Get ready to explore five cryptis in Alaska! All of these that I found were from legends told by the Inuit tribes in Alaska. If anyone has more stories about these creatures, let me know down below. Some of these were very difficult to find as a few of them have been put into video games and separating what was the game’s lore and the actual creature’s lore was a bit difficult.
Enough about me and my journey to find info, let’s learn about these five cryptids:
The Alaskan Hairy Man
This is another cryptid that is similar to bigfoot, but some of the details are different. The Alaskan Hairy Man aka The Urayuli is located in Southwest Alaska is about 6-10 ft tall and is covered with 2-4in long hair with glowing eyes. The Urayuli is said to look like the extinct primates and its arms are so long that it reaches its ankles.
Lake Iliamna is a popular place for the Urayuli to be as well as any wide tundra areas. It is said to be very agile and is a very fast swimmer. It is usually to blame for stealing fish, dogs, and destroying tents of campers. Many people have stories of encounters with the Urayuli that are from that region.
The Urayuli had some older legends that they are mostly harmless and undisruptive. In these legends it is said that children who go out of their houses and get lost in the woods are transformed into the Urayuli. Though that might have been told to keep children in the house.
The Kushtaka
The legend of the Kushtaka comes from the Tlingit people in Alaska/Canada. The Kushtaka are shapeshifters that sometimes take the shape of otters. They are said to trap their victims’ souls and prevent them from reincarnating.
The Kushtaka tend to travel in groups and will appear as a group of men, in some cases they will appear when you’re lost or injured. They claim that they intend to rescue you. Instead, the Kustaka will lead you deeper into the wilderness to either tear you to pieces or turn you into a Kushtaka. Turning into one will prevent your soul from being able to reincarnate.
Other times the Kushtaka might lure you towards them by screaming or making sounds of a woman or child in distress. Once they see that you are coming, you’ll never escape. Though there is one thing to keep you from getting captured by the Kushtaka, it is a dog! Another way to keep them away is fire. The mothers in Alaska are fairly fond of this legend to tell their children to keep them from wandering too far. If you want to read about a more personal experience with growing up with the legends of the Kushtaka this is a good read.
The Keelut
This creature is a malevolent spirit from the earth. It takes the form of an almost completely hairless dog, the only hair on it is on its feet, mouth, the tips of its ears and tail. The hair on its feet is supposed to make its tracks disappear and make it hard to hear its footsteps, so that you’ll never know that it has been stalking you. It is said that it sends its prey, usually humans, into fits by looking at them. This causes its victim to forget who they are and where they were going. The good news is that it usually runs away if confronted by noise and shouts and is very sensitive to the sound of its own name. Bad news, it is a master hunter and usually its victims don’t realize they are being hunted by it until it is too late.
The Qalupalik
These creatures are kind of like not so attractive mermaids, but they are much more sinister too. They are said to look like aquatic humanoids with scales and bumpy skin. Many times they are described as having fins coming out of their back, head and body. Their hands are webbed and clawed to make it easier for them to hunt. They are all said to stink like sulfur and carry an amautik, this is something that the inuit women use to secure their babies to their backs.
Why would they need and amautik? They have it to make it easy to snatch small children. One of the signs that a Qalupalik is there is if you are close to the shore and hear humming. The Qalupalik uses humming to lure children to the shore to be able to steal the child. They are also said to knock under the ice to bring a child close to a weak part or a hole in the ice.
There are a few different reasons why the Qalupalik wants children. One legend says that they simply eat them and another popular legend says that they take the children to a cave to put them under a sleeping spell. The Qalupalik will then feed on the child’s energy to keep itself immortal. If you would like to know more information via video this has some more information about it as well as some depictions of it in the video.
The Mahaha
This creature is considered more like a demon. It terrorizes parts of the arctic. It is described as being very thin, ice blue color and cold to touch with long fingers with sharp claws. Its eyes are piercingly white and are usually peering through its long hair hanging in its face. The cold never seems to bother it despite having almost no clothes and barefoot. It is supposedly always smiling and giggling. Despite the smiling and giggling it is very powerful and will tickle its victims to death.
Even though the Mahaha are very powerful, they are also easily tricked. In one story the Mahaha was terrorizing a tribe and the people made a plan to trick it. They convinced it to bend over to take a drink of the water and they pushed it in the water. The strong currents swept it away. If you would like to learn a little more about it you can watch this video and also see some of the depictions of Mahaha.
Thank You For Reading!
I had a fantastic time looking these creatures up. Some of these tales were bone chilling. Though some were a little challenging to find information on as all of these come from legends told by word of mouth and passed down from generation to generation in the Inuit tribes. Do you believe that any of these creatures exist? Or is it all just stories to keep young children from straying too far from home? Have you had any encounters with these creatures? Let me know in the comments below! I will link my sources down below that I have missed to place into the post.
About the Spook Shack
The Spook Shack is…A blog that I, Jodie Webb, decided to start to learn/teach about the haunted places and cryptids of different places. So far, I am working on the 50 states with five cryptids and haunted places/houses, but I plan on going out of the USA and into other countries with their cryptids/haunted places.