An introduction in Dolores Cline Brown's words: "I arrived fifty years too late for the big gold rush to the Klondike but not too late to put the first footprints made by a white woman on many of the big-game trails of the Yukon. Gold could not buy the happy comradeship I have shared around the Yukon campfires with my husband, our Indian guides and those sportsmen who participated with us in the enjoyment and appreciation of the great hunting areas of the Wind, Bonnet Plume and Snake Rivers."

This is an excerpt pertaining to sasquatch activity in the far north from Dolores Cline Brown's book "Yukon Trophy Trails." Gray's Publishing Ltd., Sidney, British Columbia, Canada 1971.

The Bushman or Black Giants (pg 153)
 "Not only were there bad animals but also bad men [in the Yukon], Billy Dechuk says. There were fearsome black giants who ate Indians. Billy told me about the time the Indians fooled one of these black cannibals. They stuffed their skin beds with hay to make it look as though they were all sleeping. When the black giant crept into a teepee to eat them, the Indians stole in from behind and clubbed the cannibal to death.

Many times the Indians have scared the wits out of me by warning me about the bushman. The bushman lives in caves or holes in the ground and has enormous feet. Once, when Louis was away and I was alone, Billy Dechuk came to warn me of a big, big bushman. He had just seen his tracks not far from our old cabin and told me that, if I saw the bushman looking through the window, I was to shoot right through the glass "and kill him dead quick." Not wanting to face this bushman alone, I went to get Sarah Johnny. She was not eager to come and stay the night with me. She had never seen a bushman but, since her Uncle Billy had said there was one around, Sarah took the precaution of scattering tin cans in front of the door so that we would hear him if he came. As there was no lock on the cabin, I wanted more protection than a tin can and I  wedged a knife sideways in the door jamb.

About midnight, Sarah and I both bolted upright. The door rattled from a loud, heavy knocking and the big knife quivered. Sarah and I grabbed the table and the dresser, and shoved them against the door. Next, we tried to move the stove but it was too heavy. We sat shivering, each holding a high-powered rifle.

When I told Louis, he roared with laughter, but no one can tell Sarah or me there wasn't something big banging on our door that dread-filled night. I am not ashamed to admit I was badly frightened, for our guides, who have faced many grizzly charges without fear, avoid going into the woods alone because of the frightful bushman.

On trophy trails, we have come across scores of camps so old that the tree stumps had been chopped with stone axes; always, these camps are well hidden up a shadowy ravine. We asked our guides why this was. "Because of the bad people — the bushmen," they answered. Stone axes and crude spear points from these camps have been dated 10,000 years old."  
Courtesy Ken Kristian
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Notes from my database on the Bushmen:

The Hare Indian tribes share with the Loucheux tribe, the distinction of being the northernmost Redskins in America and Canada; their habitat being immediately south of the Alaskan Eskimos. Their territory extends from Fort Norman, on the great Mackenzie River west of Great Bear Lake, to the confines of the Eskimos, not far from the Arctic Ocean. The Hares are said to call the creature resembling Bigfoot simply “bushmen”

There are less than 600 Hare souls left in that territory. The Hare regard the bushmen usually as males who have lost their way and in ancient times story-tellers said the bushmen used to steal women and children. Some say they ate the men and raised the children. The Bushman dwellings were generally underground; living together without women throughout the winter months with no fire, but eating fresh meat cached through the warmer months, -caribou and elk skins have been found cached along with other skins of small mammals. The Hare say the bushmen communicate with a whistle; therefore it is taboo for the Hare to whistle for it might bring the bushmen to their villages.

Various residents elsewhere in Alaska and northern Canada use the term bushman and some use brushman, namely Allakaket, Tanana and Ruby, a small village on the lower Yukon River. Natives from Huslia describe the creature as larger than a man, completely covered with black hair, full-bodied and very strong. The new generation of First Nation people are often heard just using the terms ‘sasquatch or bigfoot.’

In 2003, I befriended a truly wonderful leathered faced Gwich'in Indian family while fishing the mighty Bonnet Plume River in Canada’s Yukon Territory. They spoke of a “black giant” which is a term frequently used in unpopulated areas.

He (always “he” because seeing females is rare for some unknown reason) was described as better than eight feet tall, tracks measuring twice a woman’s length that lead to rocky crevices where the creature lived a solitary life, rarely showing his face in winter; holed up with his cache of stored food. The rest of the year they might be seen anyplace from marshy areas to outer city limits especially fishing communities; preferred their own kindred, each avoiding the other.

What scared the Gwich'in couple the most? Hearing a whistle, even when I whistled, they stopped me. To them, it is the call of a black giant to a female. The Indians also listen to the alarm call of birds and what each alarm call indicates. One bird in their territory is capable of mimicking at least forty other birds; it’s the gray catbird. It also mimics the bushman, or their black giant. (Short 2003)

In Nulato, Alaska Albert Petka died after fighting with a "bushman" that attacked him on the boat where he was living. His dogs drove the bushman off, but he later died.

An old account was recalled in 1968 when Hazel Strasburg saw a bigfoot-like creature on the bank of the Yukon River at dusk. (Bord).

Paul Peters was at his fishing camp, ten miles down Yukon from Ruby when he saw a bushman climb a steep hill by the river and disappear into the bush. The creature walked upright like a man; was quite tall and broad, covered with dark hair. (Bob Betts)

In 1996, George Yellowhand was fishing the Yukon with his brother when two male bushmen began throwing rocks from the banks. Startled if not completely astonished, the two brothers watched the two black, hair-covered people wade into the river up to their waists, gathering rocks as they waded towards their john boat. The rocks gained in accuracy and the men finally realized their situation and left the area. Yellowhand wrote that before they noticed the two bushmen, they heard loud whistling but didn't know what it was, probably some strange birds but when the whistling stopped, but rocks begin flying. They have not been back since...