At the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula, the small ghost town of Portlock is believed to be the territory of a bigfoot-like creature, according to the stories of the Suqpiaq people.
According to legend, the native village of Portlock was abandoned following a series of mysterious deaths and occurrences attributed to that beast, and its residents fled to the village of Nanwalek, across Kachemak Bay.
A year ago, the docu-drama Alaskan Killer Bigfoot premiered on Discovery. The show follows a group of Kenai Peninsula residents — many of them from Nanwalek — as they head into the abandoned community of Portlock for 40 days, searching for the shadowy creature known as Nantinaq.
Their hope is to discover whether Portlock can ever become a livable community again.
A few members of that group joined us this week on the Kenai Conversation to talk about their experiences filming the show, and their hopes for a possible second season.
Joining us are Keith Seville, a Nanwalek resident, main character on the show and descendent of Portlock residents, as well as his cousin DJ Brewster, who served as the cook for the search party in the show. Our conversation also includes Frank “Guy” Berestoff, a hunter and Portlock descendant, and Kyle McDowell, a bear guard and wilderness survival guide from Seward.
The cast joined us over Zoom from a variety of locations, so there are occasionally issues with audio quality throughout the interview. There’s also some background noise. This conversation also includes spoilers for the show Alaskan Killer Bigfoot.
