The Mystery of the Mastodon

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories​
In 1887, there was a report of a living mastodon in Alaska. The story was that a party of miners had learned of the existence of living mastodons near the headwaters of the White River. Up to then it was believed to be a fabrication of northern fur traders.

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Stick and Tlingit Indians gambling, Dyea, Alaska c.1894-1900

The Stick Indians (Sitka) told the miners that only five years before such animals had been seen by them. 

One of the Indians said that while hunting in an unknown section, he came across an immense track sunk to a depth of several inches in the moss. The way he described what he found, it resembled an elephant's track and was larger around than a barrel.

The Indian followed the trail which appeared to be fresh and tracked one immense stride to another for a distance of some miles, until he found what was making the tracks. When he saw what it was he fled. The Indian warriors were known to be brave and would attack a grizzly, but this animal filled the hunter with great fear.

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Was the story of a living mastodon in the Yukon just a tall tale or real? c.1890

He described it as being larger than Harper's trading store with great shining, yellowish tusks and a mouth large enough to swallow him at a single gulp. 

It had gone to a place where huge bones lay scattered. The area was at a very high altitude rarely visited by people, and these would only be natives.

It was already known that the mastodon (Mammut americanum), inhabited the Yukon country, and their skeletons had been found strewn along the creeks. There is even a Mastodon Creek in Alaska.

In 1901, a mastodon tusk measuring 13 feet long and weighing nearly 306 pounds, was found on Eighty pup a tributary of Hunker Creek in the Klondike. 

Later that same year, a skeleton of a mastodon complete with the exception of the small parts of the vertebrae arrived from White Horse. It was discovered by miners working at a depth of 80 feet in a shaft on Clark Creek, near the headwaters of the Stewart River. The skeleton was described as not fossilized, but very well preserved with small bunches of hair clinging to it in places. It was estimated the animal was over 20 feet high. One of the tusks measured over 11 feet and weighed 215 pound. The remains were consigned to Fortin & Co curio dealers at Seattle.

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Parts of Siberia, Alaska and the Yukon were once connected in an area known as 'Beringia.'  The Bering Strait did not yet exist, enabling animals and eventually the first humans to cross into our continent.  It is believed that humans arrived in what is now North America about 14,000 years ago.

Tlingit women and children c.1902

There's another mystery besides the question of prehistoric animals living into the modern age, and that is the story of the Stick Indians.

Stick Indians were also known as "Brush Indians" and were considered "secretive, normally avoiding contact" with regular people. They were part of the inland Athapaskan tribe.  

It's unknown what spawned stories of Stick Indians being malevolent forest spirits. They are described in various ways by different tribes. The Salish said they were large, bigfoot-like creatures, and the Cayuse and Yakama said they were dwarf-like.

Stick Indians are believed to steal children, makes wives of women and eat people or enslave them, and take revenge on anyone that harms them even if it's unintentional. Sometimes they are just described as being mischievous and who steal things, however the pervasive belief that you never want to anger them.

According to the Salish they dwell deep in the forests of the Northwest.

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Stick Indians are also described as bigfoot-type creatures

Stick Indians are rarely seen and are nocturnal. They do not speak like a person but mimic birds and animals. They don't live in a village but hunt and fish to feed themselves wherever they are at, and cloth themselves with deer skins. They are believed to have hypnotic powers of persuasion, and in some cases to cause insanity.

Their favorite targets  are people who are wandering alone, and they will entice a person by whistling or mimicking animal noises to lure them away. Children are especially vulnerable. Unusual disappearances are blamed on Stick Indians.

Like the skinwalker, Indians refuse to utter their name in the native language for fear that by doing so they are calling them forth. There are stories that just by whistling in the forest will call their attention.

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