The Creature at Port Chatham

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Portlock is a ghost town located on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Established as a salmon cannery early in the 20th century, it was populated by largely Russian-Alutiiq. After flourishing for many years, it was suddenly abandoned for mysterious reasons.

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Captain Nathaniel Portlock c.1788

In 1786, British captain Nathaniel Portlock sailed into the bay on an Alaskan expedition and gave the bay and the community his name. 

The town of Portlock, sits on the south shore of Port Chatham. In 1900, an American firm bought fishing boats and established a salmon cannery. Besides the canneries, shipments were also made from Port Chatham of chromic iron that had been taken from mines on the Kenai Peninsula.

The first signs of trouble in this pristine setting was documented in 1905. A cannery management records describe where the natives refused to return to work because of "something" sighted in the nearby woods. Despite this strange occurrence the little village prospered.

In February, 1920 a cold storage plant was constructed at Port Chatham which had a capacity for 2,000,000 pounds of fish. In 1921, a post office was established there.

However the stories of strange encounters continued. In the 1920s, Albert Petka confronted a large hairy creature along with his dogs. It struck him in the chest, and he died soon afterward due to the wounds, but survived long enough to describe what happened.

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Portlock fisherman with their catch

It wasn't until 1931, that Portlock developed its sinister reputation. Andrew Kamuck (Kamluck) went out logging, and when he didn't returned, a search party was sent out. He was found dead due to a blow in the head. A piece of heavy equipment nearby was suspected to be the murder weapon.

Shortly afterwards, Simeon Kvasnikoff reported that a gold miner from the nearby Port Graham headed out for the day and never returned. No sign of him was ever found.

Around this time, the villagers described seeing a woman in a long, black dress appear in the cliffs above the town. They said she was a spirit with a white face, and she would scream and moan, and then disappear into the cliff face.

Tom Larsen sighted what he described as a large, hairy creature at a beach near his home. He ran back to the house to retrieve his rifle. Once he returned the creature was still there, but he did not shoot it.

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Portlock cannery while in full operation

During the 1940s cannery workers went into the Kenai Mountains to hunt Dall sheep and bear. They did not return, and a search party was sent out. They could not find a trace of the men. Then rumors circulated describing where a man's mutilated body was found in one of the lagoons. His wounds did not appear to be caused by a bear attack.

During these same years mutilated bodies washed up on the shores of Port Chatham, with injuries that did not coincide with a bear attack or other known predators of the area.

Another group of hunters tracking a moose, came across 18 inch footprints. They soon realized this creature was hunting the same moose. Then they came across a disturbance in the landscape, and then the moose tracks stop, and instead the large man-like prints continued upwards into the mountains.

​In an interview that ran in the October, 2009 edition of the Homer Tribune,  Malania Helen Kehl, who was born in Port Chatham in 1934, gave insight into the demise of her hometown.

She explained that her parents, along with the rest of the village, grew weary of being terrorized by a creature the Alutiiq called a Nantiinaq, meaning half-man, half-beast. She said that many of the residents refused to venture into the surrounding forests, and over time, abandoned their homes and the village school, and moved up the coast to Port Graham or Nanwalek. Only the postmaster remained in Port Chatham, but the post office closed in 1950. In 1940, the census for the town only counted 31 inhabitants.

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Abandoned house at Port Chatham c.1973

​The locals don't deny the existence of Natiinaq, however they claim he mostly stays away from humans, instead of attacking them. His presence is announced by a bad smell — something like the skunk ape of Florida.

Was there a bigfoot-type creature terrorizing the inhabitants of Portluck? Despite the many stories of hunters and others being attacked, few are left alive from those years, and those that know are hesitant to speak of the creature.

In 1949, the majority of those living in Portluck left and moved to English Bay and Port Graham in a short amount of time, and for no apparent reason.

No doubt many wonder if these were just tall tales, however even today most refuse to stay overnight at the derelict village, which was further devastated by 9.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Alaska in 1964.

It also seems that many of the stories describing the deaths and disappearances around Port Chatham, before it was abandoned mostly seem to be fabricated. When and why they were started, remains as much a mystery as the elusive cryptid that supposedly haunts the woods around the village.

So did Portlock lose its inhabitants because of the so-called Hairy Man and the folklore attached to this being, or was it due to economic reasons?

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