In the early 1900s respected physician and anatomical illustrator Georges Dupuy wrote an article entitled The Monster of Partridge Creek about an encounter with an alleged living dinosaur told to him by banker and Klondike prospector James Lewis Buttler. Though Dupuy wrote out Buttler's story exactly how it was told to him the author obviously didn't believe a word of the story warning his readers that , “I wish, in the first place, to ask the readers of the following narrative to believe that I am in no way attempting to impose upon their credulity. Concerning the amazing spectacle I am about to describe, I report nothing but plain facts, however astounding and apparently incredible they may seem at first glance, precisely as they appeared to my own eyes…”
After that warning Dupuy went on to tell Buttler's story:
Just two days earlier, the banker had been making his way overland towards the Stewart River when he came upon a cabin belonging to a man named Grant, who invited him to stay the night. The following morning, Grant asked Buttler if he would like to accompany him and two companions on a moose hunt. Buttler agreed, and the four men headed to Partridge Creek, a tributary of the Stewart which empties into the latter about six kilometres downstream from the mouth of the McQuesten River.The hunters made their way up a hill overlooking a mineral lick off Partridge Creek where moose and caribou often came to taste the salt. Sure enough, they spied three enormous moose grazing in the valley below. Before any of the hunters could get off a shot, one of the animals- a young bull- let out a sharp bellow and crashed into the southerly bush, followed closely by his mates.
“We decided to approach the spot where the animals had taken fright so suddenly,” Buttler told Dupuy. “Arriving at the ‘moose-lick,’ a spot about sixty feet long and fifteen wide, we saw in the mud, and almost on a level with the water of the ‘lick’, the fresh imprint of the body of a monstrous animal. Its belly had made an impression in the slime more than two feet deep, thirty feet long, and twelve feet wide. Four gigantic paws, also deeply impressed, had left at each end of the main imprint, and a little to the side, footprints five feet long by two and a half feet wide, the claws being more than a foot long, the sharp points of which had buried themselves deeply in the mud. There was also the print, apparently, of a heavy tail, ten feet long and sixteen inches wide at the point.”
In the French-language version of the story, Buttler claimed that he and his companions found an enormous pile of strange greenish manure, which was clearly produced by some massive carnivorous animal, lying in the middle of the trail. This ominous excrement terrified the Indians.
Buttler and his companions followed the mysterious tracks for about five or six miles along the wooded banks of Partridge Creek until the coulee sharpened into a steep gulch. There, the tracks abruptly ended “as if by enchantment”.
At the conclusion of Buttler’s incredible tale, Dupuy suggested that the two of them assemble a hunting party and locate the mysterious creature that had made the tracks. By evening, Father Pierre Lavagneux; a local miner named Tom Leemore, who was working a claim on the McQuesten River; and five Klayakuk Indians agreed to accompany Buttler and Dupuy on their excursion. The Mountie who manned McQuesten Post and a courier who was staying in the area, both of whom were skeptical of Buttler’s story, decided to remain behind with Buttler’s two Indian guides.
Early the following morning, at about 5:00, the nine hunters paddled across the Stewart River in canoes and headed into the forest. They searched for signs of their mysterious quarry all day, slogging through brush and muskeg as they explored both Partridge Creek and the easterly McQuesten River, making their way north towards their headwaters in a nameless range of snowcapped mountains, but to no avail; the elusive creature was nowhere to be seen.
That evening, the nine companions set up camp at the crest of a cliff overlooking Partridge Creek and got a fire going. As they were boiling a pot of tea, the sound of falling stones could be heard in the ravine below. Before any of the men could investigate the commotion, a primeval roar ripped through the valley.
Gripping their rifles with trembling hands, Dupuy and his companions crawled over to the edge of the cliff and peered into the ravine. Across the narrow valley, on the other side of Partridge Creek, an enormous greyish-black creature was attempting to ascend the opposite slope. As it struggled to gain purchase on the rocky hillside with its clawed feet, it sent boulders crashing into the valley below.
Dupuy estimated that the monster measured fifty feet from its nose to the end of its tail, and that the crest of its spine stood eighteen feet above the ground. Its snout was “surmounted by a horn like that of a rhinoceros”, while its “hide was like that of a wild boar, garnished with thick bristles”. Red slaver dripped from its jaws; the monster had apparently just finished its dinner.
In the English version of the tale, Buttler declared that the creature must be a dinosaur. In the French version, the Jesuit, through chattering teeth, identified the monster as a Ceratosaurus, a dinosaur on which American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh had written extensively throughout the 1880s and ‘90s.
The hunters watched the strange animal for a full ten minutes, transfixed to the spot by both fear and fascination. “We were… in full possession of all our sense,” Dupuy wrote. “There was not, and never will be, in our minds the least doubt as to the reality of what we saw. It was indeed a living creature, and not an illusion, which we had before us.” Finally, when the creature recognized the futility of its exercise, it quit the slopes and bounded into the valley of Partridge Creek on two legs, moving with astonishing agility.
Buttler and his companions followed the mysterious tracks for about five or six miles along the wooded banks of Partridge Creek until the coulee sharpened into a steep gulch. There, the tracks abruptly ended “as if by enchantment”.
At the conclusion of Buttler’s incredible tale, Dupuy suggested that the two of them assemble a hunting party and locate the mysterious creature that had made the tracks. By evening, Father Pierre Lavagneux; a local miner named Tom Leemore, who was working a claim on the McQuesten River; and five Klayakuk Indians agreed to accompany Buttler and Dupuy on their excursion. The Mountie who manned McQuesten Post and a courier who was staying in the area, both of whom were skeptical of Buttler’s story, decided to remain behind with Buttler’s two Indian guides.
Early the following morning, at about 5:00, the nine hunters paddled across the Stewart River in canoes and headed into the forest. They searched for signs of their mysterious quarry all day, slogging through brush and muskeg as they explored both Partridge Creek and the easterly McQuesten River, making their way north towards their headwaters in a nameless range of snowcapped mountains, but to no avail; the elusive creature was nowhere to be seen.
That evening, the nine companions set up camp at the crest of a cliff overlooking Partridge Creek and got a fire going. As they were boiling a pot of tea, the sound of falling stones could be heard in the ravine below. Before any of the men could investigate the commotion, a primeval roar ripped through the valley.
Gripping their rifles with trembling hands, Dupuy and his companions crawled over to the edge of the cliff and peered into the ravine. Across the narrow valley, on the other side of Partridge Creek, an enormous greyish-black creature was attempting to ascend the opposite slope. As it struggled to gain purchase on the rocky hillside with its clawed feet, it sent boulders crashing into the valley below.
Dupuy estimated that the monster measured fifty feet from its nose to the end of its tail, and that the crest of its spine stood eighteen feet above the ground. Its snout was “surmounted by a horn like that of a rhinoceros”, while its “hide was like that of a wild boar, garnished with thick bristles”. Red slaver dripped from its jaws; the monster had apparently just finished its dinner.
In the English version of the tale, Buttler declared that the creature must be a dinosaur. In the French version, the Jesuit, through chattering teeth, identified the monster as a Ceratosaurus, a dinosaur on which American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh had written extensively throughout the 1880s and ‘90s.
The hunters watched the strange animal for a full ten minutes, transfixed to the spot by both fear and fascination. “We were… in full possession of all our sense,” Dupuy wrote. “There was not, and never will be, in our minds the least doubt as to the reality of what we saw. It was indeed a living creature, and not an illusion, which we had before us.” Finally, when the creature recognized the futility of its exercise, it quit the slopes and bounded into the valley of Partridge Creek on two legs, moving with astonishing agility.
After the publication of his article Dupuy received a letter from Father Lavagneux, a personal friend, who stated that he he and several members of his congregation had seen the same creature on Christmas Eve 1907:
...racing over the frozen surface of the creek with a caribou clamped between its jaws. “His fur was covered with hoar-frost,” he wrote, “and his little eyes gleamed like fire in the twilight.” The priest estimated that the animal ran at a speed exceeding ten miles an hour, and noted that the temperature at the time of the sighting was forty-five degrees below zero (-49o Fahrenheit).
Most skeptics pointed out that it would be impossible for a prehistoric reptile to have survived and thrived in the fringed temperatures of a Klondike winter.
At that time it was a well accepted fact that dinosaurs lived in a warm tropical climate, however recent scientific discoveries have proven that dinosaurs did indeed live in polar regions.
Indeed, since the 1980s, paleontologists have discovered dinosaur fossils in both the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, indicating that some dinosaurs were able to survive in colder temperatures than previously believed. “The finds are coming fast and furious,” wrote science writer Riley Black in a December 3rd, 2020 article for the Smithsonian Magazine. “A tiny jaw found in Alaska’s ancient rock record, and written about in July, indicates that dinosaurs nested in these places and stayed year round… The ongoing identification of new species, not found anywhere else, highlighted how some dinosaurs adapted to the cold.” Similar to their modern avian counterparts, paleontologists hypothesize that these creatures acclimated to lower temperatures by growing fuzz or downy feathers, going into torpor in underground burrows, or annually migrating to warmer climes in autumn.
Interestingly enough one part of Buttler's description of the creature he saw has been ben overlooked:
"...while its “hide was like that of a wild boar, garnished with thick bristles..."
At that time nobody in the scientific community believed that dinosaurs had either fur (bristles) or feathers. Modern discoveries have proved that some dinosaurs did indeed have them. Scientists believe that these coverings were intended to keep these creatures warm, not for flight in the case of primitive feathers.
I wonder why Buttler would add the curious addition of thick hair to his account if he was trying to perpetuate a hoax when science didn't even know that dinosaurs could have them at the time?
No one can say one way or another if there were a carnivorous dinosaur roaming around in Canada a hundred years ago or not. It's a very intriguing story for sure.
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