9 Best Alaskan Native Hairy Man Stories

Illustrations for each of the top 9 Alaskan Native Hairy Man stories

On the west coast of Alaska the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers empty into the Bering Sea creating one of the largest river Delta's in the world. Mostly covered in Tundra it is protected as part of the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. Eighty-five percent of the 25,000 residents are Alaskan Natives  both Yupik Eskimos and Athabaskan Indians.

In Alaska they have a cryptid "Hairy Man" that goes by many names. The Delta Discovery, a local publication owned by Native Alaskans has been chronically the Hairy Man stories since February 2013. We have selected our favorites and provided links to each story.

1. Plane buzzes Hairy Man people running over ice

Plane buzzes Hairy People

In May of 2012, a plane took off from Bethel and headed upriver, following the Kuskokwim River. The river was breaking up and the snow had pretty much melted, but many big lakes were still frozen over.

For the two people in the plane, the flight seemed to be much like any routine flight. However, just as they passed Tuluksak, the passenger saw something on his side of the plane. He saw two upright but dark creatures running like people on a large, frozen lake. Read More...

2. Captured by Hairy Man

Human nurses hairy Man juvenile to health

In the interior of Alaska, the Hairy Man is known as the “Bushman”. There was an elderly woman who was known as a medicine woman because of her experience as a young girl.

She was out picking berries with others near Rampart when she was kidnapped by a Bushman. She was taken into the wilderness and brought to a cave, where she saw other members of the Hairy Man’s family or group.

In that cave, there were both male and female Hairy Man people, and even young ones. They were hairy and wore no clothes, and smelled badly. But one of the babies of the Hairy Man people was very sick. Read More...

3. Bigfoot follows women during night ride

Two women see Hairy Man in the full moonlight

This lady is from Bethel. Years ago in the 1990’s, she and her younger sister were traveling by snowmachine to Bethel from one of the tundra villages. The sister was driving the snowmachine and she was riding in the back in the sled.

It was nighttime and the moon was full and bright, illuminating the frozen tundra. Stars shone in the sky and there was not a cloud in sight. One could see a long way on a night like this.

The lady riding in the sled had been wearing glasses but took them off because they kept fogging up so she tucked them away. The two women were about halfway to Bethel when suddenly her sister stopped the snowmachine and said to her, “Look!” Her sister was looking at something. Read More...

4. Hairy Man steals dried fish

Caught red handed

One evening, her baby wasn’t well, being restless and whining. That night she slept a few minutes at a time, before baby would wake again and start whining. Soon it was getting bright outside and baby whined again. The lady got up and tended to her baby. When the baby started nursing, the lady was relieved knowing that the baby was much better.

But then she noticed it was unusually quiet outside. Even the early morning birds were not chirping. Through the open door, she could see the dog, which was tied up to the left of the smokehouse door, down on its stomach, its fur very smooth and chin to the ground. She also noticed the dogs were making noises through their noses, making snorting sounds.

While she was looking at the dog, she saw a very big, furry person-like creature coming toward the smokehouse. It was looking around, turning its upper body while turning its head. It got to the smokehouse but did not go inside. Instead, it reached in and took out a dried chum. He tucked it under its arm, looked around again and left. It took long strides when he walked away. Read more...

5. A hunter is chased away by a Hairy Man

After several misses, the hunter runs

A man went hunting by boat one day up the Black River, and got close to Kusilvak Mountain. Stopping at one location, he got out and anchored his boat.

He got his rifble and went up the bank to some high ground to look around, like all other hunters do. While looking around, he spotted some kind of animal not far away.

As he looked longer, he realized it was a Hairy Man! Then the Hairy man saw him too and began to run toward him, making terrible sounds as it came.

Quickly the hunter swung his gun around and fired several times toward the charging beast. Apparently he missed, as the Hairy Man kept coming. Read More...

6. Strong-smelling creature in woods near fishcamp

Remembering a stick whizzing past her ear

“While going back, I bent down to pick a beautiful little flower. Then something went past my left ear, like wood making a ‘swoosh-swoosh-swoosh’ sound like it was flipping over and over as it went past my head.

“Just when I got up and looked, a piece of dry wood branch landed in front of me. I looked to see if anyone was around. I could see far into the woods because there was no grass or growth covering the ground inside the trees.

“I didn’t see anyone or anything. But I smelled something really strong like a wet dog, but stronger and different. I went back to fishcamp. Read More...

7. Nunivak Island Bigfoot

in the 1930's a sod house is invaded

It was during the winter when the three hunters went out on their trip to the west side of the island. As it was evening, the hunters stopped at an old fishcamp to bunk down for the night in an abandoned sod house.

Sod houses, especially those at hunting or fishing sites, were not large and had small entry ways.

The hunters were traveling by dog team. When they stopped to camp they secured their dogs to wooden posts before turning in for the night.

As they were waiting to sleep, the dogs outside began barking. The next thing they knew, someone or something was trying to break in through the door of the sod house. The terrified men got out their .30-.30 rifles in fear of the unknown. Read More..

8. Nome miner kills a Hairy Man

Bear or Bigfoot?

Jean Joiner was a miner from Nome who had a mine near Jade Mountain on Dahl Creek. The Jade Mountains are the westernmost peaks of the Brooks Range.

Mr. Joiner told his story that he had killed a Bigfoot-like animal near his mine, which he thought was a bear at first. But when he looked at the “bear” he killed, he didn’t know what it was but it resembled a human being.

He got real scared of what he had killed and believing that he would get in trouble for it, he cut it up and threw the pieces into the stream near his mine. Read More...

9. Rock throwers of the Andreafsky River

Rocks being thrown from the shore

“Miluquyuli” (the thrower) is one of the names given to the Hairy Man in many parts of the Yukon and Kuskokwim River villages.

At another time, a son (now in his 50s) of the elder remembers camping as a young boy along the same river with his family when, from far up a hill above their camp, a large rock or two were thrown and sailed over them, landing with a big splash into the Andreafsky.

The rocks were too large for humans to thrown that high and far. Read More...

Click the following link to find The Delta Discovery Hairy Man Section

Family Witness Bigfoot in Alaska, Is it the Kushtaka?

The Kushtaka is normally found in the areas of  Kasigluk

The Alaskan news source, "The Delta Discovery" reports a story about a mother and two sons witnessing a Bigfoot. Most Bigfoot sightingings in Alaska are recorded in the southern region. This report in Kasigluk is no different, in fact this is the region where most of the Tlingit Indians have seen Kushtaka. Alaska has multiple names for Bigfoot, besides Kushtaka, The Den'aina Indians of South central have Nant'ina and the Eskimos of southwest Alaska call it "Urayuli" or "Hairy man."

Sketch of Bigfoot witnessed in Alaska.

Read the encounter reported by The Delta Discovery below:

 family out egg hunting last spring near their village of Kasigluk came upon an incredible sight – a large, dark, hairy creature walking upright was heading towards them.
They – two teenaged brothers and their mom - were on the outskirts of the village riding their 4-wheeler when they saw it. It was approximately around 3pm, and the weather was beautiful, although slightly cloudy. School was out for the summer and the date was May
29th, 2012.

Could it have been the elusive Bigfoot?
“We came across it by the lagoon here in Kasigluk,” said one the eyewitnesses. “It was back there southeast of Fox Lake.”

While they were out that day, the three family members saw other people who coming home from egg hunting. So at first they thought the creature was a person.

“After it passed, we looked at each other and thought, ‘we just saw Bigfoot’,” the eyewitness said.

The creature was very tall and dark. Its long arms hung below its knees. It was approximately 75 yards away. The family watched it for about 2 minutes.

“It was walking towards us and then once it saw us it turned and started going to the other side of the hill,” said the witness.

When it disappeared into the bushes, the family headed towards where they last saw it but it was nowhere to be seen.

They didn’t hear about anyone else seeing the mysterious creature.

The following is the firsthand account about the sighting written by the mother of the two boys, one of the eyewitnesses.

“I wanted to go egg hunting, but didn’t want to go alone so I had my two sons follow me since I didn’t want to go alone. My oldest son said he knew of a place where we could go check so off we went towards the lagoon where there is flat land to the east.

“Upon reaching the lagoon my older son got off the four wheeler and ran off to see if anybody was in that area. He ran to the edge of the hill and soon ran back saying that somebody was already there. So we decided to go check somewhere else when that “somebody” started running at an incredible amount of speed. No human person would have gone from down there by that flat land to already towards us up the hill.

“That “somebody” was all black from top to bottom, kind of hunchbacked, like it had no neck and its head was cone-shaped. Its long arms went past its knees and it was incredibly tall.

“At first we all asked each other, “Who is that?” Then after about 10 seconds as it was walking with long strides it would occasionally look towards us. The way it walked was fast and no human could cover that amount of tundra in the same amount of time.

I asked, “WHAT is that?”

“All that time we were awestruck and dumbfounded to what we were witnessing. Then as it was going to disappear from our view finally I said, “I think we just saw Bigfoot!” As it passed in our full view it had covered the whole entire hill in a matter of about a minute. It seemed to be just walking but with big strides.

“We went up to the top of the hill but we didn’t see it anywhere so we went straight home feeling kind of excited.

“That’s my account. It looked exactly like the Patterson footage of Bigfoot if you’ve ever seen it.”

Big Foot or Hairy Man sightings are not unheard of in the Yukon Kuskokwim delta region. Last summer there were reports of a number of sightings in the Johnson River area and other locations.

SRC: The Delta Discovery