Thomas Bay
Encyclopedia
Petersburg, Alaska
Petersburg is a city in Petersburg Census Area, Alaska, in the United States. According to 2009 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 2,824 full time residents.- History :...
, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and the Baird Glacier drains into the bay. Thomas Bay is also known as "The Bay of Death" due to a massive landslide in 1750. It also has gained the name of "Devil's Country" when in 1900 several people claimed to have seen devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
creatures in the area.
The bay is named for U.S. Navy officer Charles M. Thomas.
Natural history
Thomas Bay is known for being rich in gold and quartzQuartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
. The wildlife has moose, brown bears, black bears, squirrels, wolves, rabbits, and other common Alaskan creatures. The land has been used for logging.
Bay of Death
In 1750, a native (Tlingit) village on Thomas Bay was completely buried by a large landslide. Over 500 native people died in the natural disaster. From that day on the bay was dubbed "The Bay of Death" or "Geey Nana" in Tlingit.Devil's country
In 1900, the first documented account of the legendary devil creatures came to be thanks to Harry D. Colp, who wrote his account down. Harry Colp and three of his prospecting friends who are simply known as Charlie, John, and Fred, were staying in Wrangell, AlaskaWrangell, Alaska
Wrangell is a city and borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. At the 2000 census the population was 2,308.Its Tlingit name is Ḵaachx̱aana.áakʼw . The Tlingit people residing in the Wrangell area, who were there centuries before Europeans, call themselves the Shtaxʼhéen Ḵwáan after the nearby Stikine...
. As the story goes, Charlie received word from a native local of an area to mine for gold.
He told me to go up to Thomas Bay* and camp on Patterson River on the right side, travel upriver for about eight miles and then turn to the high mountains, and after traveling about a mile and a half, I would find a lake shaped like a half-moon.
Charlie went to check out the native man's story of the gold that was to be found in the mountains in May 1900. By the time he returned, June 1900, he arrived without a coat or his hat, his canoe was empty, and looked like he had been "through hell". He did carry with him a large piece of quartz.
Charlie claimed to have arrived in Thomas Bay, but couldn't find the half-moon shaped lake. Instead he spent some time off an 'S' shaped lake (actually called Ess Lake). He claimed that the surrounding area seemed oddly void of life. There were no squirrels, no birds, etc. Wanting to get his bearings after he found his large chunk of quartz, he climbed to the top of a ridge. From there he could spot Frederick Sound
Frederick Sound
Frederick Sound is a passage of water in the Alexander Archipelago in southeastern Alaska that separates Kupreanof Island to the south from Admiralty Island in the north....
, Cape of the Straight Light, the point of Vanderput Spit (Point Vanderput), and Sukhoi Island from the mouth of Wrangell Narrows. Behind the ridge, Charlie finally spotted the half-moon shaped lake, which is where the Patterson Glacier turns into a lake that turns into Patterson River.
It was from this point that Charlie claims that a swarm of devil creatures were making their way up the ridge from the half-moon shaped lake. Charlie claimed that he barely managed to out run the strange creatures. He received several scratches along his back from the creatures. He never returned to the area.
The people who have had encounters with these creatures seem to go into hysterics and are usually deemed 'temporarily insane'. The creatures have always been described as looking neither like man or monkey, but covered with coarse hair and oozing sores. They are foul smelling. They are about four feet tall and have claw-like fingers.
In 1925, a trapper reported losing a dog in the hills there, but finding strange tracks, with the hind feet resembling a cross between a bear's and a human's footprints. The trapper returned later to find the traps, he had hastily left, some were sprung, some weren't. Some were destroyed. He took out to try and find his dog, and was never seen again.
Taken from the book "The Strangest Story Ever Told" Harry D. Colp