Man meets Hairy Man on trail

A snowmachiner between Scammon Bay and Hooper Bay encountered a Hairy Man and got within 20 feet of the creature who turned and looked at him as shown in this illustration. Illustration by AI

This is the story of a Scammon Bay man who ran into a Hairy Man on the trail to Hooper Bay. This happened in the winter of 2011.
Before he told his story, he shuddered at the thought of remembering the Hairy Man he had witnessed.
“I left Scammon Bay that day for Hooper Bay, by way of the Paimuit Trail,” he said. It was a trip of about 30 miles. The trip was uneventful, just like the many trips he had made in the past.
Soon he reached the Hooper Bay side of the hills. He went up one hill and was about to go over the next that led to a lake when he saw someone on the trail.
“I thought it was a Kass’aq wearing a big parka because he was so tall,” he said. He drove straight for the person, thinking the person had broken down somewhere and was walking to Hooper Bay.
But as he got closer, the person was getting weird-looking and unusual. “It’s arms were really long and it seemed to be hairy all over. It’s hair was like a musk-ox, but brown.”
The appearance of the person began to make him wary as he approached, so when he got within 60-70 feet away he turned his snowmachine to the right of the person instead of heading straight for him.
Another unusual thing about the person, the man said, was that there was no acknowledging him or his snowmachine while he was approaching. “He wasn’t turning around to check me or look at me,” he added.
An ordinary person would turn and wait for a snowmachine to reach them if they heard someone approaching, especially in the wilderness and so far away from a community if they needed a ride.
When the man got within 20 feet or less from the walker, the “person” finally turned its head toward him. All the man in the snowmachine remembers of its face were its red eyes!
“I think I screamed or hollered at that moment but I don’t know,” said the man, when he realized that what he had just approached was not a human. The next thing he remembers was gunning his snowmachine and taking off.
He sped away so fast to get away that he hit a bump that made him jump and land in the lake. “I landed so hard that I almost lost control of my sno-go,” he said. Then he kept on going at high speed all the way to Hooper Bay until he reached the village.
When he arrived in Hooper Bay, he went to his parents’ home and told them what happened. The parents asked if the creature was floating (as in ghostly apparitions) but the man said no.
On his return trip, he took the long way to Scammon Bay by way of Chevak and had one of his brothers accompany him on the trip.
“I didn’t want to run into the thing again,” he said.