The Great Alaskan Monster Hunt
Climb aboard for an unflinching ride thru the uncharted landscape of the Kali Yuga & the Great Shift of the Ages.
I went to
The fishing fleet arrived shortly after I did that summer, so I headed down to the city dock area in hopes of talking myself into a job on a purse seiner. It seemed at least fifty other guys had the same idea, all chasing the legendary big bucks associated with commercial salmon fishing. This wasn’t going to be easy. I persisted even though a lot of the competition had actual experience fishing where I could only tempt prospective skippers with my navy record. As it turned out that was enough, and my first job commercial fishing was aboard the vessel Mark Christophercaptained by Dave Demmert Sr. We put up good numbers that year, and crew share was something like six grand apiece. It was aboard this boat that I first heard many enthralling stories &legends of southeast Alaska, but none more intriguing and interesting than the Tlingit legend of the Kooshdaakaa (anglicized as Kushtaka) or “Land Otter Man” which is similar to but different from Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Being full blood Tlingit, captain Dave knew the stories by heart. We could always tell when he was pulling our leg because he’d get a slight gleam in his eye, and the corner of his mouth would almost, but not quite smirk. Those ‘tells’ were totally absent whenever he spoke of the Kooshdaakaa. He didn’t like talking about them, he told us doing so was bad luck. He was emphatic however whenever one of us suggested it was just another bigfoot, He said “They are not the same creature, although both do exist in
The Kooshdaakaa, according to legend is a shape shifting supernatural being; part human, part land otter, who lures people into the woods then kills them. Captain Dave’s stories just left me hungry for more, yet actually finding it isn’t always easy; as not everybody believes and those who do usually decline to talk about the creatures. Just my cup of tea! One of the first friends I made in
Several months later I was rounding the corner on a downtown sidewalk when I spotted a true hulk of a man coming out of the bank, and I instantly recognized Frank Zinn, an unforgettable civilian tug boat skipper I’d met years before in
Life in Gem Cove was peacefully idyllic; it was everything I ever expected it to be, and more. Bald eagles ruled the skies, & their nest was within sight of my cabin. It wasn’t unusual to see black bears strolling by on their way to the creek, to fish for salmon. One afternoon at high tide with 20 feet of water under the raft I was astonished to see a seal come flying out of the water and land on the deck ten feet away…and even more astonished to see a killer whale glide silently under the raft searching for him. Clearly, I was the lesser of two evils at the time. There were times when I was out deer hunting when I’d see tracks I couldn’t easily identify, and once or twice when I heard sounds & noises nearby that also were strange and unknown. The Alaskan wilderness is like that, it lets you know right away just where you are on the food chain. It teaches respect.
Three more years passed and as happy as I was to be living my dream, Thomas Bay was still calling me from somewhere deep in my subconscious, and I still wanted to go. The next time I saw Delaney I brought up the subject of
Without hesitation Jim says; “I’m in~ as long as you’re OK with capturing the thing alive and becoming millionaires!“ I think I was prepared to hear anything exceptthat! His comment took me so off guard I thought at first he must be joking; so I asked just to be sure. When Jim asked me if he looked like he was joking, one glance at his face gave me my answer. Honestly I wasn’t so hot on the whole idea of going all Rambo on an established Alaskan legend but I kept that to myself, thinking that Delaney and I could talk him out of that notion once we got there. My next surprise came when Jim volunteered to take us up there in his 30 foot cabin cruiser. The closest town to
Nana was in her rocker, but not knitting now, she was just rocking back & forth, and staring out the bay window at something only she could see. I felt like an interloper suddenly, as if I had just made off with all the fine silver. A gracious and swift exit seemed to be called for here so I told Delaney it was OK, and I’d call him later on. In that house you couldn’t get to the front door without passing Nana’s rocking chair, and as I attempted to glide smoothly past the old lady she reached out and gently took my wrist in her aged, weathered hand and said, “You come sit.” Although her voice was soft and kind I could tell it was a command, not a request…so I kneeled down in front of her chair like a commoner granted an audience with the queen. Still holding my hand, the old woman made eye contact…and whispered “Listen to me child…Thomas Bay is not Gem Cove…I told my grandson that if he went there and came back alive he would be changed forever, never again the same person; and I say the same to you now.“
In the old days, Nana would be a tribal elder, whose word is never questioned by the very young &unwise; and so, her words ushered me into a period of introspection that night, as I wrestled for hours with my desires and Nana’s wisdom. I knew that much of her deep respect for Thomas Bay stemmed from the massive 1750 landslide there which wiped out an entire village of 500 people; earning the name “Bay of Death“. A hundred fifty years later, following the exploits described in the booklet:
We shoved off just after sunup on a Friday morning. Most small boat operators in Alaska avoid running after dark on account of widowmakers; which are rogue logs so waterlogged that they float almost invisible a few inches below the surface. They’re hard enough to spot during the day, &impossible at night…& will rain all over your parade. Aside from that there are other navigation hazards like fishing nets & whales to be avoided; so the run to
Jim had consumed several beers at the pub in the time it took me to nurse two myself, and he continued to down a few more beers back on the boat while laying out his master plan. When it was my turn, I asked Jim if he recalled from the booklet that these creatures were encountered in numbers and were said to be both strong & agile? Before he could answer I added the comment that if the damn thing woke up halfway to Petersburg it would probably not take long to bash his way thru the hull of the fiberglass boat, to which he just replied; “That’s what the leg irons & chains are for!“ With that Jim pulls out a rifle case, unzips it to reveal a glimmering stainless steel mini-14 assault rifle complete with scope. He holds the gun up to show it to me saying; “and this is how I’ll handle any of his buddies who give us trouble!“ I had wanted to get to
A couple hours had passed when the noise of Jim making breakfast woke me up. He was crisp as a fresh C-note and whistling away as if he hadn’t a care in the world. When he saw me stirring Jim looked over at me and asked if I was still ready to go to
An hour later we were making our way across
Down on the other end, on the far shore across from Ruth island there was something that we had not known about…a forest service cabin built there as shelter for hunters &fishermen who use the Bay. Jim was all excited at the prospect of spending the night in that cabin, and wanted to anchor up, so we could take the rubber raft ashore and set up for the night. As he prepared to set the anchor I was taking a look at the cabin thru the binoculars. It looked sound enough…yet there was something about it I couldn’t put my finger on that bugged me. With the anchor set Jim was getting the zodiac ready when I handed him the binoculars and asked him to take a look at the cabin for me, which he did. After a long look he hands me the glasses back and says it looks fine to him. I have one of those pesky kind of minds that simply cannot abide a mystery and leave well enough alone. I wanted to understand why I got a chilly feeling when I looked at that cabin so I took another look with the optics. It took a couple of minutes but then I noticed the outside walls were covered with bullet holes. I didn’t understand why that would set me off because you see a lot of that kind of vandalism in
Jim went back inside the boat for a couple of minutes then returned to the aft deck where I was still puzzling things thru in my head. My giant ex-biker partner looks at me and says; “Ya know…the day’s half wasted now anyway, why don’t we sleep on the boat tonight and go ashore in the morning.“ That sounded quite reasonable to me, so I added, “Yeah, right…and tonight we can just keep alert to see what goes on here after dark.“ So we put out a couple of fishing lines hoping to catch dinner even though there were still no signs of life anywhere; and passed the time in harmless conversation. Towards dusk Jim commented to me, “Say- you live out in the woods, is it always this quiet? I don’t think I’ve seen or heard any critters all day!” When I answered that this silence was notnormal even though the forest is sometimes called the quiet places, Jim just shrugged his big shoulders and said, “I guess that’s why they call it the bay of death!“ To take our minds off of how little it took to spook us we played a few games of cribbage and then called it a day.
I couldn’t help but feel a little like bait as Jim retired to the forward berth cabin while I slept on the fold down cot in the back, right by the sliding glass door leading to the back deck. I was only marginally reassured upon discovering the door had a locking latch. For the second night running I was getting very little sleep. It seemed every few minutes the waves would slap the hull of the boat, or some loose piece of gear would move or shift slightly, creating a faint but audible noise. Each & every time my eyes would pop open, looking furtively thru the sliding glass door, hoping not to see some glowing eyed kooshdaakaa glowering back at me. I thought about what Nana had said to me, and why the native folk here about have such a healthy respect for this place. The words “if you come back alive…” kept floating up from my subconscious mind to further vex my efforts at rationality. I tried to convince myself that those bullet holes didn’t mean what logic dictated they meant…I tried…but when I did finally fall asleep long enough to dream, it was about terrified campers inside that cabin shooting at creatures attacking them. It was a very vivid & unsettling dream to be sure. That night went by so slowly I was beginning to wonder if time was being messed with somehow when the first golden rays of dawn broke over the mountaintops. I put on a pot of coffee then stepped out on the back deck to get my first look at the new day. Another cloudy, overcast day with the smell of rain in the air. When the coffee was done I took my first cup back outside to just sit and watch the bay, searching for any sign of life at all. There was none to be seen or heard. Not even the pestering insects
I was on my second cup of coffee and third cigarette of the morning when Jim stumbled out to join me on the deck, still wrapped in his blanket like a refugee of some unknown tragedy. He was strangely silent, and about the polar opposite of the previous morning. He didn’t look good, as if he’d gotten about as much sleep as me. Jim didn’t say a word to me as he nursed his morning joe. We hadn’t brought any beer with us and there was no alcohol smell on him so I knew he wasn’t suffering from a hangover…he just looked exhausted. I went inside at this point to take my turn at making breakfast; leaving Jim to his brooding silence as the day became brighter. About the time the hobo breakfast was ready for human consumption Jim comes ambling back inside the boat. “Smells edible” says he…to which I haggardly responded, “Top o’ the Morn, Captain; what be our agenda for the day.” After a lengthy pause he looks right at me and said, “Well … I figure we got what we came for and should head back to
Now I was beyond dumfounded, I was totally mystified at Jim’s behavior, yet the tone of his voice and the cold look in his eyes banished any thought of this being some kind of joke. The man was serious! I tried to get him to explain how and why he’d arrived at this unilateral decision but to no avail. He said the subject was closed, and that we were pulling anchor at to leave this spooky place. By this time I knew better than to push the issue any further, to do so would simply not be wise, so I just said, “You’re the Captain, leaving at it is.” Jim’s demeanor that morning only improved slightly upon hearing my agreement to his departure decision. I was totally bummed out to have it all end like this, and just wanted to be alone, so I grabbed a cold soda from the fridge and climbed up to the flying bridge to sulk &ponder. After drinking about half the soda, I set it down on the seat beside me to light up a smoke and try to calm down as I processed the days disastrous developments. The cigarette smoke felt unusually harsh in this still, stagnant place of death, so I grabbed the soda and took a long pull….of 100 % pure sea water! Even as I spewed the stuff out of my mouth my mind was reeling with the implications of what I had just experienced. I could hear Jim moving about downstairs in the galley, and besides there was no physical way on earth he could have switched soda cans…simply not physically possible – besides he was a very long way from being in a joking mood. I cannot accurately describe how I was feeling at that moment, but the closest I can come is that camera special effect they do in movies where the background zooms in & out behind an actor distorting the viewers perspective as it moves. All sound seemed to be on mute save for an intense ringing in my ears, the sound of reality cramps. Everything else but this singular moment fell away from consciousness as if I needed all my brain power to deal with the cognitive dissonance created by this supernatural event.
I felt like I was in the twilight zone, or an episode of outer limits…now it was my brain in buffering mode trying to explain what had just happened; and it could not. Knowing I had to eliminate the unlikely explanation of false taste impression; I took another sip from the soda can. Still, pure sea water! I took the can downstairs with me, sat myself down at the galley table, and in what I know was a cracking voice, I says to Jim- “Ya know Cap, why the hell wait for , lets haul ass right now!” My partner looks at me kinda strangely with a very curious look on his large square face. He didn’t have to say a word, I knew that look meant what has gotten into you. Saying nothing, I just handed him the soda can. He looked at the can then took a tentative sip, and spewed it all right in the sink. Neither of us spoke for a good two minutes…we just sat there looking stupid at each other. Then, very calmly, Jim says, “I saw you take that from the fridge and go upstairs where there is no seawater, and I saw you return without leaning over the side…so where did the seawater come from?” My answer was simply, “I am ready to go home now Jim, do we have to wait till ?“ Thirty seconds later I was hauling up the anchor while Captain Jim fired up the engine to take us out of devils country.
We made our way past Ruth island and turned left towards the bay’s entrance, checking the tide book for depths and the chart for hazards. The last thing we wanted was to be stranded in this place. With Spurt point falling away behind us on our starboard side we had a clear shot to the channel so Jim gave it the throttle and just as we gained speed, the brand new steering system installed a week earlier failed and the boat careened off toward the rocky shore. Jim reduces speed, and steering capability suddenly returns. When he speeds back up – the steering goes out and we head for the rocks again. Repeating this three times was enough to convince us there was a major malfunction. The steering system was not at all easily accessible while underway so it wasn’t feasible to try to repair it until we were in safe harbor in
The trip back to town had been so hectic & intense the only conversation was about navigation and seamanship. With the expedition back in safe harbor and the boat secured I stepped off onto the dock without a word and made my way up to the pub for some much needed liquid therapy. Half an hour later Jim shows up, parks himself beside me and ordered a beer. We drank in silence, not even looking at each other. We were both oblivious to the atmosphere in the bar, as if we were the only ones in the place. As my third beer was winding down I turned to Jim, gesturing with my index finger I said, “Ya know…” Jim cut me off immediately, and angrily snapped “Listen, nothing happened over there, nothing…and that is what I have to say, nothing. Don’t you ever mention the subject or ask me any questions because I have nothing to say, period, end of discussion.“ The look on his face was that of a man not to be trifled with; and I was certain then and now that if I had pushed the issue any further the man would have punched me out to punctuate his point. After a reasonable silence I looked over at my former partner and said, “Hey, Ya know what, all I was going to say was I’m gonna get a room in town tonight, can’t handle that bunk on the boat…I need a shower & good sleep, so I’ll just go do that and get my stuff out of your way.” The look on the man’s face was that of someone who had just had their hospitality insulted. “ I’m sorry I snapped at you” he said; “it’s been a grueling couple of days, that’s all. Don’t waste money on a hotel, you ain’t in my way cause I’m not working on that boat tonight.” This guy was beginning to make me think he was bi-polar with all his sudden mood swings, and I’d had about all of his company I could stand, so I got that hotel room and spent another sleepless night trying to figure out just where in my world view I was going to store the memories from the bay of death. I had to rearrange my belief system to account for the supernatural, either that or end up like poor Jim.
The following morning having had breakfast in town I made reservations on the afternoon ferry back to
My experience at the bay of death remained my central focus for several days after returning home. It wasn’t enough to just keep rolling it all over in my brain, I had to somehow come to terms with it, to understand and accept it, and for that, I needed to go visit Nana. When I called Delaney he said come right over as he was anxious to hear of the adventure. As I was describing the trip to them Nana would occasionally nod her head a little, but said nothing until I was finished. She asked her grandson to fix her a cup of tea, and when he’d left the room, Nana leans closer to me and said this: “Now you know, because your soul is strong enough to know; as for my grandson…I’m just not sure his mind would have survived. You have been touched by the Kooshdaakaa child, and they gave you a gift to remember them by.“
A couple weeks later I ran into Jim at the hardware store, and asked how it went with the boat repairs. “Funny thing about that, as it turns out, there was nothing whatsoever wrong with the steering, it was in perfect working order! Boats, man…go figure…that thing was a lemon, so I sold it.” That was the last time I ever saw captain Jim, as a few weeks later I heard he’d moved back to the lower 48. I have pondered my experiences in Thomas bay many times over the ensuing years and the one thought that just keeps defying understanding is, what the hell happened to Jim? Clearly each of us had been touched by the Kooshdaakaa but in very different ways. My experience left me with a feeling of wonder and enlarged my universe to include the truly paranormal; while Jim’s experience left him a shattered man immersed in fear and denial. Nana’s words echo back to me “If you go there and make it back alive, it will change you forever.“
2013-04-22 16:00:20
Source: http://augureye.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-great-alaskan-monster-hunt.html
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Great story and well written. Thank you!!!