Chippewa County, Brimley, Michigan.

The town of Brimley is located off the shores of Lake Superior across from Candia and a 30-minute drive from Soo Saint Marie, a tourist attraction for its locks.

As a young girl growing up in Brimley there was a time period when “Bigfoot” was rumored to be seen many times in a central location where my family and I lived.

Reports of dogs going absolutely crazy during the night with appearances of hairy creatures jumping over 8” fences (note this all took place during the mid 70’s) and other strange activities occurred during a 1- 2 year span. Adults didn’t speak much about it when they thought children were present, but we always heard them talking about their fears and suspicions.

The report of the dog and the hairy creature jumping the fence was about ¼ mile from where we kids loved to hang out and play in a sort of ravine area by the Catholic Church located on Main Street driving into town from the Soo.

It was a beautiful sunny day when my friend Mary and I were playing some sort of adventure game in the ravine that was sort of wooded next to the church. We always stopped at the church to light a candle and pray before we went off on our daily adventures.

On this particular day Mary started talking about her Aunt and Uncle who lived close by and how they have been having problems with an unknown intruder and how their German shepard dog was going wild at night.

She didn’t know a lot about it but enough to give us something to ponder. We then started playing some game where we pretended we going to capture wild bunnies…as we were exploring and pretending in the tall grass and tree area there was this loud thumping, like pounding…footsteps sound and it sounded like it was coming straight towards us running...Mary screamed and ran home I was petrified and curled up as small as I could get and tried to hide in the tall grass. The one thing that stuck out most in my mind was the impression of the tall grass bending down like giant footsteps with no one there (like it was invisible or something) and the sound and feeling of vibration of footsteps running next to me like there was something being chased. I could feel my heart pounding so hard in my chest I thought it would explode, but I never made a peep, too frightened the creature or what ever it was would realize I was there hiding. After the sound and footsteps topped I peeked my head up and looked for indications of a presence…all was quiet and the animals started making their usual sounds again…I calmed down and ran home. After I got home Mary and her brothers came looking for me, her mother was close behind in the car and made the suggestion that we should stay home for some time.

Within the next couple of days after Mary and I experienced this event I was out side of my home playing across the street in the apple tree. I all of a sudden got an uncomfortable feeling and ran across the road to my home. Something made me stop and turn around and look at where I was, when I did the apple tree was swaying back and forth and the branches were breaking and cracking off of it. I became frightened and ran into my home calling for my father. I explained to him and my mother what was happening and my father took off running to go and investigate what was there. It took some time for him to come back, but he ventured into the woods to find a trail that just disappeared. He acknowledged the broken limbs on the apple tree and claimed than a human could not have made the damage he saw.

Most of us stayed in that summer until the reports became less and less…but it was something that always stuck in my mind from childhood.

"Tinamarie"
Saturday, September 23, 2006 10:23 AM