At the tip of the Kenai Peninsula in Port Chatham Bay, sixteen miles south of Seldovia, sits the mysterious ghost town of Portlock, Alaska. What happened in Portlock in 1949 to cause the residents to flee the village?
Portlock was named after Captain Nathaniel Portlock of the Royal Navy, who landed on the Kenai Peninsula in 1787. The protected waters of Port Chatham Bay and the abundance of salmon in the area provided the perfect place for a village and a cannery. In 1900, an American company bought a fleet of fishing boats and built a salmon cannery in the area, and soon, Portlock began to grow. In addition to the cannery, Portlock also provided a home for workers at the nearby chromite mine, and it hosted a boarding school for children living on the Kenai Peninsula. A U.S. Post Office opened in Portlock in 1921.
The town of Portlock thrived until the early 1930s when dark rumors about the village spread across the Kenai Peninsula. In 1931, villagers found the body of logger Andrew Kamluck. Someone or something had smashed Kamluck’s skull by hitting him over the head with a piece of heavy log moving equipment. The murder weapon was so big and heavy, villagers doubted a man could lift it, and they wondered what beast killed Kamluck.
Although the murder of Andrew Kamluck frightened the townspeople, his death was not enough to make them leave Portlock. Then, a gold miner went up into the mountains near Portlock and never returned. Villager Tom Larsen ventured into the forest to chop wood for his fish traps and saw something large and hairy on the beach. Larsen ran home to grab his rifle, but when he returned, the large, hairy beast stared at him, and Larsen froze, unable to shoot it.
The Alutiiq villagers called the creature Nantiinaq, which translates half-man, half-beast, and many stories identify the beast as “Hairy Man.” According to one account, hunters from the village were tracking a moose when they noticed manlike footprints measuring more than 18 inches in length. They soon realized the beast with the big feet was chasing the same moose they were following. They reached an area of matted-down grass where an apparent struggle had recently occurred. Beyond the grass, the large footprints continued up into the mountains, and the hunters knew the beast killed their moose and was carrying it back to his lair.
Another group of hunters from Portlock climbed up into the mountains to hunt Dall sheep and bear, and they never returned. A river swept some of their mutilated remains down into the lagoon, and after examining them, villagers did not believe a bear caused their fatal wounds.
The residents of Portlock grew tired of living in fear, and in 1948, they decided it was time to leave. They packed their belongings and moved up the coast to Port Graham or other nearby villages. Most vowed never to return to Portlock.
The 1930s and early 1940s were not the first nor the last time people encountered something evil in the woods near Portlock. In 1905, all the cannery workers suddenly left the area because of something they saw in the forest. They returned to the cannery the following year. In 1968, nearly twenty years after villagers fled, a goat hunter claimed he was chased by a creature while hunting near Portlock. In 1973, three hunters camped near the village to wait out a three-day storm, and they said each night, something circled their tent on what sounded like only two feet.
Perhaps one of the most telling tales to illustrate the fear the villagers of Portlock felt occurred in 1990. Paramedics responded to a call of a man having a heart attack in the state jail in Eagle River. After the paramedics stabilized the 70-year-old Native man, one asked the man where he was from. The man told him he came from Port Graham, and the paramedic said he once went hunting on the south end of the Kenai Peninsula. The elderly man sat up and grabbed the paramedic by the front of his shirt and asked, “Did it bother you?” “Did you see it?” The paramedic said he did not see it and asked the old man if he ever saw it. The old man said, “No, but my brother seen it. It chased him.”
Many who believe in Big Foot or Sasquatch consider Big Foot and Hairy Man to be one and the same, but Big Foot is described as retiring and shy, while Hairy Man accounts report him as threatening and murderous.
Humans have reported many other Hairy Man encounters in Alaska. In 1920, a Hairy Man attacked Albert Petka, who lived in Nulato, Alaska, near the Yukon River. Petka’s dogs chased the beast away, but Petka died from his wounds.
In 1943, in Ruby, Alaska, another village bordering the Yukon, a Hairy Man attacked John Mire, and his dogs also scared away the beast. Mire made it to his boat and traveled to the nearest village, but he died from internal injuries soon after telling his story.
Many other tales of frightening encounters with Hairy Man exist, but is there a monster or monsters roaming Alaska’s forests, or can Hairy Man sightings be attributed to a large bear? If Hairy Man is real, I hope I never run into him.
