Fred Roehl
Alaska, 2006
It started in the fall of 2006′ and was mid September when we set out. The plan was for a gold prospecting trip up the Nushagak River. The Nushagak River empties into Nushagak Bay, in Bristol Bay Alaska. The village of Dillingham is located on the northern side of Nushagak Bay. There were 3 of us heading out, myself and two other close relatives.
Our trip was supposed to be a 10 day on site trip, meaning our 10 days started when we got there. My elder was very tight lipped exactly where he had in mind. I didn’t care about where and wanted to do some possible bear hunting on the side anyway.
Being first nation’s Alaskan native, 10 days somewhere remote isn’t uncommon. We were moving very slowly on the river in the 22′ flat bottomed skiff. We had 2 outboard motors both were 40hp, one was a prop lower unit and the other a jet. The jet was going to be used in the shallow parts of the upper Nushagak River.
When we set out I didn’t learn about exactly where we were headed until about a hour. With a full load in the skiff we had plenty of time to talk about the area. It was the Nuyakuk River, which is the largest tributary by volume of the Nushagak River.
I learned on the way there that this area was rich in gold. It took 3-4 days to make the 247 river miles we had to travel. We arrived about 2-3 hours before dark at our destination. It was an old salmon counting tower on the bank of the Nuyakuk River. We were just outside the Wood-Tikchik State Park by 5-7 miles. On native corporation lands we had to get proper permissions, etc.
The counting tower had a shack/lean-to attached to a 50’s style egg shaped trailer. It was made of 2×4’s with a 5/8’s”plywood skin. The shack was approximately 8’x8′ square and had two 18″x24″ windows on opposite sides of the shack. One faced the river bank and the other side facing the tree line. The tree line was approximately 50 yards away from the shack with an outhouse that was located on the tree line side.
It was too late in the day after unloading and getting settled in for exploring. I really wanted a black bear rug, especially because the rumors of a 7 foot plus black bear in this area!
That evening we discussed gold panning equipment and where my elder relative wanted samples from. Both my younger relative and elder were playing cribbage at a small card table and as we spoke the whole place creaked like a strong wind gust hit it. We looked at each other like what the F’ was that. The wind wasn’t blowing, we would be able to tell being on the high bank.
As I looked at my younger relative, I saw movement over his shoulder in the window. I told him as he was standing up saying “that’s not funny” as he thought I was kidding him. I started loading the Shotgun I was adjusting the rear combat sight on it while we were talking. The shotgun was a new purchase for me, a tactical shotgun with a rifled barrel and ghost ring combat sights. I wanted a slug gun and paid through the nose for it in remote Alaska! We assumed what was moving out there would be a large coastal brown bear. We were on a salmon river at the tail end of the run.
It was about a half hour after it was dark outside. My younger relative grabbed the .30-06 and I was carrying my shotgun. We had a million candle power spot light with a fresh battery. Our plan was I’d hold the light and we would go out together to handle the bear.
I pushed the door open and began scanning in front of us and started panning left. As the light hit that tree line 50yd away three sets of large eye shine were illuminated by the light. We immediately recognized that something was very wrong.
Suddenly the air had changed inside the shack when at first we thought “bear” and chalked it up to that. However, when we ducked back into the shack it was like putting on ear muffs. Things were very wrong and the air got thick.
This shack was nothing more than a dried in shed with a “J” hook in an eyelet for a lock. I was very uneasy about what was happening, to say the least. Something was very wrong and as we were whispering about what the hell is going on here, my younger relative dropped under the table in less than a second.
He was holding the rifle by the barrel and had a death grip on it. As he was trembling under the table, I looked at my elder like WTF. He was shaking while looking across to the window on the tree line side. Me and my elder looked over and saw two huge eyes reflecting amber red eye shine. I was shocked by a primal fear that gripped my whole nervous system!
When I made eye contact with it, approximately 3′ away something inside me said “defend yourself” and as it was moving to its left out of view, I fired three times with the shotgun through the wall were I thought it would be! This thing was big! I only saw its face from the bottom of its nose to just above its thick brow and again the window was 18” high. When I stopped firing, there was a scream and the whole shack shifted sideways a couple feet. The scream was so intense it made the pot on the cook stove ring.
To say we were freaked out would be an understatement big time. My elder relative said “Holy F’” and something else but I started shooting and didn’t hear the rest. After the scream and the shack shifted I thought they were going to push us into the river. However after it shifted the shack a couple feet, everything went dead quite. My elder had grabbed the Coleman lantern and turned it off. I was standing in shock for a brief moment, but insisted on the lamp being relit. I took it and hung it above the table terrified.
I kept trying to engage my relatives on what to do. I even slid one little chair in front of the door and moved the other in front of the cubby hole. The trailer was cut off and attached to the shack as a sleeping area. I sat quietly for a long time after I got no response from my relatives. My younger relative wet himself and was under the table terrified and mumbled shit I couldn’t make out. My elder just sat on the bunk and said nothing about what just happened. I felt very alone and was shook to see these people I love in shambles. These are hardened salmon fisherman and lifelong subsistence hunting people.
The pressure in the air never improved from when we came back inside. It was very surreal and I thought I was losing my mind. Hours went by. It was a mix of F’d up thoughts and pumping of the lamp so it wouldn’t go out. After some time my younger relative began to talk again. He was shaking and still freaked out trying to tell me what he saw. I had to help him calm down by telling him it ran off after I shot it.
He got back to himself after a couple pep talks. Honestly I still thought I was a dead man walking. Even though I was trying to build him up, I didn’t think we were going to live through it. Something bad was in the air and the pressure was like death.
I was very tight with my movements and every move was hard because of the fear. That primal fear had all my attention and I had problems thinking clearly at first, but when I was sitting there another feeling came over me of “F’ this”. I started making a plan to get us out of there. I knew I was dead so it was kind of liberating from the total panic. I was able to think more clearly after that. My younger relative was acting more like himself too. He was worried about changing his clothes and I was trying to keep on track with getting out.
I was very stern in my thoughts of escape and had to be gentle at the same time. As time passed we were encouraged by the quiet and really started planning our break for the skiff.
We thought about different options from drifting in the dark to waiting for daylight. We finally decided to wait for daylight so we could see well and keep an eye out for these things. It was getting closer to daylight now and there was a change in the sky. My relative wanted to spotlight and kind of look around and see what was going on outside in the quiet.
I spotlighted the river bank side first and we saw nothing. We went to the other side and we had a reflection from the lantern making it a mirrored effect so we killed the lamp and I started panning from where we saw eye shine earlier. There was nothing in the tree line that we could see and as I panned to the outhouse nothing.
When I got to the outhouse, there was a pitch black silhouette behind it. The silhouette was so black it was darker than it was outside. It was like it absorbed the light. I couldn’t make out definitive details. No eye shine or nothing, just a hulking figure approximately 13-14 feet tall and 5+ feet wide. Frickin’ huge nothingness, I mean cartoon big!
I killed the spotlight and we ducked into the sleeping area totally freaked out. We had barrels crossed and were not in our right minds whatsoever. My younger relative was talking about trying to nail the door shut… with a single nail that was on the floor! I had to quickly get him out of that mindset.
After we started calming down again and it was deathly quiet, but we were getting closer to daylight and were able to get a plan together. When I finally got it together we were gathering our ammo and any important stuff. Then off in the near distance we heard a weird sound.
The sound was like a helicopters rotor wash, “thump, thump, thump”. We were feeling it vibrate the ground at the same time and then a hairy man went running by the window in a flash. Once it passed the window, it sounded like a group of them running around the shack together.
It sounded like they would run around a couple times, back off and then do it again. I felt like we were being toyed with, like they were trying to flush us out. You could tell they were different sizes by the impact of the feet on the ground. During this time it sounded like one was sniffing the outside of the trailer. F’n creepy shit!
After a brief period it was dead quite again and on the better side of getting light out. We had our plan ready, but then it dawned on me that we carried the anchor over the bank and stuck it in the tundra. As we talked about this and cutting the bow line and I handed him my pocket knife. My younger relative was going first and I would be right behind him. He had my shotgun and I was carrying the .30-06.
We were going soon and were very anxious about it. These things were still active and out there somewhere. We heard what sounded like a pellet gun hitting the plywood skin. It was just a couple then all of a sudden it was like a hailstorm. These things were throwing little rocks at the shack! It stopped very shortly after it started.
After about 45 minutes of no noises we looked out the windows to check the area. It was light enough to see the tree line. I still felt toyed with and didn’t think we were going to make it, but we saw nothing. No movement anywhere. We got into our little line and I reminded him to cut the bow line as we got to the skiff.
I was behind him and his dad was behind me. We went out like we practiced it together; quickly and focused. We were only 20 ft from the bank where the skiff was. It was a 7 foot drop to the river’s edge from there. He jumped down and I helped my elder get a foothold.
We were on the cut bank and the grass was wet and slippery. So I helped him and a shifted back to stand up and as I stood, a rock whizzed past my face. It was bigger than a basketball and in slow motion I watched it impact the river in about 3 feet of water. It impacted so hard it hit bottom with a loud bang before the water closed over it.
I instantly turned to the direction it came from. I saw the big black one coming out of the tree line. I immediately put three shots center mass… I never worked a bolt action so fast. I was steady though and I heard my shots impact it and it didn’t flinch, it only stopped moving forward. At the same time there was other movement in the trees. I shot and jumped down the bank, but my younger relative didn’t cut the line!
He had the outboard running, but it was idling really high. I told him idle down so he could shift it in gear and yelled for my knife. I cut the rope and was putting the 10′ of chain into the bow with the rifle. My elder was gingerly getting into the skiff and I shoved his ass in, I saw my shotgun on the bank, but wasn’t going to grab it.
As he shifted into reverse his eyes got huge and my elder was looking at the bank behind me the same way. I turned as I pushed off and saw the big one standing over us. I was stuck looking at its shin hair which was pitch black, but had cinnamon color tips to it.
When we got to Koliganik for fuel on the Nushagak River I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. We never spoke of it after that, even when I tried I got nowhere. I learned just a couple weeks ago that after I pushed off and was putting more rounds into the .30-06 and looking around, my younger relative said we were getting moving they were throwing rocks at the outboard and he had to swing back and forth. I didn’t remember that part, as I was focused on the movement on the bank to our left. Thankfully they stopped running in the trees along the river bank after a short time. It was the most horrible experience I’ve ever had in remote Alaska.
Fred Roehl
Curyung Tribal Counsel member
Dillingham Alaska
Editor’s Note: You can see Fred’s interviews on both Sasquatch Theory and Bigfoot Odyssey
Sasquatch Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZHls_v7doA
Bigfoot Odyssey
Part One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPHGr-4KCtc&t=18s
Part Two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69czTp_DTXg