Interesting thread!
Very interesting report. Hope you don't mind if I ask a little more about it.
It sounds like you were alone. No one else was around?
Nope. I spent a summer out there with my uncle helping with his gold mine. Was pretty fun, but once you got the sluicers and stuff set up it got boring and I'd wander off.
I found an old mining camp, a bunch of caves rumoured to have bones from the Chinese that helped mine there and died. Apparently some of the less ethical european miners would hire immigrants to go into caves to lay charges to loosen the rock, and not bother to make sure they got clear before blowing it up. Even looked for bigfoot prints, didn't find any. But I did get chased by a bear.
Wild Horse River - Wikipedia
Here's the approximate spot:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.6961029,-115.5686139,14.2z
The mine was at a steep bend in the river (where gold collects) and I had hiked up the river, away from the mine towards the east. Going off of memory, of course, so I could be quite a bit off. But I do remember the service road up the hill, and the bend in the river.
I wondered if you remember if this occurred in early spring, spring, summer, or late summer. I'd give it more possible credence as an actual insect if you saw it in summer or late summer.
It was mid-summer when I was off of school. July or August? Around '86 or so? I remember it being hot.
Did you ever go back to hike through that location?
Quite a bit. I wasn't going to leave that thing alone if I found it again. But I didn't.
My uncle gave up his claim when it didn't pan out as rich as he wanted, so I didn't go back next year.
Do you know if First Nations have any traditions or totems of large dragonflies?
Never thought of that.
Just checked. If they do, I didn't find it:
Ktunaxa - Wikipedia
Sixteen sounds young for recreational hallucinogens. You weren't high?
Nope, didn't do any drugs until I was 18. Besides, I was operating heavy equipment earlier that day.
And you never know when I might get to blow something up. I stayed clean.
I think today it might be possible to make a flying RC model dragonfly. Not so sure about 30 years ago. But I presume the location was quite remote, and not a location for the local RC club. Any possibility in your estimation?
I was pretty deep in the back country. Nearest town would have been a ways away. Took a while to drive even if it wasn't that far -- terrible roads and mountains in the way. Possible... but in the dense bush, with no-one on the river around me, who could see it to fly it? I don't think they streamed video back then.
Besides, I could see the wings moving, and that's what propelled it. No propellor or anything.
Just to mention that the
Coelacanth was thought to be extinct, and was IIRC, even used as an index fossil, until a European fellow saw one caught off the east coast of South Africa in the late 30's. If the large dragonfly had a respiratory system that was not merely the enlargement of current insects, then perhaps they could survive in the present atmosphere. Maybe.
Maybe? Like I said it was big enough to spook me a little. And I was pretty athletic and fearless back then.
I've not had a crypto sighting, but as a very young lad, at my rural home in the US midwest, I was walking around the house and I saw what looked like a giant (eh, maybe an inch long) furry red ant, which I'd never seen before. At that age it looked threatening enough, so I put my foot on it and was about to squish, when I heard squeaking. It was sort of like, "Oh no, Mr. Bill, Noooooooooooo!" Well, not exactly like
that. But it was enough to cause me to relent and let the creature go his way. I never heard of a giant red ant that could beg for mercy . . . until the internet came along, and
there is what is actually a wasp-like creature that squeaks when threatened.
Wow! I've never heard of that!