During the fall of 1977 a few friends and I
decided to make a duck-hunting trip to Red
Lake up in the Kamloops region. We packed up a
couple of camouflaged boats, 50 or 60 rubber
mallard decoys, grub, guns and headed for the
high country. Once we reached Red Lake high on
the Kamloops plateau, my friend Randy and I
decided to hunt a marshy area on the lake that
we knew well from our eastern brook trout ice
fishing trips during the winter. (Note: At the
time the closest ranch or building was a good
10 miles away over bush roads.)
We
had our boat loaded before first light and
made for the marsh. Once there we set out our
decoys and slipped the boat back into the high
weeds and grass about 60 feet from open water.
Hunting was slow due to warm weather and
little wind. We would blow our mallard calls
once in awhile hoping to entice a duck from
the far end of the lake but nothing was
moving. A few hours had passed and we had not
fired a single shot.
Myself
and Randy were both bored and staring out over
our decoys on Red Lake when something suddenly
but quietly surfaced just outside the edge of
our flock of decoys. What came up appeared to
us to be a human-type head covered in long,
wet hair ... something what a person with long
hair would look like if they surfaced while
swimming. The skin under the hair as well as
the eyes, appeared dark brown in color. Our
view of this strange head was about even with
the shoulders, although they did not break the
surface of the water. The eyes (what you could
see of them under the hair) looked dark (no
white) like an animal's. The face had no
expression or movement. It seemed to look at
our decoys and us for maybe 10 or 15 seconds,
and then slipped silently under the surface
with a large swirl or wake and it was gone.
Nothing else was seen or heard.
When
we returned to Cliff Tuscon's ranch where we
were staying, I asked him aside if he had ever
seen anything like what we witnessed on Red
Lake that morning. I'll never forget the look
he gave me. I think he figured I was either
piss drunk or on the verge of going crazy. In
any case, old Cliff never saw anything like
what I described in his 40 years up in that
country.
My
afterthoughts on the Red Lake incident:
Firstly, I would like to
state to everyone that reads this that I
honestly did not know I had possibly witnessed a
sasquatch on the surface of British Columbia's
Red Lake until many years after the incident had
taken place.
Secondly, since Red Lake was
considered fairly remote at that time, I doubt
whether any duck hunters had ever tried what we
had that day. At the time it was simply too much
work for the rewards - but we were young,
looking for fun, a little foolish and still
fairly green. To tell you the truth, neither
myself nor my good friend Randy had the foggiest
idea of what the hair or fur covered head and
partial shoulders of the creature we saw outside
our flock of decoys could have belonged to.
Thinking back, I firmly believe the creature
(possibly a sasquatch) came in under water for a
meal of fresh duck. Upon reaching the decoys it
likely saw no feet from the ducks that it may
have been used to grabbing from below, and then
it likely saw the strings leading to anchor
weights and knew something was wrong or badly
out of place.
Last, but certainly not least,
after surfacing the possible sasquatch most
probably saw our heads just poking up out the
weeds and quickly decided a long underwater swim
was required to get the heck out of the country
and away from us as fast as possible.
In closing, I would also like
to say that the swirl or wake that I witnessed
and the whooshing-type sound (like drawing a
large canoe paddle or boat oar very forcefully
through the water just below the lake's surface)
that went with it when the creature departed was
far too big to have been made by a beaver or any
other aquatic animal or bird that I am familiar
with in British Columbia.
© Ken Kristian
West
Coast Sasquatch Research
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