There is no shortage of strange stories emerging from the Alaskan wilds. The so-called “supernatural” is an accepted part of reality for many people living in rural villages up here. In a sense, there’s no such thing as “supernatural.” Instead, there’s the seen and the unseen. No matter whether you believe in the supernatural or not, there is a lot that is “unseen.” Folks who spend a lot of time in the wilderness know this.
One common story in Alaska communities is that of the little people. These stories are most common in western Alaska, particularly the Brooks Range, the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta, and the surrounding regions. Some believe the little people live underground; others say they live in a different dimension altogether. But all accounts, from the Arctic to Bristol Bay, say that the little people have incredible strength and often possess supernatural and shamanistic powers. While they’re not necessarily evil, they are dangerous — not something to interact with. Talking about the little people can summon them, and if summoned, they will mess with you. Stories across the North state that at one time little people lived in plain sight but became estranged after some sort of violent conflict.
I’ve heard many stories of the little people over the years. For example, one young Native man told me about an encounter he had while he and his friends were staying in a cabin in the wilderness. The young men made the mistake of talking about little people. Soon rocks and sticks thrown by something unseen began hitting the cabin. They spent a sleepless night sure that little people were climbing the outside walls, jumping on the roof, and tampering with the chimney.
Iñupiaq storyteller James Dommek Jr. explained that his peoples’ name for little people is iñuqulligauraq, which translates to “mythical small person.” In the modern vernacular, people in the Northwest Arctic call them iñukuns for short. In the Iñupiaq dictionary there are three English definitions for the word iñukun: 1. Spirit; 2. Prowler (unknown person seen from afar and blamed for unexplainable happenings); 3. Bogeyman.
Wild Country
I remember first hearing about iñukuns in 2010. I was about to hike across the Central and Western Brooks Range when two different white men warned me about them. One told me villagers would ask me if I’d had encounters with little people out on the land. It was important to be respectful in responding to these inquiries, he said. And if I did encounter any little people, I wasn’t to mess with them even if they messed with me.
I never encountered iñukuns, nor did any villagers ask me about them during the five weeks I spent trekking from the Dalton Highway to Kotzebue. Everyone I met from Anaktuvuk Pass and Noatak simply wanted a report on the caribou.
Still, that trip was the strangest expedition I’ve made. There were aggressive bear encounters, including a grizzly brushing by me and trampling my tent as I exited the vestibule, as well as a sick wolf that stalked me for hours. I found a lost man. I saw thousands and thousands of caribou, and had other incredible experiences with wildlife.
But the thing that stands out the most from that trip were mysterious pulsations, which sounded and felt like a giant irregular heartbeat. They were a soundwave of some sort but I’m not sure if they were being emitted from the ground like a minor earthquake or coming from somewhere else. I first noticed them a few days into my hike. They came on quietly at first, so softly I could barely identify them. By the fifth day I heard and felt the pulsations every time I stopped hiking or was far enough away from the sound of a rushing creek or the wind. I checked my pulse multiple times to make sure I wasn’t experiencing my own heart beating. By my third week, when I made it to the Noatak River valley, they had gotten much more powerful that at times they reverberated so strongly inside of me that it was anxiety inducing.
Two friends flew in with boats to float the Noatak River with me out to the Chukchi Sea. When I was with them the pulsations faded. Still, whenever it was quiet the droning beat would come back. I’d asked my friends several times if they heard them and, each time, they said no and teased me about losing my mind.
I considered different explanations. Had I developed auditory and sensory hallucinations from being alone and stressed? Did the pulsations have something to do with the permafrost melting? Or, was it related to oil companies developing the National Petroleum Reserve to the north? Or, were they caused by something else?
When I returned home, I contacted a few geologists and hunting guides familiar with Brooks Range about whether they knew anything about pulsations. They were interested but didn’t have any answers. One outfitter talked about hearing droning that he called the “Arctic generator,” but it didn’t match up with what I experienced. I’ve made several more trips to the Brooks Range but have never experienced the pulsations again.
Iñukuns Make Headlines
If you have not listened to Dommek Jr.’s audiobook, “Midnight Son,” or watched Dommek Jr. and Kahlil Hudson’s recently released film, “Blood and Myth,” do yourself a favor and check them out. They tell the story of Teddy Kyle Smith, an Iñupiaq actor who looked like he was about to skyrocket to Hollywood fame. Instead, he embarked on a violent odyssey that blurred the line between myth and reality. Iñukuns are a prominent part of that story.
In 2011, Smith made headlines for the impressive performance he gave in the movie On the Ice. A year later in early September, he finished filming his part in the movie Wildlike and then returned to his village, Kiana, which is an Iñupiat village located at the confluence of the Squirrel and Kobuk rivers near the southwest flanks of the Brooks Range. The village has a population of 375. The last Facebook post Smith made was about how he’d received two different film offers and was not sure which one to take.
On September 7th, Smith, who had been drinking, got on the CB radio and called for help. His mother was dead. Health aids came and administered CPR on the woman before calling for the Village Public Safety Officer. When the VPSO arrived, Smith shocked everyone when he appeared with a gun and opened fire. People ran for cover and Smith disappeared into the wilderness.
Into the Mountains
What happened during the 12 days before Smith was seen again is unclear. When he was apprehended, he claimed that he was led into the mountains by iñukuns. Blood and Myth includes a recorded transcript of Smith telling defense attorney Angela Greene that each night iñukuns would harass him with their whistling, bird sounds and by throwing rocks and sticks at him. He even saw them one night. They were three or four feet tall, dressed in skins and had dark leathery faces. They spoke a few words: “Weak.” “Vulnerable.” “Death.”
What is known is that on September 19, Paul and Charles Buckel were floating down the Squirrel River on a brown bear hunt. The area that the two men were hunting generally has a lot of bears fishing for salmon that time of year, but heavy rains had flooded creeks and made hunting difficult. There was a cabin along the river that the brothers had permission to use. When they clambered ashore, looking forward to drying out, the Buckels were surprised to find the cabin occupied by Smith. Smith told them his name was “Paul” and that he was working on the place.
Paul Buckle described what happened next while being interviewed for Blood and Myth. Everything seemed normal. Smith made hot drinks and the three men sat conversing about the weather, hunting, and fishing. Paul went to get his satellite phone that he’d left in the kitchen but was surprised to find that it was gone. All three men were looking for the phone. Paul was searching the upstairs of the cabin and Smith and Charles were looking on the first floor. At some point, Smith’s demeanor instantly changed. He pulled out a gun and shot Charles through the chest. The Buckles pleaded for their lives until Smith screamed at Paul to leave the cabin, go down to the river and to bring the brothers’ raft closer. Paul complied and, after he finished tying up the boat, Smith came down from the cabin and shot him. The bullet went through his shoulder and arm.
The two brothers stumbled off and hid in the woods as Smith loaded the boat with their guns and all their gear and food. After Smith floated away, the Buckels returned to the cabin. Paul got on a marine band radio and, incredibly, his distress calls were heard by a woman in the far-off village of Noorvik. Nearly 20 hours passed before the brothers were transported to a hospital. Considering their wounds and length of time before rescue, it was a miracle both survived.
An Unlikely Defense
Smith was apprehended on September 20 as he floated down the Squirrel River. He went without a fight. From the moment he was in custody, he wouldn’t stop talking about iñukuns. He said he had been influenced and tricked by them. They caused him to shoot the Buckle brothers. From a legal standpoint, Smith’s argument was challenging for both his defense and the court to deal with. The ACLU and other groups argued that Smith’s trial should have a jury selected from the villages where the belief in iñukuns was common. How can he be fairly judged by people who didn’t share his belief system?
The jury was selected from Kotzebue, the hub of Northwest Alaska with a population of nearly 3,000. It did not help Smith’s case that he had a significant criminal record. His mother’s death didn’t help, either, even though the coroner ruled her cause of death inconclusive.
Smith is now serving 99 years in the Goose Correctional Facility in Wasilla. Some people from Northwest Alaska hope he never gets out. Others think he was telling the truth, that iñukuns influenced him, and that he got a bad rap. According to a Time.com article Smith has become a Christian preacher, sharing the Christian word blended with Iñupiaq beliefs with other prisoners.
Smith still believes he was influenced by iñukuns but an important part of his story has changed. He now thinks the little people led him into the Brooks Range not to deceive him but to try to save him from the bad life he was living. They were telling him he needed to return to the old ways of respect for himself, others, and the land.
A Strange Encounter
Last June when I met Kahlil Hudson, the director of Blood and Myth, I knew next to nothing about the saga of Teddy Kyle Smith. I had watched both On the Ice and Wildlike when the films came out years ago. I remembered Smith as being charismatic and having a powerful presence on screen. Not long after that, I heard he’d been involved in some bad stuff and was in jail.
Hudson and I were both helping our friend, filmmaker Colin Arisman, with a documentary he was making on the Bering Land Bridge Park and Preserve. Hudson was there to help film Iñupiat people hunting, fishing, and gathering. Arisman brought me in to assist in filming wildlife.
The shoot was based out of the small village of Deering, about 80 miles from Kiana and the Brooks Range. Arisman had rented the small school for us to store gear and sleep in when we were not in the field. He and Hudson were finishing up filming hunters when I arrived. The plan was for Hudson to fly home the next day.
But when I arrived, Arisman and Hudson were flustered. They had been sleeping in two of the three school classrooms. Early that morning, Hudson had gotten up and left his classroom for a few minutes. When he returned, the closet door near his sleeping cot was wide open. He’d tried to open that door earlier, but it had been locked at the time. Even creepier, the ceiling tile above where his head had been on the cot was shoved aside and there was a thin cord attached to the ceiling dangling down to his mattress. No one else was supposed to be in the classrooms or have access to the school. Arisman called the school maintenance person and told him what had happened. No one had any answers.
Over a few cups of coffee, Hudson told me about Teddy Kyle Smith and how Blood and Myth would be released on Hulu in a couple months. I mentioned the stories I’d heard about little people, and the warnings about how if you talk about them that they will come and mess with you. Hudson had not been back to Northwest Alaska since filming the documentary.
The Tiny Homes Mystery
Hudson told me how Blood and Myth included a spectacular story about how the Bureau of Land Management. While conducting a survey of the route for the proposed and very controversial Ambler Road, surveyors found small stone houses that many believed belonged to iñukuns. The proposed Ambler Road, if built, would be a publicly funded 211-mile industrial corridor through the southern flanks of the Brooks Range to help develop an unknown number of foreign-owned mines. It would cut through, and open industrial development, in the region where the lion’s share of iñukun stories come from.
Later, after I watched Blood and Myth a couple of times, I reached out to Dommek Jr. and asked if he could share more about those stone houses. He told me he saw a BLM flier on Facebook that referenced the possibility of surveyors finding the homes of little people. He was able to get ahold of one tribal liaison on the survey team who explained what happened, though she would not tell him where they’d found the structures.
On that hot summer day, two survey teams flew to a place more distant than they’d been before. They had just begun working when their bear guard set up a spotting scope. After looking through it at something strange in the distance, the man turned pale and asked for a cigarette. He told the liaison she needed to look through the scope. The woman looked and saw small rock homes with little doors. She was from the Kobuk River valley and quickly put two and two together.
“They’d just landed but she knew they were in a dangerous situation,” Dommek Jr. said. “These homes did not belong to people. They were not safe and they needed to leave.”
She got on radio and called the other survey team, telling them that for their safety to keep within an arm’s distance of each other and return. When they were all back together, the other tribal liaison looked through the spotting scope and said they needed to get out of there, fast. Before flying back to camp, they took coordinates and filmed the structures from the air. The rough footage is included in Blood and Myth. Afterwards, the tribal liaison reported several strange events happening at the Bornite Mining Camp where the survey teams were based out of.
An Iñupiaq elder was sent for and helicoptered into the site to investigate. Afterward, back at Bornite, the elder told the tribal liaisons they were correct in their assessment. They were iñukun homes, he said. There were five or six, and their entrances were small and square. They appeared to be made for people three or four feet tall. Inside were small steps cut into the rock. There was no one there and the old man guessed it was a winter settlement. If the elder took photos or videos, he did not share it with anyone as far as Dommek Jr. knows.
Dommek Jr. was able to contact an archaeologist on the survey team, but they told him they would not talk about what happened. The government put a five-mile buffer around the site and no more information was made public.
Dommek Jr. sometimes wonders if there’s nothing “supernatural” about the stories of iñukuns. He points out that his people were the last Americans to be contacted by white people. He knows an old man who, when he was a boy, fled with his family into the wilderness for years to avoid the deadly diseases that came with contact.
“When the missionaries came, people would just fall dead from disease. Back then disease was associated with spirits, so people believed the missionaries were bringing bad spirits to kill them. People ran off and hid as far away as they could for their safety,” Dommek Jr. said. “It really wasn’t that long ago. There still might be some people out there. Part of me wonders if what we are seeing with the iñukun are people who ran away and never came back.”
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Unknown People
A few days after Hudson left Deering, Arisman and I were camped on a bluff looking over the Chukchi Sea. For a long time, I had dreamed of visiting this area of the Bering Land Bridge — a swath of land that, during periods of glaciation, connected Asia to North America. The most accepted theory states that the “bridge” was how people traveled from Asia and spread into North America.
In the 1960s or 1970s, an Iñupiaq man named Simon Paneak told an anthropologist about an ancient story he heard. It was about how after the big glaciers melted there were different enemy people everywhere, specifically in the northern Brooks Range. His ancestors, Paneak said, fought and killed them all. He wasn’t sure if it was a true story, though.
“That sounds like to me, the old Eskimo story, some stories are true, some of them are very hard to believe,” Paneak said.
I had imagined the days up here would unfold filming things like grizzlies scavenging dead marine mammals and nights would be spent looking out towards Siberia, speculating on the history of unknown peoples and vanished animals. Instead, mundane things like swarms of mosquitoes and the abnormally hot weather occupied more of my mental space than I’d like to admit. I felt disoriented, even drugged.
One thought did emerge, though. Western Alaska was the funnel between two continents – a crossroads. Did that have something to do with stories of little people being so much more prevalent here?
Some say our minds are made to survive, not understand, the mysteries of existence. That might very well be true. But in those brief moments when the wind kept the bugs down, I would sit on the Arctic edge of the world, stare out on the rippling ocean and empty horizon and wonder about that gray space between myth and reality.