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‘Killer bigfoot’ terrorized residents for decades, forcing them to abandon their town
The Portlock town of Alaska was abandoned by its residents decades ago and legend holds that a “killer bigfoot” is responsible for the condition of the place as it’s believed to have claimed multiple lives. But, there are different sides to the unsettling story of the ghost town as narrated by its own people.
People have long debated if Sasquatches are real or not – just like any other paranormal entity. But the bigfoot-like creature synonymous with the ghosted town of Alaska came to be known as Nantiinaq and it had a half-beast and half-man appearance. Age-old rumors claim it was responsible for several mysterious deaths in the town.
‘Killer bigfoot’ was allegedly responsible for mysterious deaths
The name given to the supposed bigfoot of Portlock is derived from the Native Alaskan Dena’na word nantina , which translates to “those who steal people.”
The unfortunate fate of the Alaskan town allowed it to be inhabited for only half a century – from 1900 to 1950. The village was small and consisted of a few residents made up of lumbermen, fishermen, miners, and others. The town got its own post office only in 1921 and it was shut down for good in 1950, following the final recorded death of a resident.
Starting in 1905, the town allegedly witnessed several unsettling incidents that included missing people and deaths under mysterious circumstances.
If rumors were to be believed, people saw the said creature hanging around the woods, where they also found trees ripped out of the ground by their roots.
A logger died in 1931 after being struck by a massive piece of logging equipment, which was impossible for an average human to carry and some claimed to have seen footprints as large as 18 inches while tracking a moose.
By 1940, more people who worked in cannery were reported missing and their bodies were reportedly later found in a horrid condition in a local lagoon. As such incidents continued to unfold people of Portlock began to flee the town one by one, thus abandoning it completely. The official records, meanwhile, suggest that the residents had to vacate the town as it was out of the way of a new highway.
Today, all you find there are rotting houses, rubble, and rusted cannery equipment, without a single sign of humans.
Residents of Portlock share their stories
People who once lived in the ghosted town have shared their experiences and not all of them align with the legendary narrative about the place.
One resident named Malania Helen Kehl told Homer Tribune: “We left our houses and the school, and started all new here,” claiming that the hairy beast terrorized her people for decades.
Port Graham Elder, Simeon Kvasnikoff added to Malania’s story by saying: “This one guy over there had a little place where he was digging for gold. He went up there one time and never came back. No one found any sign of him.
Some villagers believed Nantiinaq wasn’t so terrifying after all. Another resident, claiming to have had different experiences with the half-man, half-beat creature, shared: “He lived with people and then didnt want to be around them anymore so he moved to the forest; away from everybody. He started growing hair and he looked like a bigfoot scary.”
