Alaska Native Recounts Terrifying 2006 Hairy Man Encounter on Newyakuk River

When an Alaska native from the Nushagak tribe sits down to share decades of encounters with the hairy man, you stop and listen. That's exactly what happens in this fascinating interview that recently popped up on YouTube, where Fred — a subsistence lifestyle outdoorsman — opens up about experiences that began in childhood and culminated in a terrifying 2006 incident on the Newyakuk River. Fred grew up hearing the traditional warnings: never turn your back on the woods, don't whistle, the hairy man will take you. Like many kids raised in bush Alaska, he figured these were just stories to keep children from wandering too far. That changed when a figure in the willows screamed at him and shook the trees. Then in 1983, while fishing on a bluff, a hairy man started throwing rocks at the boat stuck on a gravel bar. That's when Fred understood these weren't campfire tales — these were real, and they were close. The 2006 encounter is where things get really intense. Fred and his cousin had gone up to the Newyakuk River for a gold prospecting trip. Within hours of darkness falling, the whole area started creaking. When they stepped out with a spotlight thinking they had a bear, they swept the beam across and saw three sets of eye shine — each one as big as a fence post marker. These were massive creatures. They scrambled back inside their 8-foot square shack (an old salmon counting tower) and tried to talk, but the sound was muffled like they were wearing hearing protection. Fred's cousin locked onto the .30-06 with a death grip and stared across the room. Fred was three feet from the window holding a shotgun when he made eye contact with the creature looking in at them. Autopilot kicked in and he fired three rounds through the wall. A scream echoed, the whole structure shifted, and silence fell for hours. What followed was mental torture — Fred had to resign himself to death just to stop trembling. Hours later, when they finally mustered the courage to beam a light outside, they spotted a pitch black hulking figure near an outhouse. Fred describes it as absorbing the light, this huge nothingness. The creature was estimated at 8.5 feet tall. The terror escalated with thumping sounds like distant helicopter rotor wash getting louder, things running around the shack, and then rocks pelting the metal siding like hail. When they finally made a break for the skiff 20 feet away, a rock bigger than a basketball whizzed past Fred's face — he credits scooting back 4-6 inches for saving his life. He turned and saw a big black mass moving out of the trees, put three .30-06 rounds into it, and it didn't buckle or flinch. He heard the bullets hit, but the creature kept moving. The interview also features Forest, an anthropologist, who brings academic perspective to the discussion. He mentions that "hairy man" was actually the first term he encountered for these beings when he was in Alaska, and he had two friends with their own stories. What makes Fred's account stand out among the many witness testimonies out there is the sheer physicality of the encounter — the eye shine the size of fence posts, the creature absorbing spotlight beam, bullets hitting but not stopping it, and the deliberate, almost tactical behavior of the group surrounding the shack. The way Fred describes it, it felt like they were being toyed with, with the creatures feeding on the fear. Every time they tried to formulate an escape plan, a new form of terror would manifest. For anyone interested in Sasquatch reports from Alaska — often called the Hairy Man in Athabascan and other Indigenous traditions — this interview is essential viewing. Fred's story aligns with a long history of witness accounts from Alaska's bush country, where encounters with these beings have been documented for generations. The Newyakuk River area, like much of the Bristol Bay region, has a rich oral tradition surrounding these creatures. The full interview goes into much more detail than can be covered here, including Fred's reflections on how the experience affected his relationship with his cousin and his ongoing healing through sharing the story. Definitely worth checking out the original video for the complete conversation.