Tree Breaks, Etc., be careful in interpreting Options

[littlefoot]

On May 21, 2004 "straight-line winds" hit Berrien County, Michigan right around lunchtime. I was in the cafeteria at work in our corporate complex just on the other side of the highway from the shores of Lake Michigan. The winds came straight out of the west. The wind speeds were estimated by the local weather service to have been between 97 and 105mph. Between our cafeteria window & the bluff there were a few trees in a tiny woods between the Administrative Center & the building I was in. The lake bluff was about 300 yards to the west of us. It was basically flat land between there & us, with no wind break in between.

The skies suddenly turned dark & the wind really picked up. The wind quickly increased & the sky turned black. It seemed like a HUGE dark, windy eclipse. The sky was literally a boiling black cauldron of clouds, and the rain came. Along the west side of our building there are mostly huge glass windows (approximately 6 wide x 10 - 12 feet tall. The cafeteria was part of a wall of windows to the west. We had to brace the patio doors to our outdoor patio from blasting open. The windows started to shudder from the the pressure of the winds. It was both awesome & spellbinding (for lack of a better word--except for stupid!!!!!)!! I watched as huge trees were pushed out of the ground, roots & all. Others were snapped in half in clean breaks. Some were broken & twisted in half. I really was oblivious to the danger until the windows started to pulsate! We later learned that a similar row of windows was shattered from the storm at the Ad Center, a hundred yards to the west & south of us. We evacuated to the basement and were there for over two hours before the corporation began releasing us, one building at a time.

Trees that were 3 to 4 feet in diameter & 100 foot tall along Highway M-63 were entirely uprooted. Others were snapped like matchsticks. Power lines were down all over the roads. In Saint Joseph, Michigan along a high bluff, large trees were down, too. I was afraid of what awaited me when I finally got home. The east/west road to my home is lined by huge old oaks & maples. I figured the road would be impassable. I live just 2 blocks from the lake. It must have been a wind tunnel.

I was quite surprised by what I saw on my way home. There were plenty of detours & delays on the way. All the huge overturned trees, and groups of smaller trees snapped and twisted... What surprised me most was that although the wind had come across the lake, and appeared to us to be a solid wall of wind, was in fact not that at all. Oh, it was devastating, but not universally so.

The damage appeared to be "hit-or-miss". Uprooted/snapped at the base or half-way up/twisted trees--it was all there, but there were areas where there was nothing, just a few leaves on the ground. Perhaps there were one or 2 trees out of a whole stand of trees that were down. That radically changed my view on what could be natural damage versus what MUST be caused by a bigfoot. I realized that nature can do some pretty strange things. I photographed some of the damage I saw. Now when I'm somewhere & I think I see something I might be able to attribute to a bigfoot, I think twice. Could this twisted tree have another more natural explanation? It's pause for reflection. Until this event, I'd walk the woods & fields looking for any sign. Now I'm more discriminating.

Oh, except for some fairly large branches down, and no power for a couple of days, the area where I live was spared this time.

:edit: because I'm me and can't seem to leave things as they are...

This post has been edited by littlefoot: Oct 30 2005, 11:42 PM

[billgreen2005big...]

hi littlefoot wow definetly a very interesting post about tree breaks looking forward on seeing you post the photos in this thread please. thanks bill

[walkingcarpet]

Welcome home, littlefoot. Excellent post.

[littlefoot]

Bill, do you really want to see the pictures? Didn't think about it since it's not really bigfoot related, but I can do that tomorrow morning. Hope no one else minds...

[billgreen2005big...]

littlefoot yes please post the tree breaks photos in this thread tommarrow if you want too you never know a sasquatch might have broken the trees becouse the storm was comeing. please keep us posted of future sasquatch activity etc in michigan. happy halloween bill

[StacyInMI]

Nice job Littlefoot... here in Michigan, if you're out in the woods, you see tree breaks--even twisted ones--all over the place. EVERYWHERE you look. That people claim these as bigfoot sign (especially when an antlered deer can twist and take down a 3-4 inch diamater tree, and something tells me we just may have a few more deer than bigfoot in the woods) just amazes me sometimes.

[sojourner]

I am firmly convinced some tree breaks can be reasonably determined to be of an unusual origin and are possibly of bigfoot-related significance and therefore are worth serious examination and consideration.

Throughout Colorado and New Mexico, I have found very many unusual tree-breaks in areas of recent sightings reports. In a much, much greater frequency than I ever find generally everywhere else.

Of course many and most broken trees are naturally occuring. That's why they may be such a perfect means of communication. For the most part, they are entirely invisible unless you are paying particular attention to them. I've seen many elk and deer rubs and the damage they can do. I've seen whole glades of aspens snapped off by avalanches. Heavy, wet snows in fall or spring break trees all over the place all the time. It generally is not that difficult to identify any of these sources most of the time. I have never seen the deer or elk that will so frequently break pines of 3-5" diameter consistently, the vast majority of the time, at a height of 7-8 feet. Occasionally, I do see one of these in isolated examples anywhere, but not all the time everywhere, not at all. Sometimes, their frequency is unusual and noteworthy. I posted a couple pictures awhile ago. After a few dozen, remarkably similar, I've mostly stopped taking pictures of them, although I did take a few more pictures of a few more a few weeks ago...

I don't understand why some people insist on negating the very reasonable possibilities, in my opinion, that some tree breaks may in fact be territorial or directional or communicative signs of some sort. Do you really think that is so unreasonably romantic?

When in the middle of dense forest, where walking through requires constant turning because the trees are so thick, to come across big sturdy trees snapped over at the top of my reach, some still green, pointing uphill, coincidentally up a narrow draw or canyon, or pointing up along a ridge top, and then further in that direction you see another or several more, immediately surrounded by undamaged trees,
or in that dense growth you see two trees at 90 degree angles broken over, practically threaded between the other trees with the tops intertwined,
or when you can actually see a large indistinct rub mark a foot or two above the break,
sometimes they really can make you say "Hmm..." and they just might be worth a closer look,
or not, if you insist...

I've also seen apparent game trails with aspen trees brought done from opposite sides, tops woven together intertwined and still growing, effectively blocking the trail a few hundred yards above a campground that sure seemed likely to deny the explanation of random natural occurences. Sometimes, it really looks like something did it intentionally. That might be true. But of course it is possible that it was nothing. But you'll not convince me that all of these are nothing.

All this to say,
sure, be skeptical and inquisitive and investigative, and attempt to rule them out,
but I think it might be a real mistake to automatically disregard tree-breaks without adequate consideration.

[mr. sceptical]

Golly, in Florida we've got tons of broken and twisted trees, limbs, bushes and such. They are mostly due to the recent rash of lovely tropical storms and hurricanes...

[utahdude]

I don't understand why some people insist on negating the very reasonable possibilities, in my opinion, that some tree breaks may in fact be territorial or directional or communicative signs of some sort.

Because, while it may be a possibility, I don't think it is a "very reasonable" possibility. For the sake of reason, I think there should be, at the very least, reliable reports of observed tree breaking, bending, or weaving by bf's. Then there's also the problem of our perception of how they would perceive the meaning of such activity, if such activity really does exist. I think that "reason" on any level would require at least some logical basis to justify the possibility of this proposed acitivity.

This post has been edited by utahdude: Oct 31 2005, 03:34 PM

[Hairy Man]

There is a huge difference between 20-30 trees in an area being downed, twisted, or broken by winds and a single isolated tree, newly broken for no apparent reason. The same for trees broken by snow, snow plows, etc.

There is never a blanket explanation for every tree damaged out in nature. What is important is context...what else is around this tree? Is it an old or new break? If new, check the weather for the last week...what were the conditions? Bears use large trees to scratch their backs...is this a large tree? Deer and elk do use trees to get the fuzzy stuff (technical term) off their horns...is there fuzzy stuff on the tree? Does the tree looked rubbed?

I've shown a Ph.D. silviculturist broken trees in the woods...the kinds with the tops broken and twisted. He did not have an explanation for it. It wasn't snow, wasn't wind, and wasn't human. He showed me snow broken trees and how trees break in nature. It was an excellent lesson.

I have also call blasted and found a tree break the next morning (in fact, bent around another tree) that wasn't there the night before. I believe that something breaks trees on occasion for some reason. What? I don't know. Why? I don't know. But I know enough that wind/snow/bubba driving drunk cannot explain them all.

[Melissa]

There is a huge difference between 20-30 trees in an area being downed, twisted, or broken by winds and a single isolated tree, newly broken for no apparent reason. The same for trees broken by snow, snow plows, etc.

There is never a blanket explanation for every tree damaged out in nature. What is important is context...what else is around this tree? Is it an old or new break? If new, check the weather for the last week...what were the conditions? Bears use large trees to scratch their backs...is this a large tree? Deer and elk do use trees to get the fuzzy stuff (technical term) off their horns...is there fuzzy stuff on the tree? Does the tree looked rubbed?

I've shown a Ph.D. silviculturist broken trees in the woods...the kinds with the tops broken and twisted. He did not have an explanation for it. It wasn't snow, wasn't wind, and wasn't human. He showed me snow broken trees and how trees break in nature. It was an excellent lesson.

I have also call blasted and found a tree break the next morning (in fact, bent around another tree) that wasn't there the night before. I believe that something breaks trees on occasion for some reason. What? I don't know. Why? I don't know. But I know enough that wind/snow/bubba driving drunk cannot explain them all.

Quote from Hairy Man:

"There is never a blanket explanation for every tree damaged out in nature. What is important is context...what else is around this tree? Is it an old or new break? If new, check the weather for the last week...what were the conditions? Bears use large trees to scratch their backs...is this a large tree? Deer and elk do use trees to get the fuzzy stuff (technical term) off their horns...is there fuzzy stuff on the tree? Does the tree looked rubbed?"
__________________________________________________________________

I completely agree with that.

Does anyone know how fast wind would have to move to "twist" some of these trees and/or limbs, like we have seen in some of these pictures?

[littlefoot]

Oh, boy! I didn't think I was poking a stick in a hornet's nest! All I did was cruise the newest posts in the last few days.. Someone referred to tree breaks & it reminded me about the big wind storm we'd had last year in Myay 2004 here in Berrien County, Michigan. I thought about it & had some pictures of what I KNEW were causes by wind (actually saw trees being blown over), and thought, well, maybe someone else would be interested. I figured it would be a great frame of reference for someone who didn't have a whole lot of experience out in the field (not that I do, but I was absolutely sure how this damage had occurred).

The swarm has begun. Not my intent. I'll do the best I can. I went to work that day. It was a nice day. The trees were standing there. Then just before noon, everything changed. It seemed like a total eclipse--got so dark it was almost, but not quite as night. Then the winds & rain. I saw trees uprooted/broken in two/blown over.

My pictures in no way encompass the entire scope of the damage. They were taken the day after, when cleanup had already begun. There were huge trees uprooted about a mile from where I worked. I simply couldn't get pictures of them because the street was two lane, it was the only way in or out of there, power was out, and the county workers just didn't want me there. Here's what I did get in the corporate complex, in St. joseph, and in Stevensville, Michigan.

Attached image(s)

 

[ridge runner]

Hairy Man, the fuzzy stuff is called velvet.

[jimf]

Questions. Can anyone tell me the first time that a tree break or formation became a serious consideration in relation to bigfoot research and why? What was the source? The answer may suprise you and cause serious reconsideration of it.

[Hairy Man]

Oh, boy! I didn't think I was poking a stick in a hornet's nest!  All I did was cruise the newest posts in the last few days.. Someone referred to tree breaks & it reminded me about the big wind storm we'd had last year in Myay 2004 here in Berrien County, Michigan.  I thought about it & had some pictures of what I KNEW were causes by wind (actually saw trees being blown over), and thought, well, maybe someone else would be interested.  I figured it would be a great frame of reference for someone who didn't have a whole lot of experience out in the field (not that I do, but I was absolutely sure how this damage had occurred). 

The swarm has begun.  Not my intent.  I'll do the best I can.  I went to work that day.  It was a nice day.  The trees were standing there.  Then just before noon, everything changed.  It seemed like a total eclipse--got so dark it was almost, but not quite as night.  Then the winds & rain.  I saw trees uprooted/broken in two/blown over. 

My pictures in no way encompass the entire scope of the damage.  They were taken the day after, when cleanup had already begun.  There were huge trees uprooted about a mile from where I worked.  I simply couldn't get pictures of them because the street was two lane, it was the only way in or out of there, power was out, and the county workers just didn't want me there.  Here's what I did get in the corporate complex, in St. joseph, and in Stevensville, Michigan.

littlefoot - you didn't start any problems! no worries! Post the pictures of the trees that you saw blow down...but that's what you are talking about, uprooted trees? Uprooted trees aren't associated with bigfoot activity, that I am aware of anyway.

This post has been edited by Hairy Man: Oct 31 2005, 09:09 PM

[Hairy Man]

Questions. Can anyone tell me the first time that a tree break or formation became a serious consideration in relation to bigfoot research and why? What was the source? The answer may suprise you and cause serious reconsideration of it.

The very first time? Ever? I have no idea. Is that in a book somewhere? You're not asking me to actually look something up, are you?

What do you mean by "formation"? If you mean "tee-pee" sticks, then no, I don't consider that to be bigfoot related; if you mean "nest", then yes, I do consider that it is very possible that nests are made and occupied by a North American ape (just like others in our primate family).

[jimf]

Basically the first time any kind of stick break or formation came into play. which I may be wrong ,but its the earlier i can find that it was mentioned or alluded to. Everything else i've found comes after that.

[Titus]

Questions. Can anyone tell me the first time that a tree break or formation became a serious consideration in relation to bigfoot research and why? What was the source? The answer may suprise you and cause serious reconsideration of it.

I've often wondered where that came from too. The first I ever heard about it was from the Southern folk on some old MB's many moons ago.

Personally, I pretty much discount most of that. Growing up in snow country, there's just way too many other possibilities for "bows" or formations.

Have seen some sapling tree breaks that I cannot explain. I do wonder about the breaks in the tops of green saplings.

Didn't ol' Chuck Hallmark once have a pic showing about a million tree bows in some state park and thought that there must've been about a thousand BF in there to make all those bows?? Seems like I remember something like that and he was trying to figure out how to set camera traps in there....

[littlefoot]

Here are the pictures I took last year. THEY ARE ALL NATURALLY OCCURRING AND IN NO WAY INFER THAT A BIGFOOT WAS IN ANYWAY INVOLVED. I wanted to make that perfectly clear before I post the pictures. I'm offering them to the board so that you all can see the random selection of the trees blown over or snapped off.

It doesn't always make sense. Some of the trees are large, some not. Different kinds of trees... Different kinds of soil. All different. One tree make have been blown over, and one next to it not. I wondered why. It probably has to do with the type of tree, width & depth of the roots, and the spread of the branches above ground, general health of the tree...etc. I'm not a botanist.

One thing I know for sure is that the cause of the damage was definitely weather related. Although on a larger scale, it's something to consider when noticing a break or snap or bow of a branch out in the woods that could be possibly be attributed to bigfoot. I simply found this interesting.

Attached image(s)

 

[Hairy Man]

Bows are definately made by snow! The silviculturist showed me how it happens.

I did a quick check of my resources and Krantz talks about twisted trees in his book Big Footprints (1992) page 169. Bingernagel also discusses tree breaks, shaking, etc. and nests in his book North America's Great Ape...The Sasquatch (1998) pages 69, 73, 76, 99, 179, 215 etc.

Both of those reference sightings of these from the 1960s and 1970s...so those reports would be the earliest that I can find.

[littlefoot]

Hang in there, I'm trying..very,very trying...

[littlefoot]

Okay...figured out that I don't know how to post multiple photos. And, in fact, the first picture that I didn't think was going to post only came up half-way. I'm tired & going to bed. Tomorrow I'll figure it out & try again.

Anyway, it really doesn't make much difference. I was just trying to offer photos of things that occurred naturally as opposed to tree damage that was questionable & could remotely be attributed to bigfoot. Seemed really interesting to me.

I actually saw this storm develop, saw a couple of the trees blown over before we headed for shelter in the basement. It's a phenomena a lot of people never get to see! I would have been scared shi$#@@ if I had been anywhere other than in the building I was in. It's built like a fortress except for the large glass windows in the front half. We used to joke that a tornado could go through the back parking lot & we wouldn't even know it.

Well, it happened. We noticed it because it was lunchtime and it was, all of a sudden, mushrooming right in front of us. If it had happened an hour before or after, we would have heard the tornado alarm & thought it was a drill because most of the lab area has no windows.

I'll try again with the photos tomorrow, whether you're interested or not. They're not from bigfoot ,but they're definitely a weather phenomenon. Maybe it will come in handy for somebody around here someday.

[littlefoot]

:surrender: :doh: :edit:

Will I ever learn???

This post has been edited by littlefoot: Oct 31 2005, 11:56 PM

[Hairy Man]

My wonderful husband found the earliest written reference to tree breaks so far:

John Green, Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, page 336 (emphasis mine).

Fianally, there is a story published in Sports Afield in 1956, in which the writer, Russell Annabel, tells of an Indian being carried off, presumably for dinner, by "Gilyuk, the shaggy cannibal giant sometimes called The-Big-Man-With-The-Little-Hat."  The Indians knew that Gilyuk was around because they had seen his sign, a birch sapling about four inches through that had been twitsted into shreds as a man might twist a match stick.  The scene is set on the Nelchina Plateau, south of Tyone Lake, sometime about the 1940s.

John said that this story was published in 1956 from an event that happened in the 1940s.

The tribe he is referring to are the Nelchina Plateau Indian Tribe.

This post has been edited by Hairy Man: Nov 1 2005, 10:37 AM

[Melissa]

Hairy Man - I have a question

Would I be correct to think,, a Tree "twist" would be something not usually caused by an animal simply rubbing against a tree or a smaller sapling? When I have seen pictures of this -- it looks to me like that is something that would be done intentionally, while a broken tree twig or smaller tree could be almost anything (depending on the sourrounding area and all other pieces of evidence taken into consideration of course).

But, to me a "Twist" almost seems to be something that would have to be done on purpose -- am I right to think that? Does anyone know if this is done to one specific type of tree - or is it seen on just about any kind of tree?

Just curious Trying to educate myself Thanks

[jimf]

My wonderful husband found the earliest written reference to tree breaks so far:

John Green, Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, page 336 (emphasis mine).



John said that this story was published in 1956 from an event that happened in the 1940s.

The tribe he is referring to are the Nelchina Plateau Indian Tribe.

Cool. Earliest I could find was the 1978 film. Sasquatch : The legend of bigfoot.

Course I don't have a copy of "Apes" ( is there a jealousy smilie around here?)

[RogerKni]

Here's a borderline account (a stick twist):

He [Jacko] possesses extraordinary strength, as he will take hold of a stick and break it by wrenching or twisting it, which no man living could break in the same way.

[Hairy Man]

Hairy Man - I have a question

Would I be correct to think,, a Tree "twist" would be something not usually caused by an animal simply rubbing against a tree or a smaller sapling? When I have seen pictures of this -- it looks to me like that is something that would be done intentionally, while a broken tree twig or smaller tree could be almost anything (depending on the sourrounding area and all other pieces of evidence taken into consideration of course).

But, to me a "Twist" almost seems to be something that would have to be done on purpose -- am I right to think that? Does anyone know if this is done to one specific type of tree - or is it seen on just about any kind of tree?

Just curious Trying to educate myself Thanks

Correct. The ones that I have documented in the Lake Tahoe area were all twisted in the same direction. There were about 20 or so in about a 5-mile location, all twisted at the top, with the top left on the north side of the tree. Why? I don't know.

RB and I actually found a tree that had just been twisted (maybe just an hour ahead of us…the sap was free flowing, etc. in the summer...no wind or snow). At first, we were very intimidated...the breaker seemed very tall until we noted that the tree was slightly bent. Clearly, someone/thing had reached up, pulled the tree down toward them, twisted the top, and let it go. The break appeared to have been caused by someone/thing 10 feet tall, when a 6-footer could have done it. Bluff? Maybe.

I have been in the Forest Service going on 15 years (17 years professional arch in the woods though). I have never noted these trees in the general forest area (except here and there). The only concentrations I have ever seen have been near road, near areas where human recreate. I have always felt that these could be territorial markers left in areas of where humans are causing pressure on bigfoot populations...but that's just a hypothesis.

Clearly though, this type of behavior has been noted since pre-EuroAmerican times. Native Americans appear to have noted it, and I will see what else I can find.

jimf wrote:

Course I don't have a copy of "Apes" ( is there a jealousy smilie around here?)

I'd have a little talk with Santa, if I were you!

[Melissa]

Thank you for answering my question

I wonder - because you brought it up ( flowing sap from a branch you found ) but, I read somewhere - that Apes, pull apart branches, old logs etc looking for bugs of somekind that they eat..

Could this twisting of the branch - for what they could get out of the branch? I read in your response one branch you found twisted - had sap coming from it, could this be a reason as to why the branch is twisted and not broken off? Would it be easier to get sap from the branch by twisting it - as opposed to breaking the entire branch off? Is my question making sense? LMAO.

I too am hypothesizing - but I find it interesting you mentioned sap from one twig you found.

[Bushman]

The following was originally printed in John Green?s Agassiz-Harrison newspaper The Advance. It is quoted from page 128 of Roger Patterson and Christopher Murphy's excellent new book, The Bigfoot Film Controversy:

How powerful are these giants? A group of Indians came upon a small canyon in British Columbia, and were petrified when they saw a huge hairy giant and a large brown bear in an ear-shattering battle. It was a long, hard fight, but the giant finally strangled the big bear to death!
In 1963, I read a very interesting story that was published in Sports Afield Magazine, entitled "Long Hunter-Alaskan Style" by Russell Annabel. The story is about Tex Cobb, a mountain man who spent years trapping in Canada and Alaska. The last half of the article reported:
The Denna Indian people liked him, Tex Cobb. No sentiment was wasted on either side, but he and the tribesmen had a live-and-let-live understanding that was rare in those days. He stayed off their trap lines, and they stayed off his. If an Indian had salmon net in an eddy, Tex found another eddy, and vice versa. Due to the fact that the Indians trusted him, we became involved one autumn with what would be called, I suppose, an abominable snowman. I have since heard and read a great deal about the abominable snowman. I have seen photographs of those tracks in the snow on a Tibetan mountain, and to me they are simply the tracks of a man with gunnysacking or some other cloth wrapped around his feet for protection from the cold, climbing slewfooted because the slope was steep and he had no crampons. But when I was a youngster roaming the North with Tex, we had never heard much about Gilyuk, the shaggy cannibal giant sometimes called The-Big-Man-with-The-Little-Hat.
Our adventure with Gilyuk occurred while we were camped in a pretty spruce park on Yellowjacket Creek, south of Tyone Lake. We had spent the entire summer on this mountain-girt Nelchina Plateau, wandering and looking for fur sign. Maybe we were. He always had to have an excuse for enjoying the country, a commercial excuse if he could think of one. Anyway, it was now late September, the beautiful time, no mosquitoes, the land ablaze with color, the fish and the meat animals summer-fat, the caribou horde gathering, and we were footloose and free as perhaps men can never be again. This morning Tex was making coffee, and I was down at the creek cleaning a mess of grayling for breakfast, when six Indians filed in through the timber. They stood a moment solemnly regarding our four horses. To them a horse was a rarity, a mysterious animal. They called them McKinley moose, because Mckinley was the only president they had ever heard of, and the horses were as big as moose. I followed them to camp.
"Have you eaten?" Tex asked them in Denna.
They said they had eaten. Chief Stickman was with them. I had seen him once before, at Eklutna Village. A squat, square-faced man, very dark, with long hair and quick-moving obsidian eyes, he was the Denna boss of the entire area, and his reputation was bad. But now he had trouble that he couldn't handle. He told us about it, balancing himself with the moccasined sole of the free foot against the knee of the supporting leg. I don't know whether it was a bad habit or a medicine trick to ward off evil spirts, or both, but it was disconcerting. He had come into this area two days ago, he said, with some of his people to kill and cache caribou for winter use. But they discovered that Gilyuk, the shaggy giant, was hanging around. They had found sign yesterday. And of course everybody knew that Gilyuk wasn't interested in caribou. Gilyuk ate men.
"What kind of sign?" Tex asked.
"We will take you to see it," Stickman said. "It is not far."
After breakfast we followed the Indians upstream a couple of miles to a burned flat on which a nurse crop of aspen and birch had grown. In the center of the flat stood a ruined birch sapling. It had been about four inches through and maybe ten feet tall. Something had twisted the sapling as a man would twist a match stick. The wood had separated into individual fibers, the bark hung in tatters. Stickman and his hunters stood back, while Tex and I looked the site over. Moose often ride a sapling down to get at the tender upper twigs. So do caribou. But no moose or caribou had done this. This had been done by something with hands. It had happened yesterday, because the leaves of the sapling had not yet completely wilted. It wasn't the work of lightning-no burns. A freak whirlwind hadn't done it, because trees and brush a few yards distant were undamaged. The hard ground showed no tracks. We found no snagged hair in the brush. Absolutely nothing except the incredibly twisted birch sapling. It was without question the eeriest sight I ever beheld in the wilds.
Stickman said, "It is Gilyuk's mark. We have seen it before."
I wish to make clear that to the Denna people Gilyuk was no legendary creature their grandfathers had told them about. He was reality, and they spoke of him as they spoke of the bears and wolves. They saw his sign, and they saw him. He was a shaggy giant who wore a little hat and ate men. "We want to ask you to camp with us until we have killed our caribou," Stickman said. "Gilyuk doesn't molest white men. Perhaps he will not molest us if you are in camp." Stickman had already told us that he bivouacked on the shore of a pothole lake two hours to the eastward.
Tex said all right, we would move to his camp in the morning. As he spoke, he was still looking at the twisted sapling, his green eyes narrowed in thought. I couldn't take my gaze off it either.
Stickman said, "Thanks Kosaki," a strange word of respect, held over from the old Russian Cossack, and we parted company with the Indians.
Next morning I brought the horses in at daybreak. We ate, broke camp and were putting on the packs, when here came the Indians, all of them?all, that is, except Stickman. An old man told us that they were returning to their town on Tyone Lake. Stickman was dead, he said. Gilyuk had taken him. The chief had got up in the night and gone down to the lake, perhaps for water, but nobody knew. A squaw with a birch-bark torch found his red flannel underwear on the gravel beach. It had been torn off him. There may have been tracks, but the entire hunting party had swarmed over the beach, and by daylight no tracker on earth could have made sense of the jumble.
Well, until the day of his own death last July, while on a sentimental journey to a fateful spot in Cook Inlet, Tex was convinced that the cannibal giant Gilyuk killed Stickman. When asked if he believed in the existence of abominable snowmen, Tex would reply that he didn?t think there were any around Alaska nowadays, but that they had existed, at least one of them, a couple of decades back. This is good enough for me. I go along with it.

Bushman

[Hairy Man]

In the center of the flat stood a ruined birch sapling. It had been about four inches through and maybe ten feet tall. Something had twisted the sapling as a man would twist a match stick. The wood had separated into individual fibers, the bark hung in tatters. Stickman and his hunters stood back, while Tex and I looked the site over. Moose often ride a sapling down to get at the tender upper twigs. So do caribou. But no moose or caribou had done this. This had been done by something with hands. It had happened yesterday, because the leaves of the sapling had not yet completely wilted. It wasn't the work of lightning-no burns. A freak whirlwind hadn't done it, because trees and brush a few yards distant were undamaged. The hard ground showed no tracks. We found no snagged hair in the brush. Absolutely nothing except the incredibly twisted birch sapling. It was without question the eeriest sight I ever beheld in the wilds.
Stickman said, "It is Gilyuk's mark. We have seen it before."
I wish to make clear that to the Denna people Gilyuk was no legendary creature their grandfathers had told them about. He was reality, and they spoke of him as they spoke of the bears and wolves. They saw his sign, and they saw him. He was a shaggy giant who wore a little hat and ate men.

AWESOME!!! I have no idea why he wears a little hat. That is unlike any other Native story that I have heard so far.

[Hairy Man]

Thank you for answering my question

I wonder - because you brought it up ( flowing sap from a branch you found ) but, I read somewhere - that Apes, pull apart branches, old logs etc looking for bugs of somekind that they eat..

Could this twisting of the branch - for what they could get out of the branch? I read in your response one branch you found twisted - had sap coming from it, could this be a reason as to why the branch is twisted and not broken off? Would it be easier to get sap from the branch by twisting it - as opposed to breaking the entire branch off? Is my question making sense? LMAO.

I too am hypothesizing - but I find it interesting you mentioned sap from one twig you found.

I'm not an expert on that, but I believe insects worthy of collecting would live in dead and downed logs (on the ground, where you can push them over and get lots of yummy, gooey, protein-filled grubs). The twists that I have seen (and it's probably going on 100 or so), it's just wood...sappy wood...but just wood splintered like a matchstick. There's no evidence of bugs or anything. If sap was their goal, I'd break a branch closer to the ground. But I'd be a lazy bigfoot too....

[Melissa]

Thank you for answering my question

I wonder - because you brought it up ( flowing sap from a branch you found ) but, I read somewhere - that Apes, pull apart branches, old logs etc looking for bugs of somekind that they eat..

Could this twisting of the branch - for what they could get out of the branch? I read in your response one branch you found twisted - had sap coming from it, could this be a reason as to why the branch is twisted and not broken off? Would it be easier to get sap from the branch by twisting it - as opposed to breaking the entire branch off? Is my question making sense? LMAO.

I too am hypothesizing - but I find it interesting you mentioned sap from one twig you found.

I'm not an expert on that, but I believe insects worthy of collecting would live in dead and downed logs (on the ground, where you can push them over and get lots of yummy, gooey, protein-filled grubs). The twists that I have seen (and it's probably going on 100 or so), it's just wood...sappy wood...but just wood splintered like a matchstick. There's no evidence of bugs or anything. If sap was their goal, I'd break a branch closer to the ground. But I'd be a lazy bigfoot too....

LMAO - me too probably Living the life of "Bigfoot" would be pretty tough on me.. lmao
___________________________________________________________________

Quote: Hairy Man

"If sap was their goal, I'd break a branch closer to the ground."

____________________________________________________________________

Good point -- forgot about the height some of these are found at..

At this point your theory on it being possibly territory - is the most logical I have read... Bears usually scratch high up in trees to mark their territory - so, it wouldnt be a stretch to consider this tree twisting a territory marker..

Thank you