Former Crew Member Breaks 50-Year Silence on BC Bigfoot Encounter

The Kootenays have long been considered one of the most active regions in British Columbia for Sasquatch reports. The dense wilderness, remote valleys, and old-growth forests of the Purcell Mountains have produced countless sightings over the decades, so when a firsthand account surfaces from a man who worked that exact terrain back in the early 1970s, it's worth paying attention. A video recently posted to YouTube features a man named Lauren Stewart recounting his experiences working a hydro clearing crew in the high country above Argenta, at the north end of Kootenay Lake, in the fall of 1972. What makes this account stand out isn't just the encounters themselves, but the way the story unfolds, and the quiet that Stewart describes settling over the crew as they worked their way up Hamel Creek toward the high Purcells. Stewart ran heavy equipment for 38 years, most of it in the Kootenays. He was born in 1943 in Castlegar and raised up the Lardeau, in that long green country between the lake and the Purcells where the cedars grow big enough that three grown men can't close their hands around a single trunk. His background in the region gives his account a grounded, lived-in quality. He knows the land, the people, and the history. The Columbia River Treaty and the building of the Duncan Dam form the emotional backdrop of his story. Stewart watched the reservoir fill over hayfields he had walked as a boy, over the cabin where his grandfather had lived. That sense of loss, of a valley drowned for somebody else's light bulbs, carries through everything he describes later. The crew was clearing a right-of-way up Hamel Creek for what the company said was a transmission corridor. There were nine of them, including Stewart and his closest friend Reg Halverson, who ran the other dozer. An old trapper named Emil Rasmussen, past 70 years old, came along as a guide of sorts. And then there was Walter Pettigrew, an old homesteader who had lived out past the end of the road at Argenta since the 1930s. Pettigrew warned the crew to keep their line down along the creek and clear of the high draws. The high draws, he said, belonged to the hill people, and a smart outfit left them their ground. What Stewart describes next is the kind of thing that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. The woods went quiet as they worked higher. Not winter quiet, but a stillness with a quality to it, like the whole slope was standing still and listening. Then came the smell, warm and heavy, with dirt and green wood in it, and something alive underneath. The video runs long, and Stewart takes his time with the telling. He has kept this story quiet for over 50 years, and you can hear the weight of that in his voice. The full account, including what the tall ones were standing over and why the hydro company paid the crew to stay silent, is worth listening to in his own words. The Kootenays have a long history of Sasquatch reports. The region around Kootenay Lake, the Purcells, and the Lardeau has produced sightings going back to the earliest settler days. The combination of rugged terrain, thick old-growth forest, and relative isolation makes it ideal habitat. Stewart's account fits into a larger pattern of reports from loggers, trappers, and hydro workers throughout the BC interior, many of whom have described similar experiences with the silence, the smell, and the sense of being watched. This one is worth your time. Stewart is a careful storyteller, and he makes clear there's one thing he won't tell you, which is exactly where the place is. By the end, you'll understand why.