In May of 2010, a lady contacted me and invited me to visit Faro, to discuss an encounter with a group of Sasquatch she and her husband had experienced while checking their trapline along the Magundy River, in February.
The Magundy River is located south of Faro, across the Robert Campbell Highway. Its source is from the area of Fox Mountain and flows westerly into Little Salmon Lake, which empties into the Little Salmon River, then into the Yukon River at the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation community of Little Salmon.
Both witnesses were from the Ross River Dena Council and had been living in Faro since they had married, a few years prior to this encounter. They were both employed by a mining exploration company, working full-time in the summer and trapping in the winter.
I managed to get to Faro in July 2010 to conduct an interview, followed by an investigation. They met me at my campsite, set up at Johnson Lake and told me their story, as follows:
They had taken off from their Faro home, early that cold mid-February morning, while it was still dark, each operating a snow machine and pulling a sleigh. They were off to check their trapline, as they had done weekly that winter. The trip would take the whole day, covering some 100 kilometres, first moving in a westerly direction from their trailhead by the Robert Campbell Highway, which they had cut a few years before, then mostly following the Magundy River Valley. They would end up in an area close to Little Salmon Lake, then moving north to head back home late at night. Traps were set-up at various distances according to their prey’s habitat areas.
They had arrived at the Magundy River Canyon at about noon that day, with a poor harvest, having noticed that many traps were no longer set, yet empty. They had set them the week before … odd, they thought. They had not noticed any animal tracks, as it had snowed a few times since their last visit.
They were planning to have some lunch on the west side of the canyon, where there was a wind-covered area. The canyon was about four metres wide, with water flowing under the ice and covered with snow.
Upon approaching the canyon, however, they were greeted by extremely loud and scary yells, with shrieking, guttural sounds coming from atop both sides of the canyon walls.
They had stopped by now, really confused and seriously scared. This had not happened to them during previous trips and continuing seemed futile—possibly dangerous—so they decided to turn around.
Not an easy task, two snow machines with a sleigh—little room to manoeuvre. They were at it for a good 10 minutes and the entire time they were subjected to these yells, screams, shrieks and, to make matter worse, small logs and pieces of wooden debris were now being thrown at them by three or four tall, ambulating entities from atop the canyon walls—all that stuff landing close to them, yet, not hitting them.
Finally, they managed to turn around and took off as fast as they could, only stopping to remove their traps along the way, making it home by late evening, safe and sound but shaking from their experience.
The following day, they discussed what had happened to them with family members and friends, all of whom were of the opinion that they had come upon a family group of Sasquatch, hunting or possibly residing in the area of the canyon.
Later on, thinking about the situation and further discussing it, they figured the Sasquatch group had simply been helping themselves to the animals that were caught in their traps, an easy and relatively plentiful source of food. This would confirm why many of the traps located on the east side of the canyon were found empty, yet closed, as they had noticed when they were travelling their trapline that morning.
The couple never returned to the area of Magundy Canyon. They decided to set up another trapline in a more friendly location, farther east of their original trapping area.
I did not visit the Magundy River Canyon, as the only summer access would have been by helicopter, which was not in my budget.
