Fresh Tracks
The party swears they weren't bear tracks, like these.
In the winter of 1810-1811, legendary fur trader and mapmaker David Thompson used the Hinton area as a staging camp for his expedition to map the Athabasca Pass. Thompson faced the usual difficulty of winter in the northern Rockies: 20 feet of snow, temperatures around -30 degrees Celsius, and possibly the first recorded Sasquatch tracks by a European explorer in North America.
On January 7, 1811, Thompson and his explorer party came across the tracks. He recorded in his journal that the footprint was 14 inches by 8 inches, with toes that were each 4 inches long. The whole thing sunk about 6 inches into the snow. It was clearly defined, and the creature was heading from north to south. Whatever this track was, it was made by something huge.
The print unsettled Thompson and everyone in his party. The hunters refused to follow it, and the Indigenous guides believed it was the track of a “mammoth” – some large and terrifying creature that should be avoided at all costs. Thompson managed to convince himself it was nothing more than a large, old, grizzly bear, but the rest of the party refused to take the sighting so lightly.
Fear of this creature haunted the rest of the trek, and although they continued on their exploration journey, it was a long and hard road. Years later, Thompson reflected on this finding, admitting that although the track was not the typical shape of a grizzly track, he could not quite convince himself that this large, terrifying “mammoth” creature existed. The fact that he returned to this subject in his writing suggests that he didn’t entirely believe his bear theory either.
Later, Sasquatch enthusiasts would latch onto this story and dub it the first recorded track by a European in North America. After all, a reputation of being a large and scary creature is the perfect cover for an elusive creature, and Thompson himself wasn’t entirely convinced this was the footprint of an old, giant grizzly bear.
Find out more about the exploits of David Thompson, and other historical stories of the area, from the Northern Rockies Museum in Hinton this winter.
