Alaska State Library Historical CollectionsPortlock, Alaska, as seen from above.On the southern coast of Alaska, a mining tunnel, rubble, and rusted cannery equipment are all that remains of the village of Portlock.The residents of this shipping and canning port abandoned Portlock around 1950 in favor of towns built closer to the new Alaska Route 1 state highway. Portlock, nestled on the southern edge of the Kenai Peninsula along Port Chatham bay, was no longer practical as a place to call home.At least, thats the official story.Urban legends, on the other hand, claim the residents fled en masse from Portlock because of a huge, hairy, half-man half-beast who started stalking and attacking residents of the town. The beast, reminiscent of Bigfoot, was known to the locals as Nantiinaq.The term Nantiinaq (non-tee-nuck) came from the Native Alaskan Denaina word nantina. This literally translates as those who steal people.Nantiinaq was rumored to be responsible for dozens of mysterious deaths and disappearances of town inhabitants from the early 1900s until the town was abandoned in the 1950s. So what actually happened in Portlock?The Official History Of Portlock, AlaskaPortlocks story begins around 1786, when Captain Nathaniel Portlock of the British Royal Navy passed through and praised the area. The town took his name. However, it didnt start to grow until the dawn of the 20th-century when a cannery for salmon was built.Public DomainPortlock, Alaska, reportedly gets its name from a British sea captain named Nathaniel Portlock.The village was small, with just a handful of residents made up of fishermen, lumbermen, miners, and cannery workers, largely of Russian and Alaska Native descent. By 1921, Portlock had grown enough to open a post office.But within 30 years the town was abandoned as its residents moved to nearby places like Nanwalek and Seldovia. In 1950, its final death knell rang with the shuttering of its post office. Portlock became a ghost town.Officially, people left because it was out of the way of the new highway. Unofficially, they fled a monster who had terrorized them for decades.Inside Nantiinaqs Reign Of TerrorArtist interpretation/Cryptid WikiThe Nantiinaq was rumored to be a Sasquatch-like half-man half-beast that stalked the village of Portlock.Shortly after Portlock, Alaska was established around 1900, creepy stories about the town begin to spread. In 1905, all of the Native American workers at the cannery left the town because of something in the woods (though they returned the next year). And the next several decades saw a number of unsettling incidents in and around Portlock.In the 1920s, Anchorage Press reports that rumors began to spread of a creature hanging around a nearby mine, as well as sightings of trees which apparently had been ripped out of the ground by their roots. Then in 1931, a logger named Andrew Kamluck died a mysterious death. Kamluck was purportedly struck over the head with a huge piece of logging equipment something far too heavy for a human to pick up. And though there was blood on a nearby crane, Kamluck was found 10 feet away from it.There was also a reports of hunters whod come across 18-inch footprints while tracking a moose. They reported that they found signs of a struggle where the grass had been matted down, then only the deep tracks of the man-like animal departing toward the high, fog-shrouded mountains. It was as if something had killed the moose and then dragged it off.And it wasnt only moose that seemed to inexplicably disappear. Alaska Magazine reports that a schoolteacher who taught in the area in the 1940s recalled that a number of cannery workers vanished while hunting sheep and bear. Eerily, one of their bodies was later purportedly found mutilated and dismembered in a local lagoon.Over the decades, stories like these allegedly terrified the residents of Portlock. One by one, they began to flee the town for safer pastures.We left our houses and the school, and started all new here [in Nanwalek], Malania Kehl, who was born in Portlock in 1934, told the Homer Tribune. Over a long period of time she explained, something had terrorized the towns residents to the point that they fled. So are these stories about the Nantiinaq true?Debunking The NantiinaqStories like these abound in articles and websites about Portlock, Alaska. But locals of the area often dispute their accuracy. Malania kind of made up a story, because she was getting tired of people asking if this [story] is true, Sally Ash, Kehls cousin who served as her translator for the Homer Tribune article, told the Anchorage Press. She made up this story about how Bigfoot was killing people. It wasnt true. Everybody knows that, but it was not our place to say nothing.Ash grew up in Nanwalek, and her mother was born near Portlock. Portlock, she said was a creepy place. And despite her claim that her cousin made up stories, Ash seems to believe that the Nantiinaq exists.Theyd tell us dont go out on a foggy day. Thats when hes walking around. You could run into him and you never know what he might do, Ash said. YouTubeAn abandoned structure in Portlock, Alaska.However, Ash claimed that the Nantiinaq was not dangerous, and that the locals had a sort of respect for him.I think he is part-human, Ash said. He lived with people and then didnt want to be around them anymore so he moved to the forest; away from everybody. He started growing hair and he looked like a bigfoot scary My uncles, my grandfathers, they all talked about him. Hes old, hes tall, hes strong, hes hairy. It lives in the woods and you can tell when hes getting near. You can smell him. My mom used to talk about it a lot.She added: Respect him. Keep distance He moved around he was quick.Thus despite Portlocks status as a ghost town and the home of the Alaskan Killer Bigfoot as seen in a new Discovery+ show its more likely this small village simply couldnt stand the test of time. Nantiinaq, if it exists, probably keeps to itself like its legendary cousin Bigfoot. People would see Nantiinaq, but that wasnt the reason why people moved this way to Seldovia and Nanwalek, Ash said. They moved because of the economy, schools, and the church. There really was no killing of people.After reading about the legend of Portlock, Alaska and Nantiinaq, read about eight Bigfoot sightings that turned skeptics into believers and learn about Floridas own Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape. Or, check out 11 of the creepiest places on Earth.The post The Story Of Portlock, The Alaska Ghost Town Allegedly Abandoned Because Of A Killer Bigfoot appeared first on All That's Interesting.