YEAR: 2001

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: July

DATE: 14

PROVINCE: Saskatchewan

COUNTRY: Canada

LOCATION DETAILS: Its pretty hard to explain because I dont know all the trail names, but I know the trail where I found the tracks (Flicker Trail) and the campground I was in was Pine Hill.

NEAREST TOWN: Maple Creek

OBSERVED: Well I had camped in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park in Sask. Canada from Thursday July 12th to Sunday July 15th in Pine Hill campground.Thursday nite while sitting by the fire with my girlfriend and my other 2 friends my girlfriend and and one of the other girls went to wash there faces at the camp shower bathrooms about 1/4 mile away and was left with the other girl and her dog. It was about 11:30 p.m. and while sitting there staring at the fire I could hear a series of wierd sounding screeches from off in the distance, they sounded pretty far away but were very loud and distinct, they were pretty high pitched and sounded exactly like the screechs on the last sound recording on your website and there aren't very many big animals out there so i know it had to be big to make such a sound because it travel so far.

To tell you the truth it gave me the creeps. The second night (Friday) while in my tent talking with my girlfriend about the events of the day we heared coyotes yellping real loud and real close too and then all of a sudden we herd the most bone chilling, hair raising howl I have ever heard, it lasted about 20 seconds or so but it sounded almost identical to the ohio howl on your sounds page only it was more of a moan then a howl, but it was coming from way in the bush to our south and whatever it was that made that sound has a huge set of lungs because it was far away but it was loud, woke up all the dogs in the campsite including the dog we had with us and shut the coyotes up in a hurry, everything went so quiet not even crickets were chirping anymore. It was so erie that it made my eyes water like tears came flowing out, I wasn't crying my eyes were just watering. It was the wierdest thing. It took me forever to just get enough courage to close my eyes and go to sleep, the other 2 girls slept right through it, the only ones who herd it (that I know of) are me and my girlfriend.

Well the next day I told my girlfriend I wanted to go check a few trails before it gets dark out to see if I could find where the sounds may have come from so at about 8:30 pm while it was still nice and sunny we went out to investigate I can't remember the trail we started on but I know where it led to, the resort was at the end of the trail about 2 to 3 miles down (I think) but about half way down theres a trail (that we took) that goes down to an almost clearcut with a couple of little pond in the area and lots of bush and pine, we saw tree formations that could have been possible nests so I wanted to go more so we walked further and at almost the end of the trail (down to the lake boat rental place) theres a trail that goes up the other side of the clearcut we saw called Flicker Trail where the tree formations were at the bottom of it so I wanted to go check it out.

So we walked for a few mins and were just talking and scanning the area but I felt this uneasy feeling like I was being watched, I was kind of wanting to get out of there as quick as possible in the back of my mind but i couldn't leave I had to keep going so me and my girlfriend kept walking down the trail untill we came to a bend in the trail and she pointed out to me a deer, so I stopped to get some video of it before we moved on and I noticed that my vid camera battery was low so I had to move on and save it in case we find something. We were the only ones on the trail. so we started moving again and as we were coming to the top of the bend my girlfriend pointed out deer tracks in the soft pine needle covered dirt/small pebbled ground so I kept walking down looking to see if I could find anything significant and sure enough I turn around and about 5 feet behind me right on the side of the trail was a squatch print standing out real good and it looked fresh like just made mins before we came there. I am not sure how big it was I forgot my tape measure in the car but my shoe is a size 8 1/2 and it was atleast 3 to 5 inchs bigger then mine. It was bare foot track and the ground is soft but it takes quite a bit of wieght to make an indent because I weigh 175 lbs and I tried to make an indent with my shoe and failed so whatever made the print weighed a considerable amount to make it, it was about an inch to an inch and a half deep and was the only print seen, I took short video footage of it but my battery died too early to compare it with my shoe so I took my picture camera and outlined the print in sticks and put my shoe beside it and snapped 2 photos of it. I didn't have a lot of time since it was getting quite dark and didnt know how much father we had to trek to get out of there and didn't want to be stuck out there at nite so I did a quick sweep of the area to see if I could find other prints but I could only find a considerable amount of deer tracks. I think the squatch could of possibly been stalking the deer we seen because as soon as we saw that deer about not even 2 mins later I found the track. At least that's my theory, it was a very fresh track so it was probably in the area for sure. so I started getting freaked out so I wanted to get out of there.

We walked back to camp very fast and watching our backs very closly to see if anything was following us, so we went back to camp and as night fell it was unusually quiet, like abosoluty no coyotes, no crickets, nothing, it was completly silent except for the campers in the site.

ALSO NOTICED: Just the tree formations in the clearcut, they are very large trees on there sides with the roots still sticking out the end with smaller bush covering the fronts and parts of the back of the trees.

OTHER WITNESSES: Only my girlfriend and I, we were scanning the ground for anything unusual or significant.

OTHER STORIES: Haven't heard anything except for what's on your website.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was about 9:20 p.m. or close to there just before dusk. It was partly cloudy and sun was still shining through the trees.

ENVIRONMENT: Lots of pine and bush mix, maybe some hardwoods. heavily wooded though, trees everywhere except for the clearcut at the bottom. Little creeks inside parts of clearcut.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Stan Courtney:

I spoke with the witness by phone.

The footprint was about a half inch deep in a hard surface. It measured about twelve inches long and five inches wide. The imprint from the toes was visible as was the complete outline of the foot.

The pictures that the witness took were not exposed correctly and were not developed.

About BFRO Investigator Stan Courtney:

Stan Courtney has a special interest in wildlife audio recording. He has attended numerous BFRO Expeditions. See Stan's blog StanCourtney.com for recordings he has collected over the years.

Stan Courtney can be reached at illinois@bfro.net

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