WHITEHORSE, Yukon - Conservation officer Dave Bakica is convinced that whatever two men saw early last Sunday morning, it shook them up. Marion Sheldon and Gus Jules were traveling out of town along the Alaska Highway on an all-terrain vehicle between 1 and 2 a.m. when they passed what resembled a person standing on the side of the highway.
Thinking it was a person from their small community who might be in need of a ride, they turned around.
As the two lifelong Teslin residents and members of the Teslin Tlingit Council approached to within 20 feet, they noticed the figure was covered in hair, but standing upright the entire time.
Though natural light was dusky, Jules saw what he believed to be flesh tones hidden beneath the mat of hair, he told Bakica.
Sasquatch? Big Foot?
"I have no doubt they saw something, and are convinced it was not a bear or anything in the ordinary," Bakica said. "They are convinced this was something out of the ordinary ... And they are pretty shook up over it."
Jules is an experienced hunter. Jules described the figure as standing about 7 feet tall, but hunched over. They could see it was not a person.
As the two parties went their separate ways, the dark-haired figure crossed the highway in two or three steps.
Bakica said ground conditions mixed with rainfall made it impossible to pick up definitive tracks and there was no hair on branches or other vegetation. Also, by the time he went to the scene Monday morning, half the town had been out to the site, he said.
Jules has launched a search for evidence that could document his experience.
"I have no doubt in my mind that they believe what they saw was a Sasquatch," said Bakica. "Whether it was or not, I do not know.
"Just because you can't prove something was there, does not mean it was not there."
Sheldon and Jules could not be reached for comment by the Whitehorse Star.
Teslin is about 90 miles southeast of Whitehorse.
It would not be the first suspected Yukon sighting of the folklore beast.
In April 1991, three Pelly Crossing residents reported seeing a Sasquatch while driving between Pelly and Stewart Crossing.
The creature fled back into the woods as the vehicle passed. The residents took a photo of what they claim were footprints measuring 15 inches long in the melting snow.