Portlock: The Alaska Ghost Town Haunted By A Monster
Artist interpretation/Cryptid WikiLegend states that Portlock was abandoned because of a monster called the Nantiinaq.
Bodie and Goldfield were abandoned because gold dried up; Helltown was abandoned because of the government. But Portlock, Alaska purportedly became a ghost town because of a beast known as the Nantiinaq.
This small town on the southern coast of Alaska began to grow in the early 20th century around a salmon cannery. It was always a modest place — Portlock’s residents were fishermen, lumberjacks, miners, and cannery workers — but the town grew big enough by 1921 to open a post office.
By then, residents were unsettled by an alleged monster living in the forest. Stories spread that Nantiinaq — a Sasquatch-like beast — was responsible for a number of odd incidents in and around Portlock.
Alaska State Library – Historical CollectionsPortlock was purportedly haunted by a number of disappearances and deaths in the first half of the 20th century.
Legend has it that in 1905, all of the Native American workers at the salmon cannery left Portlock because of “something” in the woods. In the 1920s, rumors spread about sightings of a “monster.” And in the 1930s, a logger died in such a violent fashion that locals agreed his killer couldn’t have been human.
Rumors like these proliferated, and Portlock had become a ghost town by the 1950s. Even its post office shut down.
However, not everyone is convinced that Nantiinaq was responsible for Portlock’s demise. Some dismiss stories of the “monster” as mere rumors. They believe Portlock became a ghost town for a much simpler reason: the opening of Alaska Route 1 state highway. The new route made Portlock obsolete and may have led to its abandonment.
