A Report Never Filed
By Hana Xen
Extracts from the private field journals of William Harrow
North West Company surveyor, Columbia District
Recovered from Company records, 1812–1813
Entry I — Okanagan Valley, Upper Country
October 17, 1812
The men refuse to go farther east of the lake.
They will not say why, only that the horses will not drink there and the dogs will not sleep. I thought this a matter of superstition at first, an excuse born of an unfamiliar country. Last night one of the mares tore free of her tether and bolted into the brush, foaming and screaming as though something had laid hands on her.
We found her this morning, standing calm as stone, her flanks streaked with mud and pine resin. No tracks around her, though the ground was soft with rain. The brush nearby was parted, not broken, as if something large had passed through without urgency or force.
The guides watched silently as we examined the area. They did not approach the mare. One crossed himself, not a Christian gesture, but something older.
At dusk yesterday, while taking bearings near the tree line, I observed a figure moving between the trunks. It was upright, slow, and of a height I first mistook for a cedar. It did not break branches as it passed. The forest seemed to part for it, needles and fern bending without sound.
I raised my hand to point it out. The guide nearest me caught my wrist and lowered it.
He would not look where I indicated. He said only, “It walks when it must”.
I pressed him for meaning. He would not give it.
There was a smell in the air afterward, wet earth and crushed needles. Not unpleasant. Not rot. The men argued over it well into the night, each insisting it reminded him of something different: animal, riverbank, rain-soaked wool.
This morning we found prints along the creek bed. Bare. Enormous. Five-toed. Pressed deep as if the ground itself had yielded. They were not staggered or rushed, but evenly spaced, as though the walker had all the time in the world.
I do not believe it was a bear.
Nor do I believe it wished to be seen.
I have marked the location on my map, though I doubt it will remain accurate.
Entry II — Camp at the North Arm
November 2, 1812
We returned to the clearing by the river where the survey party established camp last month.
It was empty.
The fire pit was cold but intact, ash undisturbed by rain. Tools lay where they had been set down: an axe half-buried at the chopping block, a kettle tipped on its side, bread hardened in its cloth. One man’s boots were placed neatly beside a log, toes aligned as if he intended to put them on again.
There were no signs of struggle.
No blood. No drag marks. No broken brush leading away. The tents had been taken down carefully, the canvas folded and stacked, though none of the men were known for such order. Their horses were gone, yet the tack remained, hanging loose on a branch as though recently removed.
I found a small carving near the fire pit, a bit of wood shaped into a bird, unfinished. I recognized it as the work of Harris, who carved to steady his hands. He would not have left it willingly.
The river itself had changed course.
Where the camp once sat close to the water, the channel now ran farther west, shallow and braided, its banks newly scoured. Salmon bones lay exposed along the mud, as if lifted and set there by hand. I have never seen a river move so quickly without flood or ice-break.
At dawn, one of the younger men began shouting. He had found tracks along the new bank. They were large, bare, and pressed deep and regular. They followed the river for some distance, then vanished where the ground turned to stone.
We attempted to follow the men’s trail beyond the clearing, but the forest would not cooperate. Branches snagged clothing. The ground softened and hardened without pattern. Sound seemed swallowed after a few steps, as though the land itself preferred us not to continue.
The guides would not cross the clearing.
One of them said only, “They were in the way”.
When I asked who they were, he did not answer. He knelt instead and touched the earth where the fire had been, his palm resting there longer than necessary.
We did not stay.
As we left, I noticed the smell again, wet soil, resin, and something warm beneath it. It lingered until we reached higher ground, then faded entirely.
I have struck the camp from our route.
There is no need to return.
Entry III — Near the Forks of the River
November 11, 1812
I attempted again to have the matter explained.
An elder from the valley was brought to the fire this evening at my request. He listened as I described the empty camp, the altered river, the tracks. He did not interrupt. When I finished, he nodded once and spoke at length in his own tongue.
His voice was calm, unhurried. He spoke as one recounting something already known.
The guide translated only a portion.
He said the elder warned that the land remembers what is done to it, and that not all paths remain open once crossed. He said there are places where walking upright is a mistake. He said some beings do not hunt, but answer.
I asked him to repeat the rest.
He shook his head.
I pressed him offering food, coin, and courtesy of patience. He remained unmoved. Finally, after a long silence, he said there are words that lose their meaning when carried too far from where they belong, and others that do harm when spoken aloud.
The elder watched us the entire time. When I asked him directly whether the men from the river camp were alive, he answered without waiting for translation.
“Yes,” the guide said after a moment.
Then, quieter: “But not here.”
I demanded clarification. The guide stood and would say no more.
The elder rose as well. Before leaving, he placed a small bundle at the edge of the firelight, dried roots, bound with grass. A gift, or a warning. I could not tell.
After they were gone, the forest grew uncommonly still. No insects. No birds settling for the night. Even the river seemed to hush itself.
It occurs to me that translation is a form of possession, taking what belongs to the land and carrying it elsewhere. Perhaps this is why the words were withheld.
I have written to the Company requesting reassignment come spring.
There is work here that does not belong to us.
Entry IV — Diversion Works at the South Bend
December 3, 1812
Despite prior objections, the Company ordered the channel cut.
The men set to work before dawn, driving stakes and stone into the bend where the river narrows, redirecting the flow toward the new holding fields. The intent was simple enough: steady water through winter, improved access come spring. No ceremony was observed. No consultation sought.
The river thinned obediently along its old course, exposing gravel and the pale bodies of salmon stranded too early. The men joked as they worked, pleased with the speed of it. One remarked that even God could not argue with a shovel.
For a long while, nothing happened.
That was the most unsettling part.
Then the wind rose, not sharply, but steadily. An exhalation that moved through the trees without sound. The surface of the water trembled, though no rain fell. Tools left upright toppled of their own accord. A length of rope slid from the bank and coiled itself into the current.
The first man to cry out had been standing on the diversion wall. He swore the ground beneath his feet had shifted, though the stones were well-set. Another claimed the river had pulled at him like a hand.
I did not see it arrive.
I saw only the result: men stepping back without command, faces drained, eyes fixed on the tree line. There was a shape there, tall, indistinct, and the color of bark after rain. It did not advance. It did not need to.
The smell came first. Wet soil, crushed cedar, and the mineral sharpness of disturbed cold water. The river surged suddenly against the stakes, rising far beyond its measure, and tearing the wall apart as if it had never been placed.
One man fell. He did not strike the ground.
He was lifted, not violently, but with certainty, and set down beyond the bank, uninjured and shaking. When he tried to speak, no sound came.
The shape was gone by then. Or perhaps it had never been separate from the forest at all.
By nightfall, the river ran as it had before.
No further attempts were made to divert it.
The men would not drink from the water that evening. They said it tasted watched.
At dawn, I found a single track near the ruined wall, bare, pressed deep, and turned westward.
The land has answered.
Entry V — Along the Western Reach
February 19, 1813
There have been no further incidents of note, though unease remains.
The men report fewer disturbances now. No sudden stillness. No scent on the wind. But this absence does not bring relief. It feels instead like a door closed quietly behind us. What had been near has moved on.
Tracks appear less often and never linger. When they do surface, they are incomplete: a heel without toes, an impression without weight, a suggestion rather than a mark. The forest seems unwilling to hold them.
Stories have begun to change.
Some claim the figure crouches now, others that it howls or steals livestock. One insists it carried a man screaming into the trees. None of these accounts align with what I witnessed, but they spread faster than truth ever has.
I suspect this is because fear prefers shape to silence.
We followed the river west for several days. The air grew heavier with moisture. Rain returned in earnest. Moss crept across stone and bark alike, softening edges, swallowing signs of passage.
It is harder to see here.
The forest closes ranks quickly. Sound travels poorly. Distance becomes unreliable.
I understand now why the sightings diminish.
Not because the watcher has vanished, but because this land does not permit easy witnessing.
On our final morning, I woke before the others and walked alone to the water’s edge. Mist lay thick across the river, and for a moment I thought I saw a figure standing opposite me, broad and unmoving.
When the fog lifted, there was only forest.
Yet the river ran clean.
Salmon moved unimpeded.
The men slept without dreaming.
I have struck all remaining references from the official survey.
Some things persist only if not named.
I believe that is the point.