Bush Pilot Crashed in a White-Out Near Whitehorse in 1973 — Says A Sasquatch Rescued Him

WHITEHORSE, Yukon Territory — For more than five decades, the frozen wilderness north of Whitehorse has guarded one of Canada’s most astonishing survival stories. It is a tale that sounds more like folklore than fact: a veteran bush pilot whose aircraft vanished during a blinding snowstorm in 1973 claims he survived only because a mysterious giant creature—one he believes was a Sasquatch—came to his rescue.

The account has resurfaced in recent weeks after previously unseen journal entries and audio recordings from the late pilot, Thomas “Tom” Mercer, were shared by his family. The material offers a chilling firsthand description of a crash, a desperate struggle against the elements, and an encounter that Mercer insisted was real until the day he died.

The story begins on the morning of February 17, 1973.

Mercer, then 38, was flying a small single-engine aircraft on a supply route between remote mining camps in the Yukon. Weather forecasts predicted light snowfall, but conditions deteriorated rapidly. According to flight records, Mercer radioed that visibility was dropping fast as a powerful storm swept across the region.

Then came the white-out.

Pilots describe a white-out as one of the most dangerous weather phenomena imaginable. Snow, cloud, and ground merge into a seamless sheet of white, erasing the horizon and making orientation nearly impossible.

Mercer’s final radio transmission reportedly contained just five words:

“I can’t see anything anymore.”

Minutes later, radar contact was lost.

Search crews spent three days combing the rugged wilderness outside Whitehorse. Temperatures plunged below minus 30 degrees Celsius. Rescue teams feared the worst.

Then, unexpectedly, Mercer emerged from the wilderness alive.

His plane had crashed into a snow-covered ridge nearly 80 kilometers from his intended route. The aircraft was destroyed, but Mercer survived the impact with broken ribs, a fractured wrist, and severe exposure.

What happened next is where the story takes an extraordinary turn.

In interviews conducted years later, Mercer claimed he spent his first night huddled beside the wreckage, convinced he would freeze to death before morning.

“I remember the wind screaming,” he said in one recording. “Every time I closed my eyes, I thought that was it.”

Shortly after midnight, Mercer reported hearing heavy footsteps approaching through the darkness.

At first, he assumed it was a bear.

Then he saw a towering silhouette emerge from the blowing snow.

“It was huge,” Mercer recalled. “At least eight feet tall. Covered in dark hair. The shoulders were wider than any man I’d ever seen.”

Terrified, he attempted to crawl away but quickly collapsed from exhaustion.

The creature, he claimed, did not attack.

Instead, it watched him.

For several minutes, neither moved.

Then, according to Mercer, the giant figure approached and did something he never expected.

“It pulled me up.”

Mercer described being guided away from the wreckage toward a sheltered area beneath a rocky overhang. He claimed the creature repeatedly returned during the night, bringing armfuls of spruce branches that helped block the wind.

Even more startling was his assertion that the creature left food nearby.

“There were roots, bark, and something like berries,” Mercer said. “I don’t know where it found them in winter.”

Mercer believed those actions saved his life.

The following morning, he awoke to find large footprints surrounding the shelter. The mysterious visitor was gone.

The tracks, he claimed, measured nearly 20 inches long.

Over the next two days, Mercer remained near the overhang while waiting for rescue teams. He later stated that he occasionally spotted the creature at a distance, standing among the trees and watching.

When a search helicopter finally located him, he was barely conscious.

Rescuers initially dismissed his account as the result of trauma, hypothermia, and dehydration. Medical experts note that survivors exposed to extreme cold often experience vivid hallucinations.

Yet Mercer never changed his story.

Friends, family members, and fellow pilots described him as a practical, no-nonsense outdoorsman with little interest in myths or paranormal claims.

“He wasn’t the kind of guy who made things up,” said former colleague Jack Henderson in a 1998 interview. “If Tom said he saw something, he believed he saw it.”

The newly released journals appear to strengthen that impression.

Written only weeks after the crash, the entries contain details remarkably consistent with the version Mercer would tell decades later.

One passage reads:

“I know nobody will believe me. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it either. But something was there. Something helped me.”

The Yukon has long been considered one of North America’s hotspots for Sasquatch sightings. Indigenous oral traditions across the region contain stories of large, human-like beings inhabiting remote forests and mountain valleys.

Modern reports continue to surface every year.

Cryptozoologists—researchers who investigate animals whose existence has not been scientifically confirmed—argue that Mercer’s experience shares characteristics with other alleged Sasquatch encounters. Unlike popular depictions portraying the creature as aggressive, many reports describe it as elusive, intelligent, and occasionally curious about humans.

Skeptics remain unconvinced.

Wildlife biologist Dr. Alan Reeves argues that Mercer’s memories were likely influenced by severe physical and psychological stress.

“After a traumatic crash and prolonged exposure to extreme cold, the human brain can create experiences that feel completely real,” Reeves explained. “That doesn’t mean they actually occurred.”

Others point to the absence of physical evidence.

No photographs of the tracks exist, and rescue personnel never documented unusual footprints at the crash site. Any traces may have disappeared beneath fresh snowfall before investigators arrived.

Still, unanswered questions remain.

How did Mercer survive temperatures capable of killing an exposed person within hours?

Why did his journal entries remain consistent over a span of forty years?

And why did a seasoned pilot with no history of sensational claims continue defending such an extraordinary story for the rest of his life?

Mercer himself never claimed to know exactly what rescued him.

In one of the final recordings made before his death in 2014, he reflected on the mystery.

“Maybe it was an animal. Maybe it was something we haven’t discovered yet. Maybe people will say I imagined it.”

He paused before adding:

“But I know one thing. I should have died out there. And somehow, I didn’t.”

Today, the winds still sweep across the remote ridges outside Whitehorse, covering old tracks beneath endless blankets of snow. The wreckage of Mercer’s aircraft has long since disappeared into the wilderness.

But his story endures—a haunting blend of survival, mystery, and legend.

Whether the bush pilot was saved by a creature unknown to science or by the extraordinary resilience of the human mind may never be proven.

Yet for those who hear the tale, one question remains impossible to ignore:

What really walked out of the Yukon blizzard that night in 1973?