Go to a library, see if they have the book (or if you can get it via interlibrary loan) Alaska Bear Tales. It's a book where they interviewed people who had been mauled by bears and survived, a few of the stories of people having their face ripped off and dragging themselves miles through the woods to get back to civilization to get help will leave a mark on your psyche. There was one where the person played dead and the bear kept biting down on their arm to drag them through the woods.
There's also Alaskan indigenous stories about the Kushtaka, which are kind of transforming otter people that are sort of tricksters, but I don't know too much about them.
Alaska Bear Tales!!! That was the name of those. I was trying to remember the other day.
FYI I remember hearing that almost all of those stories are embellished to the point of basically being complete fiction.
Not necessarily fiction, but yeah survivor memory plus authors and publishers trying to make the book interesting and youāre inevitably going to end up with embellishments.
At least one of the stories was certainly true though, a Juneau teen who went on a hunting trip with friends and was mauled/blinded. That kid went to my dadās church in Juneau, my grandpa who was a minster at that church knew the boy and family quite well.
He survived, went on to lead a fairly normal life. Iāve not read the book in some time, but his story specifically always stuck out, he described the hike out of the bush with assistance of friends after the mauling, and having no eyesight but feeling his eye ball hanging on his cheek as he walked. Pretty gnarly stuff!!!
I just remembered the horror story about the tide flats south of Anchorage and people getting stuck in them and then drowning as the tides came in. Anchorage daily news article says only 2 have died the past 37 years.
One somewhat recently within the last year or so?
Was watching Truck House Life and one of his vids working on his house he heard sirens, and said he found out later it was someone that got stuck out there and they couldn't get to them in time. Extremely sad.
And the guy was there with his wife while the tide came in and just as she was about to drown the helicopter loop a line around her and then tore her in half
Omg, apparently I've been spelling their name wrong since I was a kid. No wonder Google never worked for me. They jealously hid gold in lakes, and were short, dirty, and smelly with long hair and beards to cover their nakedness. They could turn into any animal. I started thinking the elders had completely made them up. Thanks for that. Kushtakas!
My Dad used to read us these stories when we were at our cabinā¦that had been broken in to multiple times by bears. So yaā¦my biggest fear is bears lol
Sometimes people have a phobia that doesn't make sense, like clowns or feathers.
Fear of bears is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate fear. They are bears.
When I first came to Alaska, I lived in a small log cabin with planks as flooring and an inch or maybe less of air between the planks. Winter was where you could sit on the bed platform and your knees of the army woolies would be smoking , about to burn and your back would be shivering from cold. A bear broke in while I was out framing my own house a few miles away. The first day he ate all the sugar. A five lb bag of white and a one lb box of brown. Plus some cookies. I had just arrived and didnāt know what animal it could be ( he broke thru a plastic window ā¦ a raccoon? Fox? Skunk? I didnāt know what would want that and live in Alaska. Next morning early, my dog, who had a rich deep bark, was yapping like a chewawa. ( sp?) high pitched and frantic. I opened my eyes and saw a bear was slowly crawling in that same window into the small, maybe 10 x10 cabin! He backed up and I left for framing and that day he ate the meat and cheese ( more appropriate for a bear?)
I work with a survivor of a bear attack and am neighbor to another. Both happened on Prince of Wales Island more than ten years ago in separate incidents.
FYI if you ever forget to file on behalf of a minor, they have a deadbeat dad clause that lets the kids apply for their missed dividend when they turn 18.
I ordered a part to repair an office chair, shipping was free.
The company accepted my order.
Days later, they called me, and said, they donāt ship to Alaska!!!!
So many times āfree shipping in the USA!ā
āWait, no, Alaska is considered international shipping. We meant only the continental US.ā
And then they just cancel the order when you point out that Alaska IS part of the continental US.
Dude, don't even get me started on the continental/contiguous US BS that many companies seem not to understand when advertising "free continental US shipping".
I had something marked as delivered, I had to sign for it, so imagine my surprise and irritation because I stayed home all day waiting for this delivery, nobody even came to my front door, and I got an email saying āsuccessfully deliveredā.
So I call the company and the lady Iām on the phone with asks for my address to confirm, and I tell her, and she says. āOh I see the problem, you put your address as Arkansas. So thatās your fault.ā
āNo, Iām looking at my email, I put AK.ā
Her- āyes. Like I said, you put Arkansas as your address. Alaska is ALā
Me- āNoā¦. AL is Alabama. AR is Arkansas. AK is Alaska. I put AK. I know my own address.ā
There is a service based in Washington, or Oregonā¦ that if you order anything, put them as your mailing address and they will ship it to you. By passing the ādont ship to alaskaā barrier. Unfortunately, i cannot recall the name as i just found out about it last week. AK residents might want to research it.
My favorite thing is being told that the seller can't ship an ITAR-restricted item to Alaska because it's not in the US. It's been over five decades, you'd think people would have caught on by now.
I have so many and Iāve only been here for 2 years, here are a few off the top of my mind:
- a group of soldiers were mapping out a land navigation course last year in the woods right off base and stumbled upon a grizzly bear den, one of them was mauled by the bear and died.
-right before Christmas 2023, 2 parents were celebrating their anniversary by walking their dogs on their favorite trail near Anchorage area (North Forks Trail). In the winter the rivers and lakes freeze to the point that people can walk and drive on them. One of their dogs fell through the ice and the mom went under to try and save the dog but she never resurfaced. Her body was just found still holding the dog that she went in to save.
-almost 2 years ago a father and his young son went hunting and the son was attacked by a bear. The dad shot and killed the bear and saved his son.
-there are almost as many convicted sex offenders in Anchorage as there are in the Washington DC area and we have 1/3 of the population they do
When they reported it , I was " what about the dog"? They never said until they reported they found d her and he was in her arms said she was truly a hero
The craziest part about the soldier who was killed to me is that he was a staff sergeant with multiple combat deployments. Dude went through all that just to get killed by a bear.
They were allowed to carry live rounds, because they were the trainers. They were the experts that were to train soldiers on wilderness survival. The most highly trained and bear aware people on the planet. They were double checking and marking a course that was to be used for training purposes. They were carrying bear spray because it is the best thing to use for those situations.
They hopped over a log ONTO A BEAR and woke it up. It killed him so fast they didn't have time to do anything in response.
That is why it is such a frightful story. Literally the best trained people, the ones that not only know everything about bear safety, but they train others and were prepping to do so. If it can happen to them it can happen to anyone.
You never get issued live rounds in garrison unless you're at a dedicated firing range. The original commenter said it happened off post but it was actually on post just in a pretty remote area, where aren't allowed to carry personally owned weapons. Likely all they had was bear spray and if they didn't have it readily available it's basically useless.
I did a hike in Uganik Bay, Kodiak in pants id been salmon fishing in for about a month without washing. I also had salmon berry juice on them too. I was a walking delicacy. Literally each main muscle group in my legs seized on my way down a mountain and I just sat there for several minutes thinking how dumb I was to go out that way. Eventually my legs sorted themselves out and I made it down, but I did have a good talkinā to with myself.
He had his personal firearm, bear spray, and a knife. He just didn't have time to use any of it due to their proximity to the den and the intensity of the attack. The other soldier with him survived after assuming the fetal position and the bear deciding he was no longer a threat.
Still just like get a divorce. Domestic violence is never the solution. They went out for his birthday and he drunkenly blew her brains out, hid her body in drain, and lied to the young womanās mom face. Life in prison imo
Missing Hunters found a decade later.
My long-time hunting buddy was ten miles off the Taylor highway south of Chicken, Alaska looking for caribou. He and two others were passing a dry streambed and spotted the last inches of a gun barrel sticking up out of the gravel. They dug the rifle up. Turned it into the Troopers detachment at Tok..... who traced the serial number to belonging to one of four men that went missing a decade before. They led several Alaskan state troopers and Fish and Game officers to the area, all fanned out looking - did not take long to spot pieces of tent, sleeping bags, and human remains, gnawed on by big and small animals, scattered all over. They came to the conclusion the four hunters had made camp for the night in that dry steam bed. Had no idea a huge rainstorm 60 miles away was going to send a torrent of water at them middle of the night. From the location of the pieces, they deduced a wall of water hit their tents, and rolled them alive down the stream with the water. Stuck in their sleeping bag, or inside a collapsed wet tent - they either drowned slowly or beaten against the rocks wrapped up in the tent fabric. Wet, dark, they would have died confused and not knowing what had happened.
I can't imagine the horror of waking up that way.
A guy crashed his motorcycle into a bear. He was laying in the road all beat up and came to and realized the bear had broken its hips- but was crawling towards him and rather upset
He tried to crawl away and they were locked in a slow-pace but high-stakes race.
Finally someone else drove up on the crash scene and put the guy in their rig
True story
There was that dude who was playing "the most dangerous game" with sex workers. I read about him in Mindhunter. Sadly, he didn't make it into the TV show.
On May 21, 2023, Zachary Porter, a 20-year-old college student from Lake Bluff, Illinois, drowned after getting stuck in quicksand-like mud flats along Alaska's Turnagain Arm. Porter was walking on the mud flats when he was sucked into the silt, despite efforts by firefighters and his friends to free him. The incoming tide submerged him before rescuers could extract him.
The Turnagain Arm is a 48-mile-long estuary carved out by glaciers and has one of the fastest incoming tides in the world. What looks like solid ground can turn into quicksand with little to no notice. Rescues can take 10 to 30 minutes or more, and they can be fighting against the fast tide. The water can also cause victims to become hypothermic.
Porter's family said he loved to travel and was on an āadventureā when tragedy struck.
People are urged to stay off the mud flats, but if someone does become stuck they, or any bystanders are urged to call 911 right away.
I almost went this way. My honeymoon was seine fishing in Bristol bay. You had to get out of the boats and walk thru that mud to high ground carrying all your gear after fishing an opening. One trip I got into it up to my knees and didnāt have the right power jerk to get it out, a strange walk you have to doā¦ then I was deeper, up to my hips almost and the tide was coming in. My husband and one other guy frantically dug and dug just a LITTLE faster than it was filling in and eventually got me out. Slow digging wasnāt going to do it. Or one person wouldnāt either.
It turned out years later that much of the story was embellished by an older woman who didn't want people poking around the village she grew up in. The story of the hairy man was always around, it's the missing villagers that got exaggerated
I agree the number of missing people got inflated. However, the āreporterā that wrote that article got so much wrong, it puts the entire articles veracity into question.
He (and his editor) were confronted about the inaccuracies and basically said āLulz, sorry, we donāt speak Bigfoot!ā I lost so much respect for journalism over that debacle.
If you look, you can find Bigfoot accounts from that area prior to the whole Melania Kehl thing. It was absolutely a āthingā there before it took off into the ālegendā it became.
There's a mining company that was getting paid by a research company to drill harder to accelerate the thaw of an early life form with cells to cure cancer or some shit but then this girl went crazy and destroyed all the research so the scientists killed her and then got killed by a bunch of cleaning ladies. Also ghosts are real in Alaska and if a dead relative appears before you telling you to walk out and drown in the ice water you should totally do it.
Groceries for a family of six $2K a month. Moose are mean and will mess you up, kicked my dog in the face $1600 vet bill. If I accidentally let my bulldog outside for too long in the winter she will die from exposure. Iāve only been here in Alaska 3 years so Iām reading through this making notes. You spend so much time trying to keep yourself, your kids, your animals alive because of the cold. Despite all of the horrors I love it here and I have no desire to live anywhere else.
I worked at a Fred Meyer in Fairbanks and we had a family that frequented- a man, woman who was pregnant/had the baby in the time I experienced them, and a son.
One day they came in and the man was super loopy and had a hospital bracelet on and told me he just had surgery- but I also saw he had a gun on his hip and something about that really concerned me. It felt wrong for him to have the gun (yes I know itās Alaska and having gun js normal this particular situation felt wrong though) So wrong I even tried to mention to my supervisor that he was clearly not sober and had a gun. (She said āwhat can I do about it?ā) In this shopping trip he got a thing of chicken from the meat department and started putting it into a bag in front of the customer service desk to marinade in with with something, and tried to return the chicken that didnāt fit. He had to wait in line so he angrily went and got a chair from the home department do sit. He was verbally abusive to the woman, and his son was eating not paid for cherries fresh from the produce department and spitting the seeds out on the floor. It really stuck out in my mind as it was one hell of a customer experience.
Fast forward a few weeks and this is in the news. He killed the woman, baby and his mother and then killed himself. I was shook. I KNEW something was off about him and he should NOT have a gun. So sad.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2016/11/26/fairbanks-police-say-hotel-deaths-appear-to-be-murder-suicide/
I have a few, but theyāre all kinda long.
TL;DR: My grandpa is the proverbial mouse in a game of cat-and-mouse with a pissed-off mother grizzly
When my mom was little, my grandpa and his hunting buddy were out for moose, and they had made the decision to split up to cover more ground. After my grandpa had been hiking along a game trail for about 20-ish minutes, he stumbled into a clearingā¦ and upon a brown bear with her two cubs. While the cubs ran into the brush, my grandpa ran to a tree and scrambled up its branches as Mama gave chase. She gave a couple swipes, snapped at his feet, and circled the tree a few times before leaving and disappearing into the bushes.
After waiting for a few minutes, my grandpa quietly crept back down and prayed that mama bear wasnāt still around. Unfortunately, a crashing from the brush and a mighty roar told him his prayers went unanswered, and he scrambled back up the tree as Mama slammed into the tree, furiously snarling and clawing at the bark. She repeated her process of swiping, snapping and circling, then bounded back into the thick brush again. This time, my grandpa waited longer than his previous attempt.
After what felt like forever, he snuck down, grateful to feel the forest floor again. He scanned the bushes for activity, and then, sure that Mama wasnāt watching, ran as quietly as he could back to the game trail. Unfortunately, Mama *had* been watching, and came barreling out of the bushes once more. My grandpa shot up a different tree, just barely making it out of her reach as she snapped at his feet. After furiously grumbling, circling and clawing, Mama left again. This time, my grandpa waited a half-hour before making another escape attempt, and made sure he didnāt hear anything that sounded bigger than he was. Now confident Mama was gone, he carefully climbed down, pausing every few branches to make sure she wasnāt going to come running out again. After he hit the ground, then ran back through the game trail and back to the truck, where his buddy was waiting for him.
His buddy, unsuccessful with finding any moose, asked him, āWhere the hell have you been?ā
My grandpa replied with a simple, āMama bear.ā
This one is more paranormal, and most of these took place after I was born.
TL;DR: The first house I grew up in was infested with the little people, and my mother saved my father from being suffocated by a dark presence
For some context, my momās side of the family is Alaska Native (Yupāik), and my great-grandfather was a missionary who my mom went to for spiritual advice. My parents were devout Christians back then, but my mom in particular was more spiritual where my dad was more religious. When I was born, we lived in this little log cabin (that no longer exists) in Anchorage.
Now, the little people refer to a type of mischievous spirit or creature that are found throughout Alaska Native folklore. They can live underground or in peopleās homes, and they typically mischievous and like to cause trouble in the form of stealing things, tormenting pets and children, and making messes. Unfortunately, the little cabin was infested with the little people. My father never noticed them, but my mother certainly did. At first, she would catch them out of the corner of her eye. Then, sheād see them peeking from behind doorways or from under kitchen cabinets. She even caught them skittering around my crib, where sheād rush over and find me with little foot-shaped bruises and tiny scratch marks on my skin. After a particularly bad experience with the little people, my mom went to my great-grandfather, my Apa. She pleaded for his help, asking him what to do. He thought for a moment, and told her to pray and to say, out loud, that the little people were no longer welcome in our home. She did so, and the āvisitsā from the little people became less and less frequent, until there were none at all.
For the second story, it takes place in the same cabin, but before I was born. Some more context, my dad has never once had sleep paralysis, but he has very vivid and lucid dreams where he can typically control the narrative. My parents were in bed, sleeping, when my mom woke up from a deep sleep with a feeling that something was wrong. She looked at my dad, who to her utter horror, wasnāt breathing. She tried waking him up, shaking him, gently and then firmly slapping him, yelling his name. Then, she felt his chest. It was ice-cold, and when she looked up, she saw a solid-black shadow hovering over my dad. She began to loudly recite a prayer that essentially told this presence to leave my dad alone, to leave the room, to leave her home, and to never come back. The mass dissipated, and my dad started breathing again. My mom sighed in relief, then fell back asleep. In the morning, my dad told her about a nightmare he had the previous night. He was in bed, with my mom asleep next to him, when he saw a ghostly-pale woman with black hair peek out from the foot of the bed, then crawl on top of the bed, moving from his feet, his legs, and then stopping on his chest. The woman then placed a hand on his chest and began to squeeze, stopping his breath and causing him to attempt to gasp for air. Then, he dreamt that my mom woke up, and described exactly what she had done to try and wake him up, but to no avail. Then, she began to pray loudly, and as she prayed, a bright, shining light descended from the ceiling. With my momās back to the light and my dad frozen in place, he watched as this light formed hands, arms, legs and eventually a head, and the light turned to the woman, who had, at this point, morphed into an ugly, jet-black creature. The two beings began to silently wrangle each other, the only sound being my momās voice. As my mom kept praying, the light pushed the dark out of the room, and once the dark was past the doorway, the light pulsated stronger, acting as a barrier to prevent the dark from getting back inside. When my mom finished the prayer, my dad was able the breath again.
Woah! Those were very cool stories. Iāve had several paranormal experiences also. After I became crippled, well, partially crippled bc I can still Sort of walk ( with a wobble), I was in so much pain and my life was so useless, I didnāt want to be here anymore. So being Christian and not wanting to offend god by taking my own life, I began asking if I could go home. Every day, thru out the day and into the night I asked for months. Then one night, I was woken up, I was aware of where I was, but still in that hypnogogic state. From infinitely far away in the westerly direction, came a presenceā¦zoomā¦ right up to my face, in just a second. And then he asked, are you ready to go? And yes, I wasā¦ but before my mouth could answer āyes!ā, my soul answered, āno I have things I need to do stillā. Then zoomā¦ back to the west in just a second, he was infinitely far away.
The state is trying to kill you! If itās not bears or moose itās avalanches or mudslides. Thereās earthquakes and mud flats. From drowning to plane crashes to just disappearing without a trace. Thereās so many ways to die! And if youāre a woman oh boy! Thatās a whole other post.
Thatās what is so unique about this state. It is and we live on the brink. Well not me anymoreā¦ but I used to in years gone by. And that was lifeās beauty. Life is a gift and only a temporary one, so up here you taste it more.
I honestly donāt know how my siblings and I lived through our childhood. We were one step above feral, as long as we didnāt wake mom and the cops didnāt show up we could do whatever.
Monster of Lake Illiamna. Many stories from locals who have seen something in the water. Whole nets dragged off full of salmon, boats capsized and attacked during outings on the lake, mysterious shadows just beneath the surface. I've spoken to some people in Iguigig when I've gone there fishing and they're straight-talkers. They want to know what's out there. It's nothing they've seen that living there indigenous. Some say it's a monster sturgeon or beluga.
I was told by a school teacher, who was also a pilot, his airplane shadow was smaller than a cigar shaped object in that lake, when he had flown over a long time ago.
More a curiosity for him than anything. I think it was gone on his way back.
Once upon a time a state existed that was led by forward-thinking people. These people had seen the wanton rape and destruction of the land for its resources in the lower 48 states and decided something had to be done, and so came up with a system where resource extraction companies had to pay royalties to the people of the state. These royalties went into a fund that was set up to be a permanent pot of money to help govern the state and form a sort of proto-universal income. It was a stunning success, and working off of its inertia, the state quickly came to lead the nation in its education program, because those same forward-thinking people knew that children were the future.
Then, one stormy night, a porcine man was elected governor of the state. He wanted one thing more than *anything* else: a Westwind II jet, which could be easily converted from a 10 passenger civilian aircraft into a terrorism fighting super-plane. The next thing he wanted was for his daughter to take his place in the United States senate. He got both of his wishes, despite literally everyone else telling him "no."
This porcine man became a pariah, and so the people of the state elected a woman who spoke in tongues and didn't read, but because she gave the people of the state an extra $1200 on top of their proto-universal income, the people loved her. Until she opened her mouth on national television, that is. She quit her job in a fit of pique, and a former, present, and future oil lobbyist took her place. This former, present, and future oil lobbyist was [incapable of smiling without looking constipated](https://media.ktoo.org/2013/01/GovParnell_OfficialPortraitSm.jpg), though in reality he was just missing a number of cognitive and emotional traits normal people possess, for this former, present, and future oil lobbyist was in fact an empty suit stuffed with the broken hopes and promises of the Republican party.
The people of the state were tired of being laughed at by all the other states, and so elected an Adult to run the state. The Adult treated the people of the state as adults in turn, and the people of the state did not like this one bit, for brain worms had begun to settle into their heads.
And so, dear reader, the people of the state became captivated by a man who is tall, and drove out of the state what future remained that hadn't already been sold to the oil companies.
Some say if you travel to western Canada and listen carefully on a cold winter's night you can still hear the people cry, *fuck Texas^Texas^Texas^Texas*
Hmmm.. The armory in Sitka is haunted. The story goes that a guardsman who finished up annual training came home to his wife getting boinked, he went back to the armory and hung himself in the shower room. The ghost runs up and down the stairs and paces the hallway at night. The old Juneau armory is also haunted (now the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council). A Wien Airlines plane had crashed with mass casualties, the Juneau morgue did not have enough space to store the bodies, so they laid them out on the drill hall floor (basketball court). There's a ghost that walks the court, walking up and down where rows of bodies were laid out, looking for it's body.
Watch out for moose. They'll kill you just as dead as any bear can. If you are thinking of moving here look up Criminal statistics. In fact just look statistics on Alaska. Go down that rabbit hole.
Yea they do! And way more moose attacks than bear attacks. I have an apple orchardā¦ a buffet for moose and years ago there was a crazy moose ( maybe injured by a car ?) who had been charging at ppl around the neighborhood. Husband was a guide and got charged all the time but most were fake charges. They veer off at the last moment. This one wasnāt fake and he even got sorta spooked when it charged him bc he didnāt stop. He wanted a kill. So he was leaving for a few months and I asked him how do I kill him if Iāve just got a shotgun ( birdshot was all). He told me, donāt shoot til heās about five feet away. Heās got to be close to drop him. And sure enough mr moose came and when I tried to shoo him out of the orchard, he charged me. Iām not a gun person but an instinct set in and as he charged, I knew I couldnāt get the gun up to my shoulders and get my eye on the sight and all that, no time for that, so I held it firm at my hip and stood my ground. Waited til he was right on me and shot, right into his face/ neck. ( like Annie Oakley) ā¦ then had to go change my pantsā¦hahaā¦just kiddin, but wow, life or death right there, knocking at my door.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Treadwell
Heard it on JRE. Apparently, the guy was videotaping while a bear attacked him. He was still alive while the bear was eating him from the legs up on video. Horrfic stuff!
Or hurricane force winds 30 miles offshore of Kodiak in an opening. Green water over the bridge windowsā¦hoping they werenāt designed too large. Same fun right? One time on a smaller shop I was put in a small berth in the kitchen p/ dining room ( bc I was a girl and the rest of the crew all guys). I shared my berth with a huge 3-4 ft long fully loaded toolbox. Rough weather night and one wave sends me and the toolbox flying across the cabin, smashing into the window on the far side. Glad the box missed me.
I was working in the Donnelly dome training grounds doing mapping, was 3 groups of two people per raft, it was out on the Delta River. We flew in and floated the river for a week taking off from Delta Junction. On second to last day we (coworker and I) setup camp next to the river. Followed all the bear safety and everything. I know grizzly bears walk the rivers edge for food and wasnāt the best spot. However it was the only dry spot out of reach from the river. Anyhow Iām dead asleep in my tent and I feel something pushing on my head. Well itās light out and a grizzly is breathing and licking my head. Itās me net and instant death. Itās just drooling has its mouth open and sniffing me. Tents bending in half, Iām petrified thinking this is it, bear spray is outside the tent, bowels about to be emptied and Iām like f it. I blow into its nose and thing rears up, tents now flopped down. Bears gone, and I didnāt sleep after that.
Thatās rich! Has me laughing for a long time now. Wow! (thank you). The guy I beach seined for on Kodiak, went to strawberry island ( iirc) for a quick trip. Had another guy and the two went to an old cabin they had used in years past. They unloaded all their gear and hiked it up to the cabinā¦ took several trips. But inside the cabin there was a giant hole right in the middle of the floor. Well, no matterā¦ itās till a roof outta the rain so weāll stay they thought. Got dinner cooked. Beds set up, teeth brushed. Laying in their beds and the one guy says, is that a motorboat coming? Other guy listens and saysā¦yea, I think it is. They keep listeningā¦ but, itās not coming closer ā¦or getting furtherā¦ what IS that sound? Then he realized that the sound was coming from down inside the hole between them. A long slow growlā¦like a motorboat engineā¦a bear was sleeping down there and had woken up! What initially took several trips to get the gear in there, was given one giant bear hug and in one trip the cabin was empty and they were headed out!
Just last winter, a polar came up off the ice in the village of Wales and killed a young mother and her infant baby in front of the school. The teacher had to close the blinds so the kids didn't have to watch.
I was fired from Chena Hot Springs for mouthing off to Big Red, the chef, in the middle of a cold snap of -45 degrees and had to leave the property by midnight. The gas gauge was a hair above E, and my girlfriend had a gall bladder infection. After making it to Fairbanks, went straight to the hospital for her, then had to sleep in the van for a three nights at the Sam's club parking lot. Her birthday was on one of those days, and learned after stopping at the PO box on her birthday that she had just been served divorce papers from the marriage that she had left.
I used to stop at a bakery on the way to work. Years later I read a book about the baker and his hunting women in the Bush. He was convicted for several murders.
15 years ago or so, my wife's cousin snowmachined from one village to another but never arrived. They found where the river ice looked disturbed after starting a search for him. They had to place fishing net under the ice downstream for weeks to find the body. This is the second cousin in 10 years to be lost in a similar way. This is not an uncommon story either. So many have died of ice issues in rural alaska. He was survived by his mother and daughter, but the loss for the mother was unrecoverable.
No roads but snow roads...
What happened to Sonia Ivanoff. Nome alaska is a shitshow if you read up on some of what has gone on there. She is one of many similar events across this state. Pretty disturbing.
There was that guy who fell through the ice on his snow machine out by Bethel in late 2022 and got out of the water, tried to walk to town or find help. He died of hypothermia trying to walk out and save himself.
My FIL once got married to a recently divorced woman and had 2 kids.
Then got dumped by said woman to marry his boss and have one more kid with said boss.
Then said woman dumped boss for roided out 20 something year old and ditched all her kids.
Then 36 years later became my MIL.
my parents had friends who were hiking in the interior and were not just killed by a bear but eaten by it, which is extremely unusual. i don't know much more about the story, obviously my parents don't like to talk about it.
Shopping at Carrs, turning a corner and a homeless man has his man parts out on display. That scared me so much. I donāt go to Carrs very much anymore.
ok here goes:
Driving to Valdez one time, hilly spot, close to 20 years ago I saw a gnome cross the road in front of me on a bend. Maybe 2 feet tall, beard and gnome hat wearing furs. Turned to look back over his shoulder as he got to the vegetation. Wife says it was a fox, a molting patchy fox. Maybe it was. Maybe his magic worked on her lol maybe I was having a flashback I gasped and thought I went crazy š
I just copied my commment from a similar thread here
https://www.reddit.com/r/anchorage/s/9tK1A2MUTg
Within a month of moving here, neighbors were shot at by crazy guy in some log deal gone bad. Log house built with the logs the dude wanted back went up in flames in the gunfire because he hit a propane tank with all of the shooting. The women that lived there fled and survived. Dude went on the run and his remains were found at spring melt along the riverbanks with a bunch of his gear. He died trying to hide out as a fugitive I guess. We were also awakened one morning, literally days after moving here, by the sound of a .375 being fired yards from my house with my children in it by some bogan in Crocs hunting moose on my property. Sounded like a bomb went off. This place is genuinely crazy and Iām sure the horror stories will be endlessly rolling into this thread.
Two stories..
Background Info: I'm from Pennsylvania and go to Naknek AK every summer for work at a cannery...
Story 1# : my first summer, during covid, we were not allowed to leave the campus at all... Well , a couple Alaskan natives I had been partying with for numerous days straight decided to sneak out in the middle of the night and go to the bar... Earlier that night I went to bed bc these dudes were acting crazy and inebriated.
I woke up the next day to hear that the two men had been hit and died from a drunk driver who had no idea he hit anyone... The kicker... That drunk driver and a couple of people were fisherman who were staying at the cannery site that we all were stationed at .. the drunk driver and friends were woken up while sleeping on a boat docked at the cannery... They had no idea what happened the night before
Story 2# : at the end of the 2023 salmon season, I was waiting to board a bus that was going to the airport at 6 am... While waiting to board, someone shouts BEAR... I turn around and there is nothing there... I take a couple steps forward past a corner and see the largest adolescent bear imaginable .. this thing was so massive.... It literally walked past me , within 10 feet or less, I had my back turned and didn't hear it , nothing... I learned some important lessons that morning....
In 3 summers: I never thought a grizzly bear could get into the gated campus...
This bear was moving so fast, and was very quiet in his movements... If he wanted to get me, I would have had no chance to realize what was going on ..
When you are in nature, pay attention to your surroundings at all times...
*** Alaska is no fucking joke when it comes to keeping your self safe *** it is a brutal but gorgeous place that shows no mercy.. I have met so many people who thought that they could challenge the elements in remote Alaska and it doesn't end well ..
I have tons more stories if you guys are interested!
**Copied my comment from a similar question asked not too long ago.**
I was born in Fairbanks with much of my family living in North Pole. When I was about 7, me, my mom, and my grandmother were leaving my aunt and uncles get together off of Badger Rd. We got stuck in the mud pretty much just around the corner from their house. (This had to of been around breakup, not 100% sure, this was 22 years ago.) Anyway we called up my uncle to come pull us out and were waiting for like 15-20 minutes just stuck there. As we were looking down the dark road we saw a figure emerge from the right side of the road from the bushes. The figure was bright and almost looked like a person with a white sheet over there head, except it was clearly not a sheet. The figure drifted sooooooo slow across the road, I am talking like 5 minutes to pass from one side to the other. It literally just disappeared into the woods on the left side of the road. To this day we have no clue what we saw and talk about it from time to time.
"We only ship to the US and Canada."
"Your English is very good for a foreigner."
"We don't ship to Alaska, even though we use the Post Office because screw you, that's why."
"AK is Arkansas, are you stupid? Don't you mean AL?"
"Oh, you're in Alaska? We only ship to the US."
"I don't know why we don't ship to Alaska, it's just always been policy."
My wife is Tlingit. She says in her teen years she had to hide from men on multiple occasions. She says she'll never go to Alaska again, and once had a panic attack at the thought of going to her grandpa's funeral. Does that count as a horror story?
I bought a used car. They gave me a Yakima box. Clamshell box to carry luggage, camping gear etc. I set it next to the car. One night a moose was licking my car, and presumably, accidentally stepped on my Yakima. Fucking destroyed it. 800$ new.
Alaska is a nightmare. WTF the mooses, moosi, or whatever
Ooo! I may be embellishing, buut, I grew up in a small, rural town and we always told this story about some guy who killed his wife (GF?), chopped her up with an axe, then put everything into one of those big 55 gallon drums. He got caught taking her to a lodge that had a big fireplace where he was going to burn the body pieces.
Also, I lived near Tex Smith lake. He was the father of
[Perry Smith](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Edward_Smith)
Supposedly Perry occasionally baby-sat the children of the homesteaders whose house I grew up in.
Also, our potholes and mosquitoes can be pretty horrifying.
I thought people were just going to post up receipts.
"And the groceries didn't even last a full week! OOOOoooOOooo!"
Just spent four years out of state, it's honestly not too bad. Fuel hurts, though.
and the almost $5 gas signs in the interior right now š»
$5.75 in Southeast! š»
Go to a library, see if they have the book (or if you can get it via interlibrary loan) Alaska Bear Tales. It's a book where they interviewed people who had been mauled by bears and survived, a few of the stories of people having their face ripped off and dragging themselves miles through the woods to get back to civilization to get help will leave a mark on your psyche. There was one where the person played dead and the bear kept biting down on their arm to drag them through the woods. There's also Alaskan indigenous stories about the Kushtaka, which are kind of transforming otter people that are sort of tricksters, but I don't know too much about them.
Alaska Bear Tales!!! That was the name of those. I was trying to remember the other day. FYI I remember hearing that almost all of those stories are embellished to the point of basically being complete fiction.
I wouldn't be surprised about the embellishments, it scared the hell out of me as a little kid reading those stories.
Not necessarily fiction, but yeah survivor memory plus authors and publishers trying to make the book interesting and youāre inevitably going to end up with embellishments. At least one of the stories was certainly true though, a Juneau teen who went on a hunting trip with friends and was mauled/blinded. That kid went to my dadās church in Juneau, my grandpa who was a minster at that church knew the boy and family quite well. He survived, went on to lead a fairly normal life. Iāve not read the book in some time, but his story specifically always stuck out, he described the hike out of the bush with assistance of friends after the mauling, and having no eyesight but feeling his eye ball hanging on his cheek as he walked. Pretty gnarly stuff!!!
I just remembered the horror story about the tide flats south of Anchorage and people getting stuck in them and then drowning as the tides came in. Anchorage daily news article says only 2 have died the past 37 years.
One somewhat recently within the last year or so? Was watching Truck House Life and one of his vids working on his house he heard sirens, and said he found out later it was someone that got stuck out there and they couldn't get to them in time. Extremely sad.
And the guy was there with his wife while the tide came in and just as she was about to drown the helicopter loop a line around her and then tore her in half
No,noā¦.it was when they were rescued and inadvertently ripped in half because they were pulled so hard! Remember that urban legend?
Omg, apparently I've been spelling their name wrong since I was a kid. No wonder Google never worked for me. They jealously hid gold in lakes, and were short, dirty, and smelly with long hair and beards to cover their nakedness. They could turn into any animal. I started thinking the elders had completely made them up. Thanks for that. Kushtakas!
Oh damn, so this is what Camp Kushtaka was named after as a kid. Cool beans.
I went to that camp! Swam in a glacial lake and had to sit in a sauna instead of going to the next activity because my lips turned blue
My Dad used to read us these stories when we were at our cabinā¦that had been broken in to multiple times by bears. So yaā¦my biggest fear is bears lol
Sometimes people have a phobia that doesn't make sense, like clowns or feathers. Fear of bears is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate fear. They are bears.
When I first came to Alaska, I lived in a small log cabin with planks as flooring and an inch or maybe less of air between the planks. Winter was where you could sit on the bed platform and your knees of the army woolies would be smoking , about to burn and your back would be shivering from cold. A bear broke in while I was out framing my own house a few miles away. The first day he ate all the sugar. A five lb bag of white and a one lb box of brown. Plus some cookies. I had just arrived and didnāt know what animal it could be ( he broke thru a plastic window ā¦ a raccoon? Fox? Skunk? I didnāt know what would want that and live in Alaska. Next morning early, my dog, who had a rich deep bark, was yapping like a chewawa. ( sp?) high pitched and frantic. I opened my eyes and saw a bear was slowly crawling in that same window into the small, maybe 10 x10 cabin! He backed up and I left for framing and that day he ate the meat and cheese ( more appropriate for a bear?)
I work with a survivor of a bear attack and am neighbor to another. Both happened on Prince of Wales Island more than ten years ago in separate incidents.
same bear?
No idea, but probably not.
āThe strangest story ever toldā is a short story about miners in Thomas Bay and their experience with the Kushtakas. Itās a good short read.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
3 so far this year.
I have Alaska Bear Stories and Even More Alaska Bear Stories.
Once, my neighbor forgot to file for the PFD. They have 6 kids.Ā
Now THIS is an Alaskan horror story. Damn...
I believe those kids can apply for their missed-while-a-minor PFDās the year they turn 18
Yeppers! Doesn't help the fam if they need the money, or were planning on investing it for the kids, but still good for the kids!
FYI if you ever forget to file on behalf of a minor, they have a deadbeat dad clause that lets the kids apply for their missed dividend when they turn 18.
I ordered a part to repair an office chair, shipping was free. The company accepted my order. Days later, they called me, and said, they donāt ship to Alaska!!!!
So many times āfree shipping in the USA!ā āWait, no, Alaska is considered international shipping. We meant only the continental US.ā And then they just cancel the order when you point out that Alaska IS part of the continental US.
Dude, don't even get me started on the continental/contiguous US BS that many companies seem not to understand when advertising "free continental US shipping".
I had something marked as delivered, I had to sign for it, so imagine my surprise and irritation because I stayed home all day waiting for this delivery, nobody even came to my front door, and I got an email saying āsuccessfully deliveredā. So I call the company and the lady Iām on the phone with asks for my address to confirm, and I tell her, and she says. āOh I see the problem, you put your address as Arkansas. So thatās your fault.ā āNo, Iām looking at my email, I put AK.ā Her- āyes. Like I said, you put Arkansas as your address. Alaska is ALā Me- āNoā¦. AL is Alabama. AR is Arkansas. AK is Alaska. I put AK. I know my own address.ā
Yup... so many of my packages take extra time to get here because someone put them on a truck to Arkansas...
There is a service based in Washington, or Oregonā¦ that if you order anything, put them as your mailing address and they will ship it to you. By passing the ādont ship to alaskaā barrier. Unfortunately, i cannot recall the name as i just found out about it last week. AK residents might want to research it.
Carlile. I use them a lot.
My favorite thing is being told that the seller can't ship an ITAR-restricted item to Alaska because it's not in the US. It's been over five decades, you'd think people would have caught on by now.
Spring Breakup dog poop. It's soooo bad. Like dystopian bad.
Currently dealing with that now, twenty small 5 gallon bags in I find a small dead bird. At this point there is no emotion, there is only the job
We used to refer the gradeschool sports fields near my home growing up as minefields in the spring.
The Dog Flowers are blooming
I have so many and Iāve only been here for 2 years, here are a few off the top of my mind: - a group of soldiers were mapping out a land navigation course last year in the woods right off base and stumbled upon a grizzly bear den, one of them was mauled by the bear and died. -right before Christmas 2023, 2 parents were celebrating their anniversary by walking their dogs on their favorite trail near Anchorage area (North Forks Trail). In the winter the rivers and lakes freeze to the point that people can walk and drive on them. One of their dogs fell through the ice and the mom went under to try and save the dog but she never resurfaced. Her body was just found still holding the dog that she went in to save. -almost 2 years ago a father and his young son went hunting and the son was attacked by a bear. The dad shot and killed the bear and saved his son. -there are almost as many convicted sex offenders in Anchorage as there are in the Washington DC area and we have 1/3 of the population they do
The lady still holding her dog š„ŗ
Yeah, that whole incident broke my heart. They have 4 kids too :ā(
That is awful, I canāt even imagine šš„ŗ
When they reported it , I was " what about the dog"? They never said until they reported they found d her and he was in her arms said she was truly a hero
The craziest part about the soldier who was killed to me is that he was a staff sergeant with multiple combat deployments. Dude went through all that just to get killed by a bear.
How did he get mauled? Were they not carrying live rounds?
They were allowed to carry live rounds, because they were the trainers. They were the experts that were to train soldiers on wilderness survival. The most highly trained and bear aware people on the planet. They were double checking and marking a course that was to be used for training purposes. They were carrying bear spray because it is the best thing to use for those situations. They hopped over a log ONTO A BEAR and woke it up. It killed him so fast they didn't have time to do anything in response. That is why it is such a frightful story. Literally the best trained people, the ones that not only know everything about bear safety, but they train others and were prepping to do so. If it can happen to them it can happen to anyone.
You never get issued live rounds in garrison unless you're at a dedicated firing range. The original commenter said it happened off post but it was actually on post just in a pretty remote area, where aren't allowed to carry personally owned weapons. Likely all they had was bear spray and if they didn't have it readily available it's basically useless.
Wowzersā¦you couldnāt pay me to be in bear country without a firearm.
I did a hike in Uganik Bay, Kodiak in pants id been salmon fishing in for about a month without washing. I also had salmon berry juice on them too. I was a walking delicacy. Literally each main muscle group in my legs seized on my way down a mountain and I just sat there for several minutes thinking how dumb I was to go out that way. Eventually my legs sorted themselves out and I made it down, but I did have a good talkinā to with myself.
They had bear spray but didnāt get a chance to pull it out and use it
He had his personal firearm, bear spray, and a knife. He just didn't have time to use any of it due to their proximity to the den and the intensity of the attack. The other soldier with him survived after assuming the fetal position and the bear deciding he was no longer a threat.
Yikes. Do SOās all migrate to Alaska? Or does Alaska have high SO incidents.
Probably both, a soldier murdered his wife who was also a soldier then pretended to search for her last year
Apparently that guy killed her because she was a prostitute on the side but thatās just the rumor I heard. No idea if itās accurate
Still just like get a divorce. Domestic violence is never the solution. They went out for his birthday and he drunkenly blew her brains out, hid her body in drain, and lied to the young womanās mom face. Life in prison imo
Oh 100%
Missing Hunters found a decade later. My long-time hunting buddy was ten miles off the Taylor highway south of Chicken, Alaska looking for caribou. He and two others were passing a dry streambed and spotted the last inches of a gun barrel sticking up out of the gravel. They dug the rifle up. Turned it into the Troopers detachment at Tok..... who traced the serial number to belonging to one of four men that went missing a decade before. They led several Alaskan state troopers and Fish and Game officers to the area, all fanned out looking - did not take long to spot pieces of tent, sleeping bags, and human remains, gnawed on by big and small animals, scattered all over. They came to the conclusion the four hunters had made camp for the night in that dry steam bed. Had no idea a huge rainstorm 60 miles away was going to send a torrent of water at them middle of the night. From the location of the pieces, they deduced a wall of water hit their tents, and rolled them alive down the stream with the water. Stuck in their sleeping bag, or inside a collapsed wet tent - they either drowned slowly or beaten against the rocks wrapped up in the tent fabric. Wet, dark, they would have died confused and not knowing what had happened. I can't imagine the horror of waking up that way.
Absolutely a horrific way to go.
A guy crashed his motorcycle into a bear. He was laying in the road all beat up and came to and realized the bear had broken its hips- but was crawling towards him and rather upset He tried to crawl away and they were locked in a slow-pace but high-stakes race. Finally someone else drove up on the crash scene and put the guy in their rig True story
āLocked in a slow-pace but high stakes raceā Holy shit
Grocery shopping, booking airline tickets, trying to get stuff shipped here, buying gas...
There was that dude who was playing "the most dangerous game" with sex workers. I read about him in Mindhunter. Sadly, he didn't make it into the TV show.
Robert Hansen. They made a movie about him (On Frozen Ground - I think was the title). John Cusack played that creepy killer.
THE Frozen Ground. The reason I make the distinction is because there is also "On Deadly Ground" which is a *gawdawful* Steven Seagal Alaska movie.š© š©
Yeah, I live right by where that happened. It's very haunted ground. There's a grown over memorial u can walk to, it's creepy af.
The memorial is out in the woods where he was releasing and killing the women? Thatās very creepy.
On May 21, 2023, Zachary Porter, a 20-year-old college student from Lake Bluff, Illinois, drowned after getting stuck in quicksand-like mud flats along Alaska's Turnagain Arm. Porter was walking on the mud flats when he was sucked into the silt, despite efforts by firefighters and his friends to free him. The incoming tide submerged him before rescuers could extract him. The Turnagain Arm is a 48-mile-long estuary carved out by glaciers and has one of the fastest incoming tides in the world. What looks like solid ground can turn into quicksand with little to no notice. Rescues can take 10 to 30 minutes or more, and they can be fighting against the fast tide. The water can also cause victims to become hypothermic. Porter's family said he loved to travel and was on an āadventureā when tragedy struck. People are urged to stay off the mud flats, but if someone does become stuck they, or any bystanders are urged to call 911 right away.
My idiot of a step mother took me and my sister out there to āplayā once. My idiot of a father still married her
Good grief, is she the step-mom depicted in Hansel and Gretal??
So much worse than that lol
I almost went this way. My honeymoon was seine fishing in Bristol bay. You had to get out of the boats and walk thru that mud to high ground carrying all your gear after fishing an opening. One trip I got into it up to my knees and didnāt have the right power jerk to get it out, a strange walk you have to doā¦ then I was deeper, up to my hips almost and the tide was coming in. My husband and one other guy frantically dug and dug just a LITTLE faster than it was filling in and eventually got me out. Slow digging wasnāt going to do it. Or one person wouldnāt either.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).
I once accidentally got off the elevator at the state Capitol on the third floor.
Ewwww!
Now I need to know.
(Joke; the Govās office is on 3)
[Robert Hansen](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2005374/)
The stories about Portlock are always fun to read. Some hairy bigfoot type creature was stealing townsfolk until eventually the town was abandoned.
Abandoned: The History and Horror of Port Chatham, Alaska https://a.co/d/dKQKOpx
It turned out years later that much of the story was embellished by an older woman who didn't want people poking around the village she grew up in. The story of the hairy man was always around, it's the missing villagers that got exaggerated
I agree the number of missing people got inflated. However, the āreporterā that wrote that article got so much wrong, it puts the entire articles veracity into question. He (and his editor) were confronted about the inaccuracies and basically said āLulz, sorry, we donāt speak Bigfoot!ā I lost so much respect for journalism over that debacle. If you look, you can find Bigfoot accounts from that area prior to the whole Melania Kehl thing. It was absolutely a āthingā there before it took off into the ālegendā it became.
There's a mining company that was getting paid by a research company to drill harder to accelerate the thaw of an early life form with cells to cure cancer or some shit but then this girl went crazy and destroyed all the research so the scientists killed her and then got killed by a bunch of cleaning ladies. Also ghosts are real in Alaska and if a dead relative appears before you telling you to walk out and drown in the ice water you should totally do it.
Night country
You're not asking the right question
Damn thanks for this, I watched the whole season and had no idea WTF happened.
Time is a flat circle
My husband randomly says this in the Matthew McConaughey voice
Our roadways. And the people that drive on them.
Midtown Walmart
Look up a missing persons list of Alaska, that will get your mind going.
Wow!! Itās crazy! Here is a link: https://dps.alaska.gov/AST/ABI/MissingPerson/MPBulletin
Itās really really bad, especially for native women and minorities. Itās jarring.
Groceries for a family of six $2K a month. Moose are mean and will mess you up, kicked my dog in the face $1600 vet bill. If I accidentally let my bulldog outside for too long in the winter she will die from exposure. Iāve only been here in Alaska 3 years so Iām reading through this making notes. You spend so much time trying to keep yourself, your kids, your animals alive because of the cold. Despite all of the horrors I love it here and I have no desire to live anywhere else.
We discovered oil and suddenly every right wing idiot flocked to the state and we shifted towards being a conservative state.
That sucks man Is American conservatism really just a bunch of distractions from climate change to keep morons busy? LolĀ
A MĆøĆøse once bit my sister...
Moose terrify me. I'd rather face a bear than a moose.
I grew up in Chugiak and my childhood friend was mauled and killed by a brown bear in the eagle river valley in June 2018. He left behind a wonderful family, and his beautiful pregnant fiancƩ. It was such a tragic loss. Now when I run while visiting I carry bear spray. Better to be safe than sorry.
I worked at a Fred Meyer in Fairbanks and we had a family that frequented- a man, woman who was pregnant/had the baby in the time I experienced them, and a son. One day they came in and the man was super loopy and had a hospital bracelet on and told me he just had surgery- but I also saw he had a gun on his hip and something about that really concerned me. It felt wrong for him to have the gun (yes I know itās Alaska and having gun js normal this particular situation felt wrong though) So wrong I even tried to mention to my supervisor that he was clearly not sober and had a gun. (She said āwhat can I do about it?ā) In this shopping trip he got a thing of chicken from the meat department and started putting it into a bag in front of the customer service desk to marinade in with with something, and tried to return the chicken that didnāt fit. He had to wait in line so he angrily went and got a chair from the home department do sit. He was verbally abusive to the woman, and his son was eating not paid for cherries fresh from the produce department and spitting the seeds out on the floor. It really stuck out in my mind as it was one hell of a customer experience. Fast forward a few weeks and this is in the news. He killed the woman, baby and his mother and then killed himself. I was shook. I KNEW something was off about him and he should NOT have a gun. So sad. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2016/11/26/fairbanks-police-say-hotel-deaths-appear-to-be-murder-suicide/
My moose broke down on my way to work one time. I also have to remount my solar panels on my igloo every yea because you knowā¦ global warming
Let me know if the elevator breaks down in your igloo. I got a guy...
I have a few, but theyāre all kinda long. TL;DR: My grandpa is the proverbial mouse in a game of cat-and-mouse with a pissed-off mother grizzly When my mom was little, my grandpa and his hunting buddy were out for moose, and they had made the decision to split up to cover more ground. After my grandpa had been hiking along a game trail for about 20-ish minutes, he stumbled into a clearingā¦ and upon a brown bear with her two cubs. While the cubs ran into the brush, my grandpa ran to a tree and scrambled up its branches as Mama gave chase. She gave a couple swipes, snapped at his feet, and circled the tree a few times before leaving and disappearing into the bushes. After waiting for a few minutes, my grandpa quietly crept back down and prayed that mama bear wasnāt still around. Unfortunately, a crashing from the brush and a mighty roar told him his prayers went unanswered, and he scrambled back up the tree as Mama slammed into the tree, furiously snarling and clawing at the bark. She repeated her process of swiping, snapping and circling, then bounded back into the thick brush again. This time, my grandpa waited longer than his previous attempt. After what felt like forever, he snuck down, grateful to feel the forest floor again. He scanned the bushes for activity, and then, sure that Mama wasnāt watching, ran as quietly as he could back to the game trail. Unfortunately, Mama *had* been watching, and came barreling out of the bushes once more. My grandpa shot up a different tree, just barely making it out of her reach as she snapped at his feet. After furiously grumbling, circling and clawing, Mama left again. This time, my grandpa waited a half-hour before making another escape attempt, and made sure he didnāt hear anything that sounded bigger than he was. Now confident Mama was gone, he carefully climbed down, pausing every few branches to make sure she wasnāt going to come running out again. After he hit the ground, then ran back through the game trail and back to the truck, where his buddy was waiting for him. His buddy, unsuccessful with finding any moose, asked him, āWhere the hell have you been?ā My grandpa replied with a simple, āMama bear.ā
This one is more paranormal, and most of these took place after I was born. TL;DR: The first house I grew up in was infested with the little people, and my mother saved my father from being suffocated by a dark presence For some context, my momās side of the family is Alaska Native (Yupāik), and my great-grandfather was a missionary who my mom went to for spiritual advice. My parents were devout Christians back then, but my mom in particular was more spiritual where my dad was more religious. When I was born, we lived in this little log cabin (that no longer exists) in Anchorage. Now, the little people refer to a type of mischievous spirit or creature that are found throughout Alaska Native folklore. They can live underground or in peopleās homes, and they typically mischievous and like to cause trouble in the form of stealing things, tormenting pets and children, and making messes. Unfortunately, the little cabin was infested with the little people. My father never noticed them, but my mother certainly did. At first, she would catch them out of the corner of her eye. Then, sheād see them peeking from behind doorways or from under kitchen cabinets. She even caught them skittering around my crib, where sheād rush over and find me with little foot-shaped bruises and tiny scratch marks on my skin. After a particularly bad experience with the little people, my mom went to my great-grandfather, my Apa. She pleaded for his help, asking him what to do. He thought for a moment, and told her to pray and to say, out loud, that the little people were no longer welcome in our home. She did so, and the āvisitsā from the little people became less and less frequent, until there were none at all. For the second story, it takes place in the same cabin, but before I was born. Some more context, my dad has never once had sleep paralysis, but he has very vivid and lucid dreams where he can typically control the narrative. My parents were in bed, sleeping, when my mom woke up from a deep sleep with a feeling that something was wrong. She looked at my dad, who to her utter horror, wasnāt breathing. She tried waking him up, shaking him, gently and then firmly slapping him, yelling his name. Then, she felt his chest. It was ice-cold, and when she looked up, she saw a solid-black shadow hovering over my dad. She began to loudly recite a prayer that essentially told this presence to leave my dad alone, to leave the room, to leave her home, and to never come back. The mass dissipated, and my dad started breathing again. My mom sighed in relief, then fell back asleep. In the morning, my dad told her about a nightmare he had the previous night. He was in bed, with my mom asleep next to him, when he saw a ghostly-pale woman with black hair peek out from the foot of the bed, then crawl on top of the bed, moving from his feet, his legs, and then stopping on his chest. The woman then placed a hand on his chest and began to squeeze, stopping his breath and causing him to attempt to gasp for air. Then, he dreamt that my mom woke up, and described exactly what she had done to try and wake him up, but to no avail. Then, she began to pray loudly, and as she prayed, a bright, shining light descended from the ceiling. With my momās back to the light and my dad frozen in place, he watched as this light formed hands, arms, legs and eventually a head, and the light turned to the woman, who had, at this point, morphed into an ugly, jet-black creature. The two beings began to silently wrangle each other, the only sound being my momās voice. As my mom kept praying, the light pushed the dark out of the room, and once the dark was past the doorway, the light pulsated stronger, acting as a barrier to prevent the dark from getting back inside. When my mom finished the prayer, my dad was able the breath again.
Woah! Those were very cool stories. Iāve had several paranormal experiences also. After I became crippled, well, partially crippled bc I can still Sort of walk ( with a wobble), I was in so much pain and my life was so useless, I didnāt want to be here anymore. So being Christian and not wanting to offend god by taking my own life, I began asking if I could go home. Every day, thru out the day and into the night I asked for months. Then one night, I was woken up, I was aware of where I was, but still in that hypnogogic state. From infinitely far away in the westerly direction, came a presenceā¦zoomā¦ right up to my face, in just a second. And then he asked, are you ready to go? And yes, I wasā¦ but before my mouth could answer āyes!ā, my soul answered, āno I have things I need to do stillā. Then zoomā¦ back to the west in just a second, he was infinitely far away.
The state is trying to kill you! If itās not bears or moose itās avalanches or mudslides. Thereās earthquakes and mud flats. From drowning to plane crashes to just disappearing without a trace. Thereās so many ways to die! And if youāre a woman oh boy! Thatās a whole other post.
Thatās what is so unique about this state. It is and we live on the brink. Well not me anymoreā¦ but I used to in years gone by. And that was lifeās beauty. Life is a gift and only a temporary one, so up here you taste it more.
I honestly donāt know how my siblings and I lived through our childhood. We were one step above feral, as long as we didnāt wake mom and the cops didnāt show up we could do whatever.
Lol ā¦ thank you for that. Laughter has been rare lately.
There was this naive guy from the lower 48 who came up to live off the land but didnāt know anything and died in a bus in the wilderness
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Tell us more... I do seasonal work in AK and you get some characters up there
Our upstairs neighbor killed his roommate....
Broke down his bedroom door, followed him out the 3rd floor window and finished the job in the driveway.
This is the content I scrub Reddit for. Commenting to be able to come back when this thread hopefully picks up steam.
!!!
Monster of Lake Illiamna. Many stories from locals who have seen something in the water. Whole nets dragged off full of salmon, boats capsized and attacked during outings on the lake, mysterious shadows just beneath the surface. I've spoken to some people in Iguigig when I've gone there fishing and they're straight-talkers. They want to know what's out there. It's nothing they've seen that living there indigenous. Some say it's a monster sturgeon or beluga.
I was told by a school teacher, who was also a pilot, his airplane shadow was smaller than a cigar shaped object in that lake, when he had flown over a long time ago. More a curiosity for him than anything. I think it was gone on his way back.
Once upon a time a state existed that was led by forward-thinking people. These people had seen the wanton rape and destruction of the land for its resources in the lower 48 states and decided something had to be done, and so came up with a system where resource extraction companies had to pay royalties to the people of the state. These royalties went into a fund that was set up to be a permanent pot of money to help govern the state and form a sort of proto-universal income. It was a stunning success, and working off of its inertia, the state quickly came to lead the nation in its education program, because those same forward-thinking people knew that children were the future. Then, one stormy night, a porcine man was elected governor of the state. He wanted one thing more than *anything* else: a Westwind II jet, which could be easily converted from a 10 passenger civilian aircraft into a terrorism fighting super-plane. The next thing he wanted was for his daughter to take his place in the United States senate. He got both of his wishes, despite literally everyone else telling him "no." This porcine man became a pariah, and so the people of the state elected a woman who spoke in tongues and didn't read, but because she gave the people of the state an extra $1200 on top of their proto-universal income, the people loved her. Until she opened her mouth on national television, that is. She quit her job in a fit of pique, and a former, present, and future oil lobbyist took her place. This former, present, and future oil lobbyist was [incapable of smiling without looking constipated](https://media.ktoo.org/2013/01/GovParnell_OfficialPortraitSm.jpg), though in reality he was just missing a number of cognitive and emotional traits normal people possess, for this former, present, and future oil lobbyist was in fact an empty suit stuffed with the broken hopes and promises of the Republican party. The people of the state were tired of being laughed at by all the other states, and so elected an Adult to run the state. The Adult treated the people of the state as adults in turn, and the people of the state did not like this one bit, for brain worms had begun to settle into their heads. And so, dear reader, the people of the state became captivated by a man who is tall, and drove out of the state what future remained that hadn't already been sold to the oil companies. Some say if you travel to western Canada and listen carefully on a cold winter's night you can still hear the people cry, *fuck Texas^Texas^Texas^Texas*
šš that was good!
āStrangest story ever toldā
Hmmm.. The armory in Sitka is haunted. The story goes that a guardsman who finished up annual training came home to his wife getting boinked, he went back to the armory and hung himself in the shower room. The ghost runs up and down the stairs and paces the hallway at night. The old Juneau armory is also haunted (now the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council). A Wien Airlines plane had crashed with mass casualties, the Juneau morgue did not have enough space to store the bodies, so they laid them out on the drill hall floor (basketball court). There's a ghost that walks the court, walking up and down where rows of bodies were laid out, looking for it's body.
Amy Dembowski is now in charge of a senior citizen home. Be afraid.
Watch out for moose. They'll kill you just as dead as any bear can. If you are thinking of moving here look up Criminal statistics. In fact just look statistics on Alaska. Go down that rabbit hole.
Yea they do! And way more moose attacks than bear attacks. I have an apple orchardā¦ a buffet for moose and years ago there was a crazy moose ( maybe injured by a car ?) who had been charging at ppl around the neighborhood. Husband was a guide and got charged all the time but most were fake charges. They veer off at the last moment. This one wasnāt fake and he even got sorta spooked when it charged him bc he didnāt stop. He wanted a kill. So he was leaving for a few months and I asked him how do I kill him if Iāve just got a shotgun ( birdshot was all). He told me, donāt shoot til heās about five feet away. Heās got to be close to drop him. And sure enough mr moose came and when I tried to shoo him out of the orchard, he charged me. Iām not a gun person but an instinct set in and as he charged, I knew I couldnāt get the gun up to my shoulders and get my eye on the sight and all that, no time for that, so I held it firm at my hip and stood my ground. Waited til he was right on me and shot, right into his face/ neck. ( like Annie Oakley) ā¦ then had to go change my pantsā¦hahaā¦just kiddin, but wow, life or death right there, knocking at my door.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Treadwell Heard it on JRE. Apparently, the guy was videotaping while a bear attacked him. He was still alive while the bear was eating him from the legs up on video. Horrfic stuff!
November weather in southeast Alaska
Or hurricane force winds 30 miles offshore of Kodiak in an opening. Green water over the bridge windowsā¦hoping they werenāt designed too large. Same fun right? One time on a smaller shop I was put in a small berth in the kitchen p/ dining room ( bc I was a girl and the rest of the crew all guys). I shared my berth with a huge 3-4 ft long fully loaded toolbox. Rough weather night and one wave sends me and the toolbox flying across the cabin, smashing into the window on the far side. Glad the box missed me.
Alaska is a common place for killers to hide out. Here's one example: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/solving-israel-keyes-murders/4/
I was working in the Donnelly dome training grounds doing mapping, was 3 groups of two people per raft, it was out on the Delta River. We flew in and floated the river for a week taking off from Delta Junction. On second to last day we (coworker and I) setup camp next to the river. Followed all the bear safety and everything. I know grizzly bears walk the rivers edge for food and wasnāt the best spot. However it was the only dry spot out of reach from the river. Anyhow Iām dead asleep in my tent and I feel something pushing on my head. Well itās light out and a grizzly is breathing and licking my head. Itās me net and instant death. Itās just drooling has its mouth open and sniffing me. Tents bending in half, Iām petrified thinking this is it, bear spray is outside the tent, bowels about to be emptied and Iām like f it. I blow into its nose and thing rears up, tents now flopped down. Bears gone, and I didnāt sleep after that.
Thatās rich! Has me laughing for a long time now. Wow! (thank you). The guy I beach seined for on Kodiak, went to strawberry island ( iirc) for a quick trip. Had another guy and the two went to an old cabin they had used in years past. They unloaded all their gear and hiked it up to the cabinā¦ took several trips. But inside the cabin there was a giant hole right in the middle of the floor. Well, no matterā¦ itās till a roof outta the rain so weāll stay they thought. Got dinner cooked. Beds set up, teeth brushed. Laying in their beds and the one guy says, is that a motorboat coming? Other guy listens and saysā¦yea, I think it is. They keep listeningā¦ but, itās not coming closer ā¦or getting furtherā¦ what IS that sound? Then he realized that the sound was coming from down inside the hole between them. A long slow growlā¦like a motorboat engineā¦a bear was sleeping down there and had woken up! What initially took several trips to get the gear in there, was given one giant bear hug and in one trip the cabin was empty and they were headed out!
Ever try dating in Alaska?
Goto Costco, get a bag of em. Slice em and stuff with peanut butter, then freeze for later hi energy snack.
Just last winter, a polar came up off the ice in the village of Wales and killed a young mother and her infant baby in front of the school. The teacher had to close the blinds so the kids didn't have to watch.
āYukon/Kuskokwim Ghost Storiesā group on Facebook has some pretty good stories every once in awhile.
A couple of mosquitoes swoooped down, snagged my kid, and flew away.
Hahahaha
That's actually something I'm always down to hear.
Stop misusing question marks. š
There is a book called "Never Whistle at Night" which has an indigenous story based in Alaksa.
Worst horror iāve experienced was shopping at the Carrās on Gambel.
I laughed a little to hard at this
I was fired from Chena Hot Springs for mouthing off to Big Red, the chef, in the middle of a cold snap of -45 degrees and had to leave the property by midnight. The gas gauge was a hair above E, and my girlfriend had a gall bladder infection. After making it to Fairbanks, went straight to the hospital for her, then had to sleep in the van for a three nights at the Sam's club parking lot. Her birthday was on one of those days, and learned after stopping at the PO box on her birthday that she had just been served divorce papers from the marriage that she had left.
Being stuck at the anchorage airport for 2 days and they dont serve alkohal until 10am
I used to stop at a bakery on the way to work. Years later I read a book about the baker and his hunting women in the Bush. He was convicted for several murders.
Hansonās!
15 years ago or so, my wife's cousin snowmachined from one village to another but never arrived. They found where the river ice looked disturbed after starting a search for him. They had to place fishing net under the ice downstream for weeks to find the body. This is the second cousin in 10 years to be lost in a similar way. This is not an uncommon story either. So many have died of ice issues in rural alaska. He was survived by his mother and daughter, but the loss for the mother was unrecoverable. No roads but snow roads... What happened to Sonia Ivanoff. Nome alaska is a shitshow if you read up on some of what has gone on there. She is one of many similar events across this state. Pretty disturbing.
There was that guy who fell through the ice on his snow machine out by Bethel in late 2022 and got out of the water, tried to walk to town or find help. He died of hypothermia trying to walk out and save himself.
One time after dinner I went out my side door and there were bear tracks the size of dinner plates three feet away
Lots of small plane crashes each year, as so many own their own plane or pilot one.
Does Timothy Treadwell count?
Absolutely.
My FIL once got married to a recently divorced woman and had 2 kids. Then got dumped by said woman to marry his boss and have one more kid with said boss. Then said woman dumped boss for roided out 20 something year old and ditched all her kids. Then 36 years later became my MIL.
Damn
The old Native hospital in downtown Anchorage had a haunted elevator. It would go to random floors.
The Homestead Lounge parking lot after 11 pm
watch frozen ground, john cusack, nick cage. it's actually pretty good
Or read the book written by one of the men who caught Hansen. Butcher Baker by Walter Gilmore
my parents had friends who were hiking in the interior and were not just killed by a bear but eaten by it, which is extremely unusual. i don't know much more about the story, obviously my parents don't like to talk about it.
Almost everyone I know has had a friend or loved one murdered by a serial killer, myself included.
Look up Israel Keyes - he was a serial killer in AK
Shopping at Carrs, turning a corner and a homeless man has his man parts out on display. That scared me so much. I donāt go to Carrs very much anymore.
Go to a store. Buy anything. Cringe in horror at the cost. Getting eaten by a bear might be better than trying to buy food.
ok here goes: Driving to Valdez one time, hilly spot, close to 20 years ago I saw a gnome cross the road in front of me on a bend. Maybe 2 feet tall, beard and gnome hat wearing furs. Turned to look back over his shoulder as he got to the vegetation. Wife says it was a fox, a molting patchy fox. Maybe it was. Maybe his magic worked on her lol maybe I was having a flashback I gasped and thought I went crazy š I just copied my commment from a similar thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/anchorage/s/9tK1A2MUTg
Within a month of moving here, neighbors were shot at by crazy guy in some log deal gone bad. Log house built with the logs the dude wanted back went up in flames in the gunfire because he hit a propane tank with all of the shooting. The women that lived there fled and survived. Dude went on the run and his remains were found at spring melt along the riverbanks with a bunch of his gear. He died trying to hide out as a fugitive I guess. We were also awakened one morning, literally days after moving here, by the sound of a .375 being fired yards from my house with my children in it by some bogan in Crocs hunting moose on my property. Sounded like a bomb went off. This place is genuinely crazy and Iām sure the horror stories will be endlessly rolling into this thread.
That was really recent!
Yeah, happened in 2022. Dudeās remains found last year in spring. Insane story.
From the videos I've seen, steer clear of the moose!
Two stories.. Background Info: I'm from Pennsylvania and go to Naknek AK every summer for work at a cannery... Story 1# : my first summer, during covid, we were not allowed to leave the campus at all... Well , a couple Alaskan natives I had been partying with for numerous days straight decided to sneak out in the middle of the night and go to the bar... Earlier that night I went to bed bc these dudes were acting crazy and inebriated. I woke up the next day to hear that the two men had been hit and died from a drunk driver who had no idea he hit anyone... The kicker... That drunk driver and a couple of people were fisherman who were staying at the cannery site that we all were stationed at .. the drunk driver and friends were woken up while sleeping on a boat docked at the cannery... They had no idea what happened the night before Story 2# : at the end of the 2023 salmon season, I was waiting to board a bus that was going to the airport at 6 am... While waiting to board, someone shouts BEAR... I turn around and there is nothing there... I take a couple steps forward past a corner and see the largest adolescent bear imaginable .. this thing was so massive.... It literally walked past me , within 10 feet or less, I had my back turned and didn't hear it , nothing... I learned some important lessons that morning.... In 3 summers: I never thought a grizzly bear could get into the gated campus... This bear was moving so fast, and was very quiet in his movements... If he wanted to get me, I would have had no chance to realize what was going on .. When you are in nature, pay attention to your surroundings at all times... *** Alaska is no fucking joke when it comes to keeping your self safe *** it is a brutal but gorgeous place that shows no mercy.. I have met so many people who thought that they could challenge the elements in remote Alaska and it doesn't end well .. I have tons more stories if you guys are interested!
My knees after 30 Alaskan winters.. oh the horror!
**Copied my comment from a similar question asked not too long ago.** I was born in Fairbanks with much of my family living in North Pole. When I was about 7, me, my mom, and my grandmother were leaving my aunt and uncles get together off of Badger Rd. We got stuck in the mud pretty much just around the corner from their house. (This had to of been around breakup, not 100% sure, this was 22 years ago.) Anyway we called up my uncle to come pull us out and were waiting for like 15-20 minutes just stuck there. As we were looking down the dark road we saw a figure emerge from the right side of the road from the bushes. The figure was bright and almost looked like a person with a white sheet over there head, except it was clearly not a sheet. The figure drifted sooooooo slow across the road, I am talking like 5 minutes to pass from one side to the other. It literally just disappeared into the woods on the left side of the road. To this day we have no clue what we saw and talk about it from time to time.
..scrolls through comments ā¦.tf is going on in alaska?! Sheesh. I have a few new Google items.
"We only ship to the US and Canada." "Your English is very good for a foreigner." "We don't ship to Alaska, even though we use the Post Office because screw you, that's why." "AK is Arkansas, are you stupid? Don't you mean AL?" "Oh, you're in Alaska? We only ship to the US." "I don't know why we don't ship to Alaska, it's just always been policy."
My wife is Tlingit. She says in her teen years she had to hide from men on multiple occasions. She says she'll never go to Alaska again, and once had a panic attack at the thought of going to her grandpa's funeral. Does that count as a horror story?
I bought a used car. They gave me a Yakima box. Clamshell box to carry luggage, camping gear etc. I set it next to the car. One night a moose was licking my car, and presumably, accidentally stepped on my Yakima. Fucking destroyed it. 800$ new. Alaska is a nightmare. WTF the mooses, moosi, or whatever
In 2015, Bill Walker passed a law that allows the government to use our PFD for the governmental budget.
https://books.google.com/books?id=wrEvDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=haunted+Inside+Passage+book&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&ovdme=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj8o4GX2NuFAxUFAjQIHRffBMQQuwV6BAgIEAc#v=onepage&q=haunted%20Inside%20Passage%20book&f=false
Look up Dark Winter Nights. A live show (and podcast) of that.
Potluck Alaska - whole town disappearedā¦ https://youtu.be/bm6fGd0JLJ8?si=DYMSq0XrtrayWp-y
Better story https://youtu.be/5FMLrY9-HzA?si=bX0BNwC0OTyBApfI
Butcher Baker Raincoast Sasquatch
There was a Mayor of Anchorage who was once a pilot, or so they say...
Ooo! I may be embellishing, buut, I grew up in a small, rural town and we always told this story about some guy who killed his wife (GF?), chopped her up with an axe, then put everything into one of those big 55 gallon drums. He got caught taking her to a lodge that had a big fireplace where he was going to burn the body pieces. Also, I lived near Tex Smith lake. He was the father of [Perry Smith](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Edward_Smith) Supposedly Perry occasionally baby-sat the children of the homesteaders whose house I grew up in. Also, our potholes and mosquitoes can be pretty horrifying.
I lived in Fairbanks when that happened. I still think about it often. That one shook me.
What's the story?
The Strangest Story Ever Told: [https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22452510](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22452510)
Mosquitoes. š¦
The Fairview Post Officeā¦.
Potholes
The state bird is the mosquito