YEAR: 1960

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: September

DATE: 2nd week

PROVINCE: Alberta

COUNTRY: Canada

NEAREST TOWN: Hines Creek, Alberta, Canada

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 864

OBSERVED: We were herding our cows home at night (they had got out of the pasture) and were walking to the west heading into the wind. We were near the edge of a ravine that came out of the "endless bush" a mile away (the ravine is thickly treed). All of a sudden the cows took off running to skirt around a grainery(building hoilding grain) near the edge of the ravine, and our dog whined once and took off at a run towards home, a half a mile away. The three of us running close to the cows cut accross in front of the grainery to cut off the cows. As we raced around the building we came out infront and straight into a huge man like animal covered in fur. It was after dark, but the oon has rose early and the light colored oat or barley stems ib the field (I don't remember hwich crop)really made things bright. the animal had grain in its hand and just stared at us for 3 to 5 seconds, asand looked as surprised as we did. My oldest brother quickly said "Iknow that's you Walter Luka, in my Dad's bear suit" (Walter Luka was a neighbor that lived about 3 miles away and was huge, 6 foot 4 and weighed about 420 pounds). The animal then turned and quickly walked into the bush, 40 yards away. When we got home we imediately checked and our Dad's "bear suit" (coveralls brown color made of wool and made for very cold weather)was still hanging there. My Dad was still not back from hunting moose. I was 8 at the time, and my brothers were 10 and 14. We started talking about it at home and we realized that it had reached in to get grain from the gable end of the grainery which was about 8 and a half feet off the ground. We recalled that the animal(which looked like a man) was almost as tall as the gable ends of the grainery, or 8 feet high. Our father was in the logging business and had several Indians (natives) working for him and a few months later we were talking to them and they said it was a sasquatch. That is the first time we had ever heard the word but it was used commonly years later as several people in Northern Alberta saw these animals.

OTHER WITNESSES: Me, Adrian Erickson, and my two older brothers.

OTHER STORIES: Several other people have seen Sasquatches since then, some have pictures of their tracks, and others have heard them, seen them and as well seen their tracks. This is over a 30 year period but in the last 10 years I have talked to over 40 people who personally have seen them, including one friend that actually bayed one for a few moments with his cougar hounds, but got his wind and quickly raced off. It was tossing his dogs 30 feet!! He recovered his dogs the next day, all bruised and worn out nearly 45 miles away.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 8:30 to 9:00 p.m.

ENVIRONMENT: Farm fields mixed with bush, on the edge of 500 miles of solid bush to the north.

Follow-up investigation report:

Separately I interviewed two of the three witnesses of this sighting; the author of the report, "A," who was eight years old in 1960, about the time of the sighting (possibly 1961), and "W," who was ten years old in 1960. The third witness, the oldest boy, is not available to interview. The boys' family lived in the Peace River area of Alberta then, on a farm near the town of Hines Creek. That is right along the southern boundary of what A called "the endless forest." Both men described their boyhood lives there as being quite simple with no TV or even electricity until a little later. They hunted and trapped, and they knew their neighbors, though they were widely spaced.

At the time of their sighting the boys, and most other white men, had no concept of a creature like sasquatch. So when they saw the two-legged, essentially human-shaped animal emerge from behind their granary, at first they thought it must be a man - their neighbor (who lived three miles away) who was very big; it must be him wearing their father's "bear suit," a dark, wooly coverall he wore when working outside on bitterly cold winter days. But W said that no one walked across another's land without talking to the owner first, and they would certainly not just walk away without stopping to visit. Walter Luka, the neighbor, later said he hadn't been on their property.

A's and W's versions of the sighting they shared were mostly the same. W thought they were further from the animal - 100 yards, maybe more vs. A's about 30 feet (the two may have separated when chasing the cows). Also, W did not see the animal holding grain from the granary in its hand like A did. He could not say the animal was fur covered as was A's impression, either. But W thought the animal was taller than what A did: nine feet vs. eight feet. W said the granary was about eight feet high and that the animal bent down to look around the gable end at the approaching boys. Both men were struck by the fear their dog, Tippy, showed when it got the animal's scent. W said if it had been a person Tippy would have run up to him or her and if it had been a bear the dog would have charged it. He said the only other time he'd seen Tippy behave that way was one time when a wolverine came around and the dog got a nose full of its scent.

The following additional descriptions were gathered from W: It made no sound and he could not smell it, but he said the wind was wrong for them to catch its scent. The animal walked away on two legs with "long, flowing strides." The upper body was extremely large, it had "a barrel chest," and its torso bent forward somewhat as it walked. It had long arms and a conical head. He estimated its weight to be 500 to 600 pounds. As stated above, W couldn't say that he saw fur but said it could have had fur; that it was dark colored over all. W had seen the Patterson film and said the animal in that film was like what he saw. He said it could not have been a person, it was just too large. And he said he knows bears and it was no bear. When I asked him what he thought it was, how he thought about it in his own mind, he just returned to saying what it wasn't.

Further descriptions of the animal by A: It was covered in dark brown hair about an inch long, its eyes were small for its size and "were like a man, but an animal." A also said it had a barrel chest, and mentioned that the small of its back was wide. He thought it was about 8 feet tall, the height of the granary, and said that it turned twice to look back at them as it walked toward the ravine it went into. W said they called that ravine "the tunnel" because it was deep and full of cover, like a hidden avenue through there. A said the animal had no neck, it walked away very quickly, and he estimated the weight to be 900 to 1200 pounds. He said he had shot grizzly and polar bears using a bow and considered himself to be a fair judge of an animal's weight. And he also thought the animal looked like the one in the Patterson film.

The two witnesses have lived outdoor lives on the edge of a wild frontier and have developed the kind of knowledge of animals and untamed country that makes them good judges of what they saw that day in 1960. Both told me the experience has never left them, and that they still remember it vividly. A told me it was the one unexplainable event in his life.

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