Cryptomundo » 1888: Mastodon Sightings

1888: Mastodon Sightings

Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 8th, 2008

mastodont_gigantism_fossil_record_paleontology_mammoth_mastodontti.jpg

Grey River [New Zealand] Argus, February 17, 1888

A LIVE MASTODON.

THE LATEST WONDER OF THE

ALASKA FAUNA.

The Juneau (Alaska) Free Press says that the Stick Indians, near the headwaters of the White river, positively assert that within the last five years an animal has been seen by them which, according to description, must be a mastodon.

One of the Indians said that while hunting he came across an immense track sunk several inches in the moss and larger around than a barrel. The Indian followed up the curious trail, and at last came in full view of his game.

These Indians as a class are the bravest of hunters, but the immense proportions of this new kind of game filled the hunter with fear, and he took to swift and immediate flight. He described it as being larger than the post trader’s store, with great shining, yellowish tusks, and a mouth large enough to swallow him at a single gulp. He said the animal was undoubtedly the same as were indicated by the huge bones scattered over that section.

The fact that other hunters have told of seeing this monster, and the numerous bones found in that section, give a certain probability to the story. On Forty-Mile Creek bones can be found projecting partly from the sands and among the driftwood along the stream.

One ivory tusk projects nine feet out of a sandbank and is larger around than a man’s body. A single tooth would be a good load for a strong man to carry.

Thanks to Jerome Clark for forwarding this old report.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under CryptoZoo News, Cryptomundo Exclusive, Cryptotourism, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Extinct, Eyewitness Accounts, Living Fossils, Megafauna, Year In Review. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.

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12 Responses to “1888: Mastodon Sightings”

HOOSIERHUNTER responds: August 8th, 2008 at 12:20 am
I wonder if the bones are still there and have they been dated? With today’s resources we could tell if they are more recent than current theory allows.
Lightning Orb responds: August 8th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Cool article; I wonder how many other creatures mightn’t be quite as dead as they’re supposed to be…
swnoel responds: August 8th, 2008 at 6:24 am
It’s just not the same without some blurry photographic evidence.
Our Lady of the Massacre responds: August 8th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Hasn’t it been proven that mastodons were alive on some coastal island(s) long past the time they were supposedly extinct? I could’ve sworn I heard that somewhere…
mystery_man responds: August 8th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Sure it couldn’t be mangy bears they were seeing? Or otters?
Seriously, it sure would be interesting to see remnant Pleistocene fauna still surviving into modern days. I would say that Alaska would be prime habitat for them, that’s for sure. It’s sad to think that while they may have been around in 1888, they could already be extinct and we may never know if they were around in modern times.
sschaper responds: August 8th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
That would be Wrangel Island, and to at least 2,000 B. C.

Surviving Pleistocene megafauna include: wisent, elk, moose, mountain goats, muskoxen, etc. etc.
Certainly could have been true, though apparently even African elephants, let alone the Indian varieties, some of which have noticeable hair, like cold weather and snow just fine. This from a TV special on a ‘retirement home’ for circus and other elephants in Canada.

Did anyone else notice that this band or tribe was called the “Stick Indians” a name associated rightly or wrongly with bigfoot in the NW? I’m not saying that these were sasquatch, but rather that the Stick Indians might not be sasquatch. Maybe.
cryptidsrus responds: August 8th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Would not surprise me if prehistoric creatures lke this were to be found in remote, islated areas of the world.

I remmeber when prehistoric horses were found in a remote, out-of-the-way vally in Tibet some years ago. Anyone remeber that? Also, I wonder whther they are being studied right now?
Munnin responds: August 8th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I thought also of the remains, found in the Siberian Arctic on Wrangel island, of the “dwarf” (25% smaller) mammoths that persisted there. The most recent remains date to about 4000 years ago. As I recall, the dentition of these remains identified them as mammoths, and not mastodons. However, such a distinction would probably not be assiduously observed in a newspaper article.
mystery_man responds: August 8th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
sschaper- I meant surviving remnants of supposedly extinct Pleistocene animals of course.
mackdaddy responds: August 8th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Stick Indians refers to different things depending on whom you are speaking to.

Stick Indians can be small yellow skinned elfin like creatures that steal food off the beach and lure children who are berry picking (Quileute)

Stick Indians can be Sasquatch

Stick Indians can be California or other coastal Indians without a ‘high’ culture (common parlance until the mid-20th Century).

Those are the three uses of Stick Indian I know of. Don’t know how many others there are.
SteveA responds: August 9th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
If we have overlooked 150,000 gorillas in the congo, there must be many cryptids out there to be found. When will mainstream science wake up?
dogu4 responds: August 10th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
There are not many as open to the idea of isolated remnant populations surviving to the modern day in the remote wilds as I am, but even I have little hope that this one could still be trundlin’ across the tundra. Having flown a bit across the boreal forest, taiga and tundra, I don’t see how an animal, whether a browser like the mastodon or a grazer like a mammoth could have escaped detections. The impacts of their feeding and travelling, and visibility from the air, and the frequency with which the land is flown-over just puts it beyond the pale for me. Small planes flying at only a few hundred or even a couple of thousand feet, which is not atypical, provide an excellent platform from which to spy big animals and moose for example, which would be small by comparison, are quite evident. People who live a subsistance life-style and hunt there are contstantly on the look-out for game and these days fly around quite a bit. It’d take either a poweful kind of perceptual blindness or extremely stealthy and tiny animals for them to not be seen and reported.
That said, I would love to see keystone species like mammoths genetically reconstructed and reintroduced into a pleistocene park, as is being dreamed about by a few visionaries.
As to what the landscape of the north might have contained prior to the introduction of modern guns and ammo along with commercial harversting of animals,who knows. The interior natives had been trading furs for amunition since Russian Fur Company and Hudson Bay Company days and it’s from these days that the odd story of the “mountain of meat” and the “giant 5 legged bears” seem to come.
I would think that if anyone with a modern understanding found skeletal remains or frozen carcass they would of course presume they were the same age as the other fossil remains that do indeed get exposed through erosion.

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