→ Type of Encounter:
Visual Sighting
→ Reported by:
Confidential
→ Location of Encounter:
Banff National Park
→ Date & Time of Encounter:
2007-10-?? Mid-afternoon
→ Details of the Event:
My wife and I were celebrating our honeymoon in Banff, Alberta.
The day we were leaving Banff to go home, we were driving out of town on Mt. Norquay Road to get onto Highway 1 (Trans-Canada Highway).
In a clearing on the hillside north of the Hwy 1 on/off ramps, near the top of the hill, I saw a large man crossing.
I watched for a moment because the man (I assume it was a “man” because he was very masculine looking: broad-shouldered, thick arms and legs, etc.) stuck out as a little odd, which made my wife look as well. He was very large, walked quickly and easily on the sloping terrain, and wore what looked like furs over his whole body, like a trapper in the 1800’s would wear. And since that kind of history interests me, I continued to watch the man.
We know there is a ski resort up there but there wasn’t enough snow yet for it to be open, being the first week of October, so the man wasn’t cross-country skiing and I continued trying to figure out why the man was walking so easily with such an exaggerated stride on that terrain.
When he passed a small tree a little more than halfway across the clearing, my wife said at the same time I thought, “He made it halfway across the meadow in 5 or 6 steps!”
He went out of sight in the treeline on the western edge of the clearing and I pulled over to look at the spot more intently.
The clearing is visible from the road, but it’s still a few hundred metres away up the hill from where I pulled over on the overpass. Yet, the man was very obviously large – it was easy to see his legs and arms as he walked upright, and so quickly and easily given the terrain and large strides, and that he was covered in fur. After we talked about it for a few minutes, we both concluded that the man would have to be unusually tall and strong to have strides like that on terrain like that.
I wasn’t sure I should post this here, but after reading about so many sightings in this region, I thought at the very least it might trigger other people’s memories of odd moments around Banff.
I’ve included a link to the google street view of the clearing ( http://g.co/maps/fvame ). I don’t know when the street view pic was taken, but the clearing looks more overgrown than it was in 2007 – in particular, the 3 or 4 trees in the very front-middle of the clearing.
I regret not driving up there to check the clearing for footprints!