Bauman Bigfoot Story

Theodore Roosevelt was not a sucker for fairytales, but he was impressed by a story he recounted in his book:

The Wilderness Hunter , published in 1893. The incident, which had occurred many years before, was related to Roosevelt, as the latter wrote,

by a grizzled, weather beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman, who was born and had passed all of his life on the Frontier. He must have believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale...

When the event occurred Bauman was still a young man, and was trapping with a partner among the mountains dividing the forks of the Salmon from the head of Wisdom River. Not having had much luck, he and his partner determined to go up into a particularly wild and lonely pass through which ran a small stream said to contain many beaver. The pass had an evil reputation because the year before a solitary hunter who had wandered into it was there slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the half eaten remains being afterwards found by some mining prospectors who had passed his camp only the night before.

But Bauman and his partner were adventerous and untroubled by the tale. They made camp then went upstream  to set some traps. They both returned to the camp as the day was nat an end.

They were surprised to find that during their absence something, apparently a bear, had visited camp, and had rummaged about among their things, scattering the contents of their packs, and in sheer wantonness destroying their lean-to. The footprints of the beast were quite plain, but at first they paid no particular heed to them...

They later examined the footprints more closely and saw that they had been made by a creature that walk upright, but not a human.

At midnight Bauman was awakened by some noise, and sat up in his blankets. As he did so his nostrils were struck by a strong, wild-beast odor, and he caught the loom of a great body in the darkness at the mouth of the lean-to. Grasping his rifle, he fired at the vague, threatening shadow, but must have missed, for immediately afterwards he heard the smashing of the underwood as the thing, whatever it was, rushed off into the impenetrable blackness of the forest and the night.

The two men slept but little after that and the next day stayed together as they worked. When they got back to camp they saw that it had again been destroyed and all their camp kit and bedding tossed about. Two-legged footprints showed plainly in the soft earth along the nearby stream. The trappers spent the night sitting by a blazing fire, one or the other on guard, listening uneasily to the sound of branches crackling and something uttering a "harsh, grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister sound."

In the morning they decided to pick up their traps and leave that afternoon. They worked together as before, until there were only three traps yet to be collected. The sun was high, the traps were only a couple of miles from camp, and the men agreed that Bauman would gather them while the other went back to the lean-to to pack their gear.

here were three beavers in the traps, and it took Bauman some time to prepare them. With considerable uneasiness he noted how low the sun was as he started for the campsite.

At last he came to the edge of the little glade where the camp lay, and shouted as he approached it, but got no answer. The camp fire had gone out, though the thin blue smoke was still curling upwards. Near it lay the packs, wrapped and arranged. At first Bauman could see nobody; nor did he receive an answer to his call. Stepping forward he again shouted, and as he did so his eye fell on the body of his friend, stretched beside the trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing towards it the horrified trapper found that the body was still warm, but that the neck was broken, while there were four great fang marks in the throat.

The footprints of the unknown beast-creature, printed deep in the soft soil, told the whole story.

The unfortunate man, having finished his packing, had sat down on the spruce log with his face to the fire, and his back to the dense woods, to wait for his companion. ... It had not eaten the body, but apparently had romped and gambolled around it in uncouth, ferocious glee, occasionally rolling over and over it; and had then fled back into the soundless depths of the woods.

Bauman, utterly unnerved, and believing that the creature with which he had to deal was something either half human or half devil, . . . abandoned everything but his rifle and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting until he reached the beaver meadows where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting, he rode onwards through the night, until far beyond the reach of pursuit.

Although Roosevelt himself had no similar experience during his years in the West, he did not seem to dismiss the story as farfetched. (Theodore Roosevelt, The Wilderness Hunter , pp.441-47)

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