by Peter Twitchell
When I was a boy about 8 years old I was walking to the Civil Aeronautics administration compound. I had a sense that there was something out there in the trees watching me.
It was a quarter mile from our house and it took me a good 20 minutes on the snow trail to get to Dad.
I felt there was a big man in the trees, and I was yelling, “My dad will get you!”
The daylight was dimming and I had to walk back home without dad. The stakes were just too big, like that unseen giant lurking and watching me.
I kicked up the snow and threw some, and the north wind blew it into the trees. I wanted whoever was out there to know that I knew he was there, out there.
Later in life, I heard of Big Foot, a hairy creature with human features walking the land.
A story that Joon told me in Bethel was believable. Joon is a Korean hunter and fisherman. He was at 3-Step camping with his dog scoping the landscape with his binocs when he saw it.
A big and tall, hairy man walking across the tundra. The Hairy Man’s gait was steady as it traversed across an open tundra meadow, walking long strides and huge arms swinging forward and backward.
As the hairy creature took a step forward with it’s right leg it’s left arm was swinging backwards and vice-versa left leg with right arm swinging back.
One early summer morning my friend Joe Vanderpool was driving a road in the Matanuska Valley and caught off guard a huge man that stopped to stare at him – crossing a side road. It was a hairy creature. This was in the fall and there were leaves on the Hairy Man’s back.
Joe thought that Big Foot had just awoken from his rest on the ground. Joe said, “I wish I had a camera!”
