Things Ray Charles Never Saw

WHITEHORSE, Yukon - Marion Sheldon and Gus Jules were traveling out of town along the Alaska Highway on an all-terrain vehicle between 1 and 2 a.m. when they passed what resembled a person standing on the side of the highway. Thinking it might be someone from their small community in need of a ride, they turned around. As the two lifelong Teslin residents and members of the Tlingit Council approached to within 20 feet, they noticed the figure was covered in hair, but standing upright the entire time. Though natural light was dusky, they saw what they believed to be flesh tones hidden beneath the mat of hair.

Sasquatch? Big Foot?

Mr. Jules is an experienced hunter. He described the figure as standing about 7 feet tall, but hunched over. He could see it was not a person. As the two parties went their separate ways, the dark-haired figure crossed the highway in two or three steps.

Ground conditions mixed with rainfall made it impossible to pick up definitive tracks and there was no hair on branches or other vegetation. By Monday morning, half the town had been out to the site.

It would not be the first suspected Yukon sighting of the notorious beast. In April 1991, three Pelly Crossing residents reported seeing a Sasquatch while driving between Pelly and Stewart Crossing. The creature fled back into the woods as the vehicle passed. The residents took a photo of what they claim were footprints measuring 15 inches long in the melting snow.