This Bigfoot Ambushed a Logging Crew. A Mystery Tale – Sasquatch Story

For forty years, the only name written on my hard hat was Red. Now, at sixty-five, I walk with a limp that forecasts the weather better than the local news. My life has been spent in the timber industry, working the high lead shows on the steep, rain-soaked slopes of Vancouver Island. They call us timber beasts or stump jumpers—the men who go where machines can’t, dragging cables through Devil’s Club and Salal, felling trees that were saplings when the Vikings were building longships.

I’ve seen the woods try to kill us in a thousand ways. But until the autumn of 1999, I never saw the forest fight back with strategy and anger.

I tell this story now because I’m dying. The doctors found spots on my lungs—sawdust and diesel finally collecting their debt. I don’t have to worry about the company blacklisting me anymore. I want the truth on the record. Bigfoot is real. They are out there. And on one rainy Tuesday in November, I didn’t hunt one—I worked with one.

The Green Gullet

The job was a heli show deep in the Nootka Sound. The terrain was too steep for roads, too gnarly for skidders. We felled timber by hand, and a heavy-lift helicopter—a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane—flew the logs out one by one. It’s the most expensive, dangerous way to log, but the timber in the Green Gullet was worth it: ancient western red cedar, trees ten, twelve feet in diameter, destined for mansions and lodges half a world away.

I was the bullbucker—the foreman of the felling crew. Four men under me: Miller and Stumpy, two seasoned sawyers, and two greenhorns who looked like they’d never held a chainsaw heavier than a lunchbox. The weather was relentless. Rain turned the ground to a slurry of mud and slate. We were soaked before we even left the crummy, our transport truck at the bottom of the landing.

We hiked two miles to the face, targeting a grove of cedars clinging to a rocky shelf halfway up the mountain. In the center stood the monarch—fifteen feet across at the butt, bark hanging in strips, the top dead and broken, but the trunk solid. I put my hand on its bark. It felt cold, hard—like stone.

I had a bad feeling. Not mystical—just the instinct of a logger. Trees that big, on slopes that steep, are full of tension or rot. When you make the back cut, they can explode in a barber chair, splitting and kicking out before you can blink.

Bringing Down the Monarch

We marked the face cut and started in with double saws, two men cutting from opposite sides. Sawdust piled up like orange snow. By noon, we were ready for the back cut—the moment of truth. Once you start, gravity takes over.

“Clear the area!” I shouted, voice ragged. The greenhorns scrambled uphill, Miller and Stumpy to the flanks. I dug my boots into the log, braced against the saw, and pulled the trigger. The chain bit in, the engine screamed. The cut opened up.

I watched for the lift. The tree started to tip, but too fast. Usually, a giant like this moves in slow motion, groaning. The monarch didn’t groan—it popped. Crack! Boom! The sound was like a cannon. The holding wood inside was rotten. The hinge snapped. “Run!” I screamed, diving backward. The tree twisted, barber chairing violently. A slab kicked out, missing me by inches.

The trunk crashed through the canopy, destroying smaller trees, hitting the ground with a force that shook the mountain. Mud and water geysered into the air. Silence followed. The crew stared at the fallen giant—a massive dark wall of wood, blocking the ravine below.

The Scream in the Mist

I climbed onto the trunk, inspecting for cracks. That’s when I heard it—not a bear, not a cougar. It was a scream, human but impossibly deep and loud, echoing off the canyon walls, silencing the rain. Rage radiated from it like heat.

A rock the size of a basketball sailed out of the mist, smashing into the engine block of the crew truck fifty yards away. Crunch. Steam hissed from the radiator. “Incoming!” Miller yelled. “Take cover!”

The treeline exploded with motion. Three figures charged out of the hemlocks, moving on two legs with impossible speed. Massive, covered in wet, dark hair. They screamed, tore up small trees, hurled stones and branches. It was an ambush.

“Bear!” Stumpy yelled, grabbing his axe. “That ain’t no bear!” I shouted, sliding down the cedar for cover. The truck was being destroyed—rocks through the windshield, doors caved in. The creatures stayed on the ridge, pelting us, pinning us down.

I peeked over the log. The lead creature stood at least nine feet tall, shaking a fir tree, roaring. Its face was a mask of fury, teeth bared, eyes wide and rimmed white. This wasn’t territorial—it was a killbox.

“They’re flanking us!” Miller screamed. Another shape moved through the brush, cutting off escape. Panic broke the greenhorns—they ran, scrambling into the ravine. Miller and Stumpy followed. I was alone, crouched behind the cedar, heart pounding.

The Encounter

I had a chainsaw, an axe, and a radio. I grabbed the radio. “Mayday, mayday. Crew 7 under attack. Large predators. Send the bird. Send the heli.” Static. The canyon blocked the signal.

The bombing stopped. The screaming stopped. Silence, heavier than the rain. I heard footsteps—heavy, wet, slapping mud. Something walked along the fallen tree toward me.

I gripped my axe, heart hammering. I stood up, raised the axe. “Come on, then!” I roared.

The creature stepped into view atop the log. The alpha male. Up close, he was terrifying—musk, wet dog, rotting skunk cabbage. He towered over me, chest heaving. He didn’t attack. He looked at me, then down at his feet, then at the sky. He pantomimed a lifting motion—hooking hands under an imaginary weight, pulling up, grunting.

Confusion warred with terror. He pointed at the log, at the sky, then under the log. He let out a whimper—a desperate, keening sound. I stepped closer, trembling. The cedar had crashed onto a rocky depression, a hollow hidden by ferns. I looked under the trunk. There, pinned in the mud, was a hand—a small, hairy hand, twitching.

The attack wasn’t an ambush. The rocks weren’t meant to kill us—they were meant to stop us from leaving. They were trying to get our attention. The giant’s eyes pleaded, stripped of aggression. He wanted me to lift the tree.

I looked at the log—50,000 pounds. I looked at the giant. He couldn’t lift it. I couldn’t lift it. But I knew what could.

The Bargain

I pointed to the radio, then the high ridge. “No signal,” I said. “I need to go up.” The bull tilted his head, understood. He grunted, turned, and walked beside me—an escort, not a threat.

The other two creatures, a female and a younger male, emerged. The female went straight to the log, crouched by the trapped hand, making soft, cooing sounds heartbreakingly human. She tried to lift the log herself, back straining, feet slipping, but 50,000 pounds didn’t budge.

I climbed the ridge, the bull matching my pace, gliding over the terrain. At the top, I tried the radio again. “Skycrane 1, this is Ali. Do you copy? Over.” Crackle, then Jenkins, the pilot: “Omali, this is Skycrane. We heard a Mayday. What is your status?”

If I told the truth—standing next to a Sasquatch, needing a lift for a juvenile—the fleet would be grounded, a SWAT team sent. I lied.

“Negative on sheriff. We have a man down. Pinned by a log. Critical. Need immediate extraction.” Jenkins didn’t panic. “We’re ten mics out. Weather’s garbage. Can you rig the load?”

“I can rig it. Come in hot. He’s fading.” “Inbound. Mark the zone.”

I looked at the bull. He watched me, tracking my lips. Help was coming. Ten minutes, I said, holding up fingers.

The Wait

Ten minutes stretched into twenty, then thirty. The rain returned, turning the cut block into a sliding slurry. The temperature dropped. I worried about crush syndrome—if you lift a weight pinning a limb too long, toxins flood the heart.

The juvenile—“the kid”—was fading. His hand, cold to the touch. The mother huddled over him, shivering. The bull stood guard, eyes fixed on the road.

I ran to the crummy, found hydraulic bottle jacks, a chainsaw wrench, a first aid kit. Back at the log, the bull watched, a low growl in his throat. “Easy,” I whispered. “Tools.”

I dug a shelf under the trunk, braced the jack against granite. Pumped the handle. The jack hissed, bit into the bark. Not strong enough to lift, but enough to hold. Set the second jack. The mother watched, eyes wide, intelligent. She touched the steel ram, let out a soft exhale.

“I got him,” I said. “I won’t let it drop.”

The radio crackled. “Red, you copy?” Miller. “We’re at the landing. Got rifles. Coming up.” My blood ran cold.

“Negative, Miller! Stay put. Area’s hot.” “We aren’t leaving you to get eaten, boss. We’re coming in shooting.” “Miller, listen! It’s a rescue op. Chopper inbound. If you come with guns, you’ll spook them and I’m dead. Stand down.”

“We’re rolling. ETA five minutes.”

The bull heard the voice, recognized aggression. He stood tall, bristling. He wouldn’t run. He’d fight. If a firefight started, the kid was doomed. The pilot wouldn’t land in a hot zone.

The Stand-Off

I made a choice. I walked to the logging road, fifty yards downhill—a choke point through rock. I stood there, planting my feet.

The truck engine grew louder. Miller’s pickup roared around the bend, tires spinning. Stumpy in the passenger seat, rifle out the window.

I raised the axe. “Stop!” Miller slammed the brakes, truck skidding. “Red, get in! Where are they?” “Put the gun down, Stumpy!” I stepped forward, grabbed the rifle barrel, forced it down.

“There is no attack. Look at me. Am I bleeding? Am I dead?” Stumpy looked confused. “But the rocks, the screaming—”

“They were scared,” I said. “We dropped a tree on their kid. They wanted us to stop.”

“A kid?” Miller laughed, high and hysterical. “They’re monsters, Red. Animals.”

“They’re people,” I said, the words strange but true. “Right now, grieving parents. I have a skycrane coming. If you fire, if you start a war, that helicopter waves off and the kid dies. If the kid dies, the big male tears this truck apart with you inside.”

The bull stepped out of the shadows, illuminated by headlights. Not a bear rearing up—this was a king defending his castle.

“What do you want us to do?” Miller whispered.

“Go back to the landing. Wait for the sheriff. Tell him it was a logging accident. I’m supervising a medevac. Don’t mention Bigfoot. If you do, the circus comes to town and we never work here again.”

Miller nodded, put the truck in reverse. “You’re a crazy son of a—” “Go.”

I watched them back down the road, tail lights vanishing. The bull hadn’t moved. He nodded—a sharp dip of the chin. Deal acknowledged.

The Rescue

Back at the log, the rain was turning to sleet. The mother shivered, hypothermia setting in. I took off my rain slicker, draped it over her shoulders. She pulled it tight, looked at me.

The sound came—thump, thump, thump—the heartbeat of the S-64 Skycrane. “He made it,” I whispered. I grabbed the radio.

“Skycrane, I hear you. Visual poor. I have flares.”

“Pop the flares, Omali. Flying on instruments. Need a target.”

I cracked a road flare, red phosphorus hissing to life. The Sasquatch recoiled from the harsh light, shielding their eyes.

“It’s okay!” I yelled. “It’s the beacon.”

The helicopter descended out of the clouds, downwash whipping the sleet. The bull dragged the mother back into the timber, watching.

I hooked the chokers to the long line, felt the static shock, the power of the machine. “Up on the load!” The cable went tight. The log groaned, mud sucked. Disaster—the log shifted, didn’t lift straight. The base was heavier. The log pivoted, rolled.

“Stop! Down! Down!” If it rolled, it would crush the kid’s head. Jenkins slackened the line. The log settled back, a sickening thud. The kid screamed—a high, human sound of agony.

“It’s off-balance,” Jenkins radioed. “Center of gravity too far back. If I pull, it rolls.”

We needed counterweight. I looked at the bull. He saw the problem, heard his child scream. He ran—not away, but toward the log, into the rotor wash, into the red flare light. He jumped onto the trunk.

“What is that?” Jenkins yelled. “Red, there’s a bear on the load.”

“It’s not a bear,” I screamed. “Lift it! He’s the counterweight.”

The bull braced his legs, adding 800 pounds of leverage. He roared at the helicopter, defying the machine.

“Lift it, Jenkins, now!”

The turbine screamed, cable went tight. With the bull on the end, the log stayed flat, broke the suction, rose into the air. Mud dripped from its underside. The bull rode the log, balancing with impossible grace.

“Clear!” I yelled. “The kid is clear!”

The mother darted in, grabbed the juvenile—limp, broken, but free. She dragged him back into the brush.

“Set it down!” Jenkins lowered the log. The bull leaped off, rolling in the mud, springing to his feet. He looked at the helicopter, then at me, raised both arms—not a threat, but a victory.

“Cable away,” Jenkins said, voice shaking. “Red, what the hell did I just see?”

“You saw a timber beast,” I said, collapsing in the mud. “Just a timber beast.”

The Aftermath

The silence returned. The bull walked over. The mother held her child. The kid was moving—he’d make it. The bull reached into his chest fur, pulled out a pine cone, fossilized and heavy. He placed it gently in my hand—a trade, a life for a stone.

He turned and walked away, fading into the mist with his family.

I sat there for a long time, holding the stone pine cone. I knew then I couldn’t go back to logging—not like before. These trees weren’t just lumber. They were the walls of a house I had no right to destroy.

I quit the next day.

Legacy

I never spoke of what happened at the Green Gullet. The crew kept silent. Miller and Stumpy drifted away, the greenhorns never returned. The company wrote off the damaged equipment, blamed the weather.

I kept the stone pine cone on my desk. Sometimes I’d take it out, turn it over in my hand, remembering the bargain struck in rain and mud.

I still walk the forests, slower now, my limp telling me when the weather will change. I listen to the wind in the trees, the distant call of a raven. I watch the shadows move through the canopy, knowing some secrets belong to the woods.

Bigfoot is real. But the truth is bigger than any name. The forest holds its own stories, and sometimes, if you listen closely, it lets you in on one.