Sighting in Portage La Prairie 1976
Manitoba, Canada
Nearest City: Portage la Prairie
October/November 1976 10 PM?
Closest Water Crescent Lake, Crescent Road
It was windy a Sunday evening in late October or early November of 1976 (I think). I know this was a long time ago but I don't like to relate this story very much due to ridicule being heaped on me for no very good reason: for this reason please only e-mail me if you want to contact me as I cannot guarantee what times I will be at home due to work, etc.
I was about 16 years old at the time and I was doing some homework when I began to feel restless and in need of a walk, and so I did. I ended up at Yellowquill School (where I had attended Grade 9) when I found myself on the football/running track. It was very dark, as it was around 10 PM, and quite windy; I was at the north end of the running track when I saw what appeared to be a very large man at the south end of the track.
Being young and stupid I decided on a little adventure, to get as close as possible to this man without being seen. As I snuck closer I was absolutely dumbfounded at how BIG this man appeared to be and began to get nervous. As I got closer I noticed that he was standing on a small track between the east side of the school and a line of large trees and almost touching a baseball backstop that was there.
I hid behind an small electrical transformer next to the gymnasium and took a good look at the man backlit from the streetlights of Crescent Road about 100 meters away (actually probably more). As I looked I was quiet surprised to realise that this man appeared to be naked, and it was too cold for that. Then I noticed that he appeared to be covered with short hair! It was at this point that I remembered that two boys on the Long Plains Indian Reserve had had a late night encounter with a large hairy man just outside of their house on the Reserve that past summer, I lost my nerve and snuck away around the north end of the school and then around the school and got on to Crescent Road and ran all the way to my home on 7th St. S.W. At no time did it threaten me; in fact I don't even know if it saw me.
This was within the bounds of the City of Portage la Prairie (really a large town, but it's called a city). The area is flat prairie. There is a lake called Crescent Lake, which used to be an arm of the Assiniboine River. The lake is just across Crescent Road from Yellowquill School. At the time Yellowquill School was mostly surrounded on the north and northeast by farmland and a branch of the CPR to the north. The school is within a stones throw of well-established residential houses (where I had used to live nearby the school) and close to two or three farmhouses to the east. There has been quite a bit of construction around there since 1976, especially the construction of a large garage and
maintenance yard for school buses that wasn't there at the time of the incident, I think that's what it's for anyway.
It was massive! I really didn't get that good a look at it because of the light and sudden fright of the situation. It stood over 3/4 of the way up the side of the baseball backstop it was standing near and easily was about half as wide as the small track it was standing on. I'm guessing that it was between 3 and 4 meters in height and probably a good meter in width: the sheer mass was unbelievable and I couldn't even guess a weight. Its body seemed to have a slight taper down to its waist though I would probably call it a straight profile. Due to the fact that it was backlit I could clearly tell that it seemed to be covered in short hair (colour unknown) that its head appeared to be pointed (whether from its skull or its hair I don't know) and that its hands (which were clearly visible) hung down to a point slightly below its knees. It was standing just like a man would, even swaying slightly from side-to-side. Other than that it never moved. Despite the use of the word "man" at no time could I tell whether it was male or female.
I told my brother who laughed at me and a couple of other people who said nasty things. Years later I told my wife who thought I was seeing things. This is why I like to keep it quiet.
I have, since then, spent alot of time hiking and camping in the woods and various remote places in Western Canada and I've seen one or two things that I still scratch my head about, but I've never seen anything like what I saw at Yellowquill School before or since. Name with held by request.
Courtesy BigfootEncounters.com