The year is 1984 and a lumber company employee is murdered in the North Pacific wilderness where only the most fit can possibly survive. A 40-kilometer road has been carved out of the dense forest landscape to provide the lumber company with a production corridor. Out here there is nothing but the harshness and beauty of a vast untamed terrain where the wild stakes its claim against all challengers. Those who are not hardy and careful will find a cruel and unforgiving end awaits them!

Snow has blanketed the area as it always does this time of year and it seems to muffle the sounds of the forest, but out there from dense overgrowth, something is watching, and it has been there a long time! The lumberjacks have little time to dally as they go about the business of operating heavy equipment to cut down the pine forest trees that qualify as lumber, stripping the bark, cutting the huge trunks into manageable sections to be loaded, and the chippers grind what remains into saw dust which can even be used.

It seems only the massive heavy equipment can be heard echoing through the ancient forest as the men put in 12 hours a day, and after that are fit for only 2 things, whiskey, dinner, and the sleeping bag! Nothing else seems to matter. However, after a few days in the pristine heart of the Alaskan and Canadian coastline, strange things emerge. The lumberjacks begin identifying long claw marks on the bark of the Hemlocks and Firs. They start anywhere from 8 to 10 feet up and end at about 6 feet. For most of the men this is their average height. Whatever is making these territorial markings is as big as any Grizzle perhaps larger, and the bears are supposedly in hibernation!

Next, the clear and deep tracks with clearly 5 toes and an unusual lack of a mid-metatarsal break in the center of the long footprints! So, they appear human, but are not of normal human beings anatomical impressions. Who the hell is out here playing games with these workers? Nobody is going to be joking around in the extremes of this weather and the dangers of this operating equipment, especially when falling timber stuck in cables can get tangled up above and suddenly come crashing down with bone crushing force! No one has the endurance or the mentality to be screwing around in this environment to be playing tricks on hard working men!

Five days in, the crew sleep like dead men after an exhausting days work with the help of some whiskey to send them, but there’s a problem, strange sounds come from the depths of the nocturn! Not owls, not the clicking of tree bark as the temperatures plunge, not even the bugling of cougars deep in the brush. Some are awakened by the odd, shrieking, non-human screams. The hard-working lumberjacks are too tired to go trapsing into the darkened forest in the dead of night, and simply hope whatever it is settles down and shuts up! In the mornings as the crews begin to warm up their equipment it is apparent that someone or something has been tampering with the hardware. Could it be radical conservationists, pranksters, bears aroused from their dens? Now the men are concerned and make calls into their company supervisor to advise them that there has been some kind of interference with their work!

The multi-billion-dollar lumber industry is only interested in production and results! Such stories don’t align with business. If something is afoot, either it is to be dealt with ASAP or a specialist must be called out. That specialist will be a mercenary, a shooter, who will eradicate a wildlife problem, anything to keep the operation flowing, but they won’t be able to get the fixer out for few days. They are a long way from civilization and arrangements have to be made, most likely by helicopter. Until then, the crew will have to endure, keep up the production pace, and be careful! That will not be easy! One employee vows to keep a record by filming with his VHS camcorder! He wants proof in case the company decides to start docking people’s pay!

This man will record his last moments alive on this VHS tape that will be conveniently lost once terrible events have taken place, and the lumber company moves to cover up the incident once it has occurred. This does not curtail the nocturnal noises that persist, and now rather than one source of the blood curdling sounds, another more distant source becomes apparent. Now there are two different identifiable individuals generating guttural vocalizations. It’s no mystery that human vocal cords cannot make these shrill and yet deep growls! To make matters worse, the men are losing sleep who must get up and operate dangerous equipment in the cold mornings. It is a damning situation that makes the job almost impossible!

Before the company backup can even arrive, the employee armed with is camcorder and microphone goes into the night once the eerie calls out in the dark continue! He is now committed to compiling evidence. He’s already been recording the calls for several nights, now it’s time for some video proof. Armed with a pistol on his belt, he follows what appears to be a fresh set of tracks in the new fallen snow! Trudging through the dense woods, he tries to locate the nearest possible location based on how close the calls seem to be! Finally, with a forest lit up in front of him, he hits paydirt! There just ahead is a huge hulking figure, only a shadow just out of direct light! He presses further and finally gets an unobstructed view and definite video evidence! But, suddenly the tape goes dead, apparently, the camera has been knocked to the ground, but the microphone is still on and the screams of the lumberjack along with the heavy breathing and vocalizations of a beast meld together to make a very horrific recording!

It is unclear if he ever got off a shot, but his team, realizing he had left camp, got together to search for him and followed his tracks which followed the larger imprints left in the snow by the creature! About a half mile away, they discovered the body and the camcorder along with the VHS tape. Their friend had been brutally murdered, manhandled like a doll by a upright predator with superhuman strength! To keep wolves, coyotes, or other scavengers from disturbing the body, he was carried back to camp. The Royal Canadian Mounties were notified after calls went out to the Park Rangers of the region! The crew put the tape on as they awaited the arrival of the authorities and listened to the chilling calls from out in the deep woods. They eventually came to the visuals that left no doubt, even at night, and the camera lighting it was obvious! The assailant was identified! A man ape with a very human looking face had mangled their buddy and gotten away!

The company officials arrived first ahead of the Mounties and rangers. Not expecting a cover-up, the employees handed over the tape and told their superiors what it contained, and that was the last they ever heard of it! A company issued report claimed that a wildlife incident of unknown circumstances had occurred which resulted in a fatality! The lumberjacks were pressured into modifying their witness accounts or they would lose their jobs while if the video tape was ever turned over to the Royal Mounties or Park Rangers ever reviewed the VHS tape is unknown, but it was suspected that whether they had seen this or not, the end result would have been the same-a cover up!

I have been to Prince Rupert, a very remote commercial fishing and cargo port that shuts down to public tourism before the end of fall as Polar Bears begin to come ashore to hunt and the arctic weather closes in! How these lumberjacks manage is beyond me even though they are well equipped! Is this a good place to stay away from? You bet! For all the raw beauty of the Pacific Northwest, it is a deadly and unforgiving place, much less the unknown dangers that lurk!