Creature record / 1901
Vancouver Island. About 1901. Mike King, a timber cruiser with an enviable reputation for reliability, went alone into the backcountry near Campbell River. His native packers had refused to go with him. The region, they said, was the lair of the "monkeymen." Late in the afternoon, King came upon a waterhole. Something was there, washing roots. Its body was covered with reddish-brown hair. Its arms were peculiarly long. It wheeled about, shrieked a "human cry of mingled terror and defiance," and vanished in the twilight. It left a trail behind. A distinct human foot, with phenomenally long and spreading toes.
Mike King knew the woods of Vancouver Island. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he was based in Victoria and worked as a timber cruiser and merchant. With his partner Lewis Casey he held limits on the Salmon and Campbell Rivers. He later formed a company to develop power from the Campbell River falls. Historian Bruce A. McKelvie called him "one of the most outstanding timber cruisers who ever operated in British Columbia…a fine type of a man."