OBSERVED: In late August of 1995 I went on a trip to British Columbia for some outdoor adventuring with a friend of mine. One day we took a canoe trip in lake Kootenay and after about a half an hour of rowing we decided to go ashore for lunch. We were in a very remote and heavily wounded area of the lake and we found a small clearing in which to spread out enough to eat. About five minutes later we both heard some weird sounds coming from what sounded like a couple hundred feet behind us. We had some hunting knives on us but nothing else and my friend was wary in case it was a bear or something, but both being the curious type we decided to push our way through the brush to see what was making the sound. It was like a deep murmured growl, as we got closer we could hear the sound getting louder but couldn't see anything, the brush was really thick though and we figured we'd have to be pretty close to see anything. As the sound kept getting louder we suddenly could smell this disgusting odor, it almost made my eyes tear up. Then all of a sudden John grabbed my arm and didn't say a word, he just pointed and before I looked in the direction on he was pointing I was looking at his face and it was though he'd seen a ghost. Well when I turned my head I saw what caused his reaction. I couldn't believe my eyes, it was only about 20 feet away at this point and the reason we hadn't seen it sooner was that it was bent down kneeling above something, it looked like it was tearing a small animal apart and eating it. It was HUGE, we both were frozen for a few seconds and luckily it did not see us, we then started to back up without turning our backs on it and got too about 50 feet away when it stood up and turned and looked right at us, it was at least 7 to 8 feet tall, I'm 6'4" and I weigh about 260 pounds and it was much taller than me. It was covered in dark thick fur similar to bear fur, it's face was for the most part furry as well with just a bit of black leathery skin on it's forehead and cheeks showing through, It's eyes were horrifying, we both thought it was going to kill us. Neither of us could move, we didn't want to turn our backs and run because we were sure it would chase us and catch us in seconds. Then suddenly it grabbed it's dead meal off the ground and turned away from us and ran off into the brush inn the opposite direction, needless to say we turned as ran as well straight back to our canoes and I think the hair on my head was still standing when we got back too civilization and went to a coffee shop to talk about it and try to calm ourselves down. We passed a policeman on our way out of the coffee shop but we both agreed not to mention it to anyone, we both have good jobs and families and don’t want to be looked at as loonies. Anyway, I'll never forget that day and I know I’ll never go into the woods again. At least not in B.C.
