat if I remember right, and you guys pulled
in there.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, Thomas Bay is about a one day trip south
of Gino. It's about sixty miles in the water, so
it took all day to get there. In fact, we
camped somewhere, so it took more than a day. I
realized this was back in the early seventies. Were you
guys paddling, Yeah, we were on a twenty four foot bayliner.
(03:33):
We got the strangest story ever told, which is a
book written about the encounters there about those little people.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
The way it was written, they were a smaller version
of the harry Man, hideous, smelly with stores with a
horrible stench.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
They're like three and a half four foot at the
colust Apparently they kind of looked like they were but
they only walked on their hind feet. They sometimes walked
on all four.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
No, it wasn't there an ancient village that was wiped
out over that way.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, there was a village on half Moon Lake. I
tried finding that lake on the map, but all those
lakes back there are unnamed on geological maps. We anchored
in Thomas Bay. As you go into Thomas Bay, you
had the south side. We anchored up there and we
had a little skiff. There was like seven of us
(04:29):
on board, and it took us two trips to get
all of us ashore. I think one person was left
on the boat just to watch it. We made it ashore.
We started hiking right up this river, because that's where
the prospectors in the story said they got ashore. Once
they got along that little river, they hiked right up it.
(04:52):
We did the same thing, and we started going up
a ridge. The ridge wasn't too steep. It's kind of
like this. The ridge over here is all sick spruced
western amlocked red ceedar, very thick forest. It was a
beautiful sunny day. We started going up. We all noticed
(05:12):
that it was so quiet. Whenever you go anywhere in
the woods anywhere in Alaska, you'll always hear birds, animals,
sign We didn't hear anything. When we took breaks on
our way up that ridge, we noticed there's no mosquitoes.
We thought that was very strained because we had insect
(05:33):
repellent with us, and how once did we ever have
to use it. It felt I don't know if strange
as a word. We had a feeling about that area,
uneasy or unsettled, unsettled. I wasn't sure why we all
felt that way the night before on the boat. Because
we got to Thomas Bay early evening, it was too
(05:54):
late to do anything. We just anchored, We sat up
and we read that stories. Took us a couple of
hours go all the way up to the top. I
mean the ridge leveled off. In the distance we saw
half Moon Lake. They had been like four miles away
or so we knew we were in the right area.
We didn't go any farther. We just wanted to see
(06:18):
if we can see that lake. And once we saw it,
mission yeah, we started on our way back down. I
wish I could have camped there a couple of days,
because I supposedly if you camp and hike around Thomas Bay,
you'll come across sixty to eighty years worth of old
campsites like Prospector type thing. Prospector. There's a lot of
(06:42):
people that go missing in Thomas Bay. The compass's spin
and Thomas Bay. Really yeah, our compass on the boat
was spinning.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I won't have to ask one of the lay line
things they talk about, or some kind of magnetic anomaly.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Supposedly there was one mountain I had a lot of
high iron in it. I just knew about a lot
of planes seeing things up on the ridge Gino. In
the newspaper, there was a pilot on lab which is
airline that's no longer there anymore. They were flying south
of Gueno, probably going to Petersburg or something. They saw
(07:20):
a creature walking. It was definitely harry Man because the
pilot said it was really tall and their feet was
really spaced apart as steps. Pilot circled several times. Each
time he went lower, he got closer and closer to
the steps the tracks. He got a photograph it's in
(07:41):
the newspaper in the Guno Empire of these tracks.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Do you remember what year that was, because I'm sure
they got archives and might be able to look it up.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It could have been late sixties, early seventies, around there.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Because some people like to look into that stuff, not
for any kind of a confirmation, but to check it
out for themselves. So anyone out there that to like's
looking at the old archives and digging back in the
area the Juneral Empire.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, you might have to go to the city library
in general to look at those because it's still on
microfige that's not on digital yet.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
You had mentioned before hearing about the cannibal giants when
he went to Haines and kick were. There's certain things
family members that shared with you over the years when
you're learning about it and first hearing about it.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
My aunt and my cousin had stories of sasquatches coming
to there. We call them sasquatches in Southeast. There's a
clinket name. I'm just not sure the name of it,
besides cannibal giant. They came to the house and they
went underneath the house. Here's like a three four foot
crawl space underneath the house. I was up on pilings
(08:47):
and I heard it screwing around underneath, and every once
in a while it would hit the floor. I just
would freak everyone out. Some of the guys would have
to go out there and chase it away with a gun.
These creatures are so fast there's no way you can
catch up with them. I know my aunt said there
was sightings all the time the village's cap. It's an
(09:11):
old village, has been there about five hundred years, and
the same location. They seen sasquatches around the dump. We
used to go to the dump all the time just
to see bears. Over the years they would see these
creatures and they were really huge. I don't think they
were on the island because it's on Koupernof Island. It's
(09:33):
a kind of a nice size island where the village
is on. I don't think they're on there all the time.
Sasquatches are incredible swimmers. They can swim across a river
at no time. I know some of my family have
seen them swimming. Had another aunt up in Haynes who
saw one. She was on a gillnetter. This is between
(09:56):
Gino and Hanes. She went out on deck to have
a cigare at Lynn Canal is a very deep fjord.
He can go twenty feet off the beach and it's
already three four hundred feet deep. It drops down to
two thousand feet deep. She was very close to the
shore looking at the trees. She saw branches open up
(10:17):
and then a big face poked his head out. She
just couldn't believe it, said, the creatures were looking right
at her, opened a brush and a big hairy faces
right there. Then it closed and it disappeared.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
She said.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
She finished her cigarette and went inside. That was her
only sight. And she always knew about these creatures, and
she believed them because she heard a lot of stories
of seeing them, especially with the relatives out there hunting,
like up in Hanes there's moose hunting. There's a lot
of moose. They go up there along the Chokat River.
(10:55):
They've seen them at some point on the hunt.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Speaking of hands in the cake area, I know that
I was sent some anonymous footage where it was stabilized,
where this thing was reported ten foot tall, five foot wide,
black skinned, blonde haired. You can see it on the video.
One person commented, Oh, it's just a bear doing bear things.
I commented back, Oh, you must work for fishing game.
That's generally the same area you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, the Chuca Valley is really wide. It's a pretty
wide river. It's not as wide as a Copper River.
You get down to the delta down there, and it's massive,
but it's still a big river. There's been a lot
of sightings over the years in that area. I can
just go over the cannibal giant story really quick. My grandfather,
(11:40):
Austin Hammon, they would tell these stories, said the cannibal
giant something that's been seen around Haynes and clockwe and
they always warned the kids not to go in the woods,
not to play in the woods, not to whistle. Always
be wary. Adult always had to be with the kids
when he got in the woods. Growing up in Haynes,
being with my grandparents and some of my older relatives.
(12:05):
When I was young, I didn't know what to think
about those stories. My grandfather told me how they would
capture kids. They were so fascinate'd grab one or two
and you couldn't catch them. They tore up in the
woods and that was the last they were ever seen.
Apparently they killed them and they ate them. In my
tribe a long time ago, we were real warriors. We
(12:30):
fought the Russians, the Spanish, the French, the British, and
the Americans.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Battle for sitkas where they were going to make negotiations
and overnight the chief was free and captain was missing.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, there's a lot of old stories about these creatures.
I want to go back to the hunting thing. And
Uncle I hunted with all the time on Albert Island
and other islands. He also hunted down on Prince of
Wales Island. He told me stories about Prince of Wales,
theirs sightings down there. It would be out mostly deer hunting,
(13:04):
a lot of deer in Prince of Wales. It's a
good place where deer hunt. Every once in a while,
you feel something in the air, something strange. Foreboden they
come across these piles of deer bones. It was in
the perfect little circular pile. When he looked at it,
the bones were clean, and even the larger ones were
(13:24):
split apart. Something ate to everything split the marrow on
the bone a and it figured it was the Sasquatch.
I did them, He says, one off, you see those
piles of bones, be very wary, be very careful. Listen.
You might not hear them, but you'll hear how nature responds,
(13:46):
how quiet it could be. He said, he was very
wary when he found two piles of bones because there's
no one that does that.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
No scavengers scattered everywhere.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
People don't do that. I had a cousin and I
lived on Prince of Wales Island. Once she was very young.
Her and an older relative and a friend, they knew
of a cave right off the highway or a little road.
Supposedly it was used by Sasquatches because there were always
(14:20):
sightings along the road right near there. They knew that
cave and they were just teenagers and they wanted to
go explore it. I probably would do the same thing
if I was their age. They went up to the
cave and they went in, and the cave went back
about one hundred feet, and they had flashlights and everything.
The cave had a musky order, a kind of like
(14:42):
wet dog or something. They went back there they found
a nest and the nest was about six feet diameter.
There was something looked like curs on the bottom, but
the branches are all around it set it looked like
a really big verd and as her ego nests to.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Stay tuned for more Sasquatch out to see women. Right
back after these messages.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
It still smelled like something was just there, so they left.
She never saw them, but she always heard about it.
Cheered from family would see them. That would be something
to see a nest. I've never seen one.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I've never seen one like that. But everyone shows these
structures online of like cheepy looking things. I've never seeing that.
That's usually kids doing stuff. The ones I've seen are
woven in a way people don't do that. It's not
just slapped together.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Some of my family worked for Klukwan Inc. Kluckwant Ink
because a native corporation. They ran lumber company on Prince
of Wales Island. This had to have been in the
late eighties early nineties when I was really in full operation.
They were cutting trees in pristine wilderness. People always heard
(16:01):
stories about sasquatches. They started coming across the nest that
would get uncovered. Some of the nests look like they
haven't been used in a while. They all thought it
was very odd to find something like that in the
middle of the woods. They kept finding the trees upside down,
stuck in the dirt. Apparently you can still go to
(16:23):
Prince of Wales Island and there's some people that can
take you to those trees. They're really big they're like
twelve fifteen feet tall. They're almost two foot wide, but
they're just jammed in the ground really hard. When you
try to move it, you can't. It's in there. Took
a lot of forests to shove that into the ground.
(16:45):
And apparently those were markers, not just a theory, a
boundary or something. People said, that's the edge of their territory.
My family that lived on Prince of Wales, that's my
family on my dad's side. I went to Prince of
Wales Island. I was only there for a week, but
I didn't have a car. I think if I go
(17:05):
there again, I'm gonna have a car, take the ferry
over and explore because there's a lot there.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I may have interrupted you when you said you're from
a clan of warriors. I had spoken about the Battle
for Sikh and I wasn't sure if I derailed where
you were going with that portion of it or not.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
That was about the Cannibell giant. My tribe have historically
been known as fierce warriors. And when those kids got
grabbed by the cannibal giants and got taken off into
the woods, ten fifteen warriors when chased them. They tracked it.
(17:40):
They went up on the side of the hill and
they went up quite a ways and they found where
the cannibal giant was living inside this cave. They said
they knew it was their home because they saw light
coming from the cave. They had a little fire, So
apparently passquatches back then can make a fire.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I've heard of one report where I think it's titled
stolen fire. As a matter of fact, recently, I believe
it was Carl Clark in Facebook. He posted a picture
him and his wife and kid and dog were out
Snake Lake, which is between doing him and electnic Gig.
They had situation going on. They got a picture of
a twelve foot paul creepy looking. It's on Facebook under
(18:23):
a Carl Clark if anyone wants to look that up.
Like you were saying, whenever you'd go back home and
you would just hear about it, there a whole bunch.
It's the same thing for me. I'll get calls from
the village and it's amazing and one forty five minute call.
The amount of information shared between a couple of natives
versus the outside world would boggle their mind. So was
there any other family members that have had experiences.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
My grandfather said he saw one. He said he saw twice.
When I talked to my grandfather, he was already in
his eighties, so he was pretty old. This is all
on Haynes. She didn't give much detail because I was
asking them about it, and I told them about my
sighting up on Mountain Juno. As I've gotten older, I've
(19:09):
come to realize that these cannibal giants are harrymen or sasquatches,
But in the stories and Haines, there's been sightings to
them fifteen twenty foot tall, just massive. I was always
wary of that. I had that in my mind when
I was hiking around in Choka Valley, like the one
(19:30):
I saw on West Glacier Trail, I estimated to be
about ten twelve foot for sure, because I me and
my brother went up on that trail twenty eighteen. I
found the exact spot where I was standing. I saw
the tree where the sasquatches behind, and I estimated how
(19:52):
high it was. Then from there I looked at where
it was on the tree and then went down to
the ground because it was on a hail, so most
of the sasquatches below. That's how I estimated the height
and had it been twelve foot, it was huge. Same
thing in the Chokav Valley. The ones I've been sighted
(20:15):
there were just massive. It's like going way back here
where there was nothing there wild, just open country, just nature,
bears and whatever else is back there. It's like that
in the Chokav Valley.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Where we sit now. There's plenty of encounters and sightings
around here.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, I was thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
We creak up that way Friday Creeks. Metal Creeker has
been over the years. From what I've heard, going back
to the seventies in this area that's been discussed.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
The hunters found where they lived and drew them out.
Didn't really go into detail how they did that, but
the cannibal giant came out. They surrounded and started attacking
this cannibal giant. Some men were hurt, but they were
able to bring the cannibal giant down to the ground
(21:07):
and they killed it. You think about when they did that.
They didn't have rifles back then. They were using most
likely spears. The Athabaskans are known to kill a big
charging bear by letting them charge and let the bear
and pale themself on a big spear.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
That's just my guess that takes big brass ones message.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Anyway, they killed it, and according to the story, it
spoke and it says I'm always going to be around.
In fact, that was the origin of the mosquitoes because
they burned them. They didn't know what to do with it.
They cut it up and they put it in the
fire and they burned it. It's just really curious about
(21:49):
all those other stories that talks about them doing the
same thing. They didn't know how to dispose of this
creature because it's so big.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I promised the elder. When he was talking about the
one they burned up Copper River Valley somewhere, he said
that it was intact when they were burning it, and
as it heated up, there was noises being made with
the lungs and the heat. The way he described it,
though I think he was mostly clinking in part, heida,
if I remember correctly. He since passed away, but he
was ninety four when he shared those experiences. Wow, it
(22:21):
was really hard to interview them because he's from that
old school where you'd be quiet and listen, you know
what I mean. It's hard to question anything because that
old school kind of. Oh yeah, but yeah, very interesting guy.
The way he talked about that thing making the noises
when they burned it, Oh good god, I could only imagine.
You said, that's where the mosquitoes came from.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
They burned it and the ashes that flirted up in
the air turned into mosquitoes. That's a very old story.
No one knows how old this is. This story was
first recorded, probably eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
When it was first recorded.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yeah, I don't know if it was Asian Orthodox priest.
It was a priest of some sort who wrote down the.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Stories, kind of like the old school missionaries.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah. Yeah, But the person who told the stories back
then said, these stories are very old. My grandfather told
me other cannibal giant stories were they were able to
kill them. I think they remember who the bad people are.
They cause harm to a hairy man. The other hairy
man know about it.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
It's kind of curious, and they don't have meetings, will
be like, oh that's some bit Fred shot earl up
on the New York KUK.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Look.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, kind of makes you wonder. But then again, there's
that study with the wolves up in Dennalei where a
lesser pack and a larger pack. They were collared in
each of the groups, and the larger group was sixty
miles from its boundary areas territorial area sixty miles away,
and the lesser pack crossed that boundary and within two minutes,
(23:53):
according to radio tracking caller, that larger pack was on
its way back to Interceeds. And that amazing from sixty
miles away. Wow, kind of makes you wonder how they
read the energy or how that comes about.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, I was thinking back to the sighting I had
on a west glacier trail and Gino where those two
there was running up the hail towards me and it
surrounded me. Had a little light on my sony camp quarter.
I already was filming for a couple hours on a glacier,
so my lamp was very dim. I was thinking maybe
(24:28):
those sasquatches saw me, notice that I was clinking. Leave
this guy alone.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
They're probably telling stories about your drive around their campfire.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, because apparently they caught several up in the Haynes area.
You know where the cannibal giant story originated. Because those
cannibal giants they were all captured and killed. I know
there's been sightings of them on the Haines Highway. You're
going up and you go through the border and you're
(24:57):
in Bridge, Columbia. But just above, near the top is
the summit of the road. It's thirty five hundred feet
up and then it slowly starts going downhill a little
bit as you go towards Ane's Junction. There's been a
lot of sightings along that route. People would pull over.
(25:17):
There's a turnout like this one siding I have heard of.
There's a guy he took a break and was drinking
coffee or something. He noticed those three creatures up on
the ridge, the ridge above the highway. It's not that high,
it's only forty feet. It's pretty open, and Barren went swept.
(25:38):
It was this little ridge and he saw three figures
walking and they walked down and one came closer and
he realized what it was because at first he was
thinking in my seeing things, But when it got close
he realized it was a hairy man. It was a sasquatch,
something that he's always heard of, but he never seen one.
(25:59):
It just stay there for fifteen minutes. He doesn't know
what it was doing. He didn't want to leave. He
was in this truck. He felt safe if he had
a firearm or rifle in the truck with him. He
just wanted to watch it. Alaskans, we can carry firearms
only transit through Canada, as long as you get all
the paperwork. If you're going to go ont in the
(26:21):
interior and you leave from Haynes and you go through Canada,
you have to have your bulk somewhere else, your rifle
somewhere else, and your ammal somewhere else, not.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
All together and not all together. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah, these are recent sightings, probably the last ten years
that I've heard of people seeing things up there. I
have a family. It's half clinket in half I think
Northern tishone. I'm not sure it's one of those groups
up in the Yukon.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
There's what the Tashoni are in Glitchin, right, there's another one.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
They're different from Gwitchin, but they're very similar. I made
that mistake because oh, you're pert Gucchin. Oh No. I
had a friend who saw one sheep mount up near
Kilwawnee Lake. There was a real distant relative. I think
we had one relative and common so I knew he
was a very distant relative. He told me a story
(27:17):
that he was operating a Greater up in the Yukon.
We used to make fun of the Canadians how long
it took them to do any kind of road construction,
because we passed many times going to Anchorage from.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Haines, Sa.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Man. They've been working on this stretcher road for ten years.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, a half mile stretch.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yeah, it was like six seven miles when they were done.
It was the finest road you would ever see. None
of us could match how beautiful the road was. He
was operating a Greater. Sheep Mountains, a pretty big mountain.
I'm not sure what the elevation is, but it's definitely
at least two thousand feet above. And it's called Sheep
(28:01):
Mountain because myself, I've seen as many as forty to
fifty mountain goats up there. When I was passing through
there a week and a half ago, I didn't see
any mountain goats up on the mountain. He was operating
a grater and he upened a glance up on the
mountain and saw all these white specs running down the mountain.
He had a sliding window right in his cab and
(28:23):
he stuck his head out to get a better look.
It was mountain goats running down the mountain. Then he
noticed a black speck right behind it, and I said
it was pretty big. He knew what it was. It
was a hairy man running down after these mountain goats.
It caught up to one mountain goat and grabbed it
and did something. He's a good mile away, but he
(28:46):
obviously killed the mountain goat, which is really quick. It
was chasing another mountain goat while he's still carrying his
wand mountain goat, and he caught it, probably snapped his
neck when he had two of them. Then a stopper.
I just started walking to the left carrying two bound goats.
That would have been something to see. I have a
(29:08):
good friend named Ben. We went deer hunting a lot
on Almalty Island, which is a big, huge coastal brown bears.
It's a very thick brush and all of a sudden
I turned around and there's a massive bear was ahead,
this big. We're just looking at each other and we
just turned around and the left. It just reminds me
of that area. Those bears are really huge. Stewart and
(29:32):
Hyder which is under border British Columbia and Alaska. There's
a well known story that happened there. I haven't been there,
but apparently there's a walkway that goes along this little
creek that's full of salmon. When you walk there in
the late summer, you'll see bears down there eating salmon.
(29:52):
This one time, it was a big brown bear eating salmon,
and a sasquatch came out, grabbed one of the the
brown bears, snapped his neck and carried the bear into
the woods. You know, big brown bears.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Are coastal brownies eating salmon, getting massive. Yeah, it was
massive to snap his neck and just toted it away.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
You know, that's the place I want to stop at
on my way down south real soon. I'm going to
go to the same place.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
They give any reference on where it happened or was
this somewhere along that path there.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
That happened right along the boardwalks. Have you been there?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I haven't, but they got similar stuff around yeah over here.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard to find. Other than that,
there's a family that heard them screaming in the woods.
While they're a gill netting, because a lot of the
sightings I know from my family were gillnetters. Do you
make a set, your net is a good five six
hundred feet long, and you go out. You let a
(31:06):
float for four hours. Some people would let a float
for five six hours. Even if you see a lot
of action out there, if parts of your corks are
bobbing up and down, you got some If you see
that happen a lot, you've got some salmon. And you
haul the net and gillnetter's fish all hours, NonStop. Many
(31:27):
times in Southeast they'll be anchored somewhere. I would hear
some yelling going on from shore. You're very close to
the beach. You hear something roaring. I said, man, that's
no bear.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, I get your attention.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yeah, the news something was out there. They all knew
most likely it was a sasquatch. Is at the length
of the roar and how loud it was, they knew
it wasn't a bear or a wolf.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You had mentioned the canoe building. When you're down southeast,
you mind us speaking a little bit about that part
of your culture.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
I have a couple uncles who were well known carvers.
One was Leo Jacobs. He was my great uncle. He
was a very well known totem pole carver. He did
a lot of really big project He did a couple
of the totems around the Seattle Center. He sometimes will
see those totems, like during a Seahawks game. If it's
(32:25):
a well known game like Monday Night Football or something,
they might show a scene of the totem pole and
then right behind it you'll see the space needle all
that up. So I always see it on TV all
the time, and I knew my uncle Leo did that.
I have another uncle. He's related to my grandfather, Austin Hammond.
(32:45):
He's the same clan, Sokkei clan. His name is Nathan Jackson,
and he's probably the top well known wood carver that's
alive today. There's a lot of carvers in Southeast who
are well known now, but a lot of them have
apprenticed under Nathan. He has to be in his nineties.
(33:09):
He's still carving, still carving. Yeah. I'm an artist too,
and I'll carve until I croak.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
That's what they'll find you at your work table.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah. I had just one artist who I apprentice under
he had been in his early eighties, and this is
quite a few years ago. He was still doing the
most beautiful work he ever seen. I have a friend
named Doug Child, and he started carving canoes. We started
a canoe society in Juno because we would have canoe races,
(33:41):
and these are hand carved canoes. A lot of the
canoes are like twenty twenty five foot long and carved
out of red ceedar. In our tribe, Doug was always
able to secure a log for us. He just had
a way of talking to the elders and see Alaska
or something, and next thing we know, we had a
log and we started carving canoes for our canoe society.
(34:05):
Doug Chiltern was the president of the canoe society. We
went down south to Haida and all the way down
to Vancouver Island. We met other tribes. Our canoe group,
we were all clinket. We went all the way down
there and we started hearing stories about Sasquatches, which really
(34:27):
interest us. Every night when we got ashore and after dinner,
we'd be sitting around the campfire. Some groups around the
camp there's many campfires because there's four or five canoe
groups so there might be eight canoes. So there's many
little campfires on shore. I was always on around the
campfire where we were talking about Sasquatch. Right, there's other
(34:51):
drumming groups here and there and other people, but I
was always with the Sasquatch group talking about our encounters.
They all told us they don't allow children or women
to go into the woods by themselves. I remember thinking
that's very interesting. It's similar with how it is in
(35:11):
southeast Alaska.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Where I'm from. We're always told they'll scary and ichi.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Every night we heard different stories. And as we went
down south from Port Hardy on the east coast of
Vancouver Island all the way to Victoria, we kept hearing
more and more Sasquatch stories because our group was getting big.
When we first left Port Hardy, it was only four canoes,
(35:38):
but by the time we got to a midway down
there was about twenty of us. Twenty canoes, same style
of canoes, yeah, all hand carved. Some canoes were really large.
Our group became really good friends with Frank Nelson, who
is considered the father of tribal journeys. He's passed on,
(36:00):
but his canoe is a Juni disease. I know, I'm
probably not pronouncing it fully correctly. It's a female Sasquatch.
It's named after. He told me a lot of stories
on his end, which is very similar to what I had.
We had similar rules about when you're in the woods.
In fact, some of the native dancers would wear a
(36:22):
Sasquatch mask. The mask were all handcarved. They would dance.
I don't know if it was called junic disease, because
I don't know their language as well. Just at the
canoe we were on with Junior Cazise, which is a
female Sasquatch. We just thought that was really amazing. We
(36:43):
got to the Hand area, which is in the southern
part of Vancouver Island, and by this time there had
been about seventy canoes, about three thousand paddlers from all
over Oregon, Washington, all over British Columbia and the Yukon,
(37:04):
and some from even further east, some of the real
inland people. My friend Doug children told me of an
encounter that happened. They went to a smokehouse, they had
a ceremony where they went back there. They said they
were getting ready to do a sweat lodge, a sweat
lodge is very sacred. I've made a few sweat lodges
(37:27):
myself over the years. As they were getting ready to
go into the sweat lodge, they kept looking up in
the woods and by this time it's dark, so they
had a big fire. There was a couple of fires
going on. The fireman was heating up the rocks with
the sweat lodge and kept looking up in the woods
and said, felt like something was watching them. The fireman
(37:47):
looked up and noticed us looking up there. He says, Oh,
it's just that sasquatch.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
He's here, just nonchalant.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, I said, yeah, he's up there.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
He's just up there. Yeah, nothing to see here.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, they seem to get friendly down there, the sasquatches.
Further south you go, yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Know, I've always heard that too. And it's the further
north you get, obviously, the more extremely environment. And I
think that has something to do with it, because so
many of the encounters a resource gathering areas. I think
maybe we shot at them more. I'm not sure if
that has anything to do with it that or not,
but it's like the further north you go, the more
aggressive it becomes. Very patches hunting grounds, fishing, whatever it
(38:28):
may be, it seems to have at least play a
role in it because of the extreme environments in the
short season. I think it has something to do with it.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Yeah, hearing stories of the encounters down south, and man,
it sounds like they are up here, except they seem
to be more friendly or down there. Like up in
paines Chuka Valley. We knew there weren't friendly. There's something
we had to always be careful of. I'm always careful
when I go in the woods. I'm always listening. I'm
(38:57):
a deer hunter, so I'm always scouting the surroundings looking
for any kind of movement, just to be wary of
any kind of animals that could be around. Mostly worried
about moose or bear. In my tribe, I am Cagwantan,
which is a wolf. I belong to the wolf clan.
Tribal house is a good Chit, which is a wolf
(39:20):
house in Klukwan. One time I was in the woods
and I got surrounded by a pack of wolves. And
these wolves are pretty big. They all ran around me,
but they left me alone. I tried speaking to him,
how are you doing? Gucca's wolf and clinket. They would
leave me alone, so I never felt threatened by a wolf.
(39:46):
But if they were an attack, of course I would
defend myself. If they were successful in killing me, I'm
going to make sure I take a few of them
with me.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
If you don't mind masking. How old are you, Sonny,
I'm sixty eight. I'm sure we're going to wonder.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
I've been out in the woods since I was very young.
I was like four years old. I used to go
with my dad deer hunt. The earliest memory I have
is I was near the gear bag with extra gear,
extra rifle. He'd be out there hunting, and I would
wait there and he'd come back with the deer. And
(40:20):
there's many times I go when we were fishing. He'd
go shore on the small island I think it was
Pleasant Island near Glacier Bay and hearing three gunshots, So
I started preparing for three deer.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Usually three gunshots is a signal for help.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, I just knew because they weren't right in a row.
Oh okay, okay, Yeah, I heard one shot, so you
got a deer. And I was getting that ready, and
I heard another gun shot and got another one, and
then the third one, and sure enough, my dad would
come in dragon three deer. You would hang it off
the boat and just let the blood drip into the water.
(41:02):
My dad was always very good at hunting. And you
tell me hunting around Geno, there's thirty thousand people are
living Geno. You go off into the woods to hunting.
Pressure is really great, especially during deer season, Like right now,
people go out in the woods, they don't get in anything.
And this says you didn't go high enough. My dad says,
(41:25):
if you want to get a deer right now, you
have to go all the way to the top of
that mountain and then drop down. That's the only way
to get them because they're a pig. Just because there's
so many hunters out there. That's how I learned, was
going up really high and then dropping down.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
It sounds like you were raised one shot, one kill
as well. I was always taught you wanted to drop
where it's at immediately. For one, out of respect for it.
You don't want it to suffer. And two, if it
runs off, it adrenalizes and gets real gamy and tough,
cook it for twelve and chew it for eight. Yeah,
that's no fun. Yeah, that doesn't taste good. Hey, it's
getting a little chillier out here. The longer we shit,
(42:05):
We'll go ahead and bring this to a close. Thank you,
Sonny for joining us today and being willing to come forward.
Be who you are, share who you are, some of
your culture, and some of the experiences. I sincerely appreciate
you going through the effort being able to meet up.
I want to thank you for joining us, and we
will catch you. Guys on the next one.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
I don't want to be. We're all out.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Joy that cho everything, call me right, rocking back, Joy
from me, Joy, staying right, you call it run away,
Still Stay, Step Stills, Bassistant, Pass, State, My Side, Things, Ustass,
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