Hairy Man encounter by a musher

A young dog musher in the Mat-Su valley region saw a creature on the trail behind him as he was going up a hill, as shown. Illustration by AI

Although this story isn’t in the Y-K Delta, the witness was kind enough to write and share his story from his part of Alaska. The musher does not name what he saw in this story but it is most likely he encountered a Bigfoot-like creature. The musher requested anonymity.
The time period was sometime during the late 1980s. This happened in late December or early January. I was about ten-to-twelve years old.
The place was in the Mat-Su Valley; more specifically, near the Forks Roadhouse in the Petersville, Alaska area.
I was on a 6-dog sled team, returning from the Forks. For those familiar with the area, I had just passed the Kenny Creek “valley” – the part where the Petersville Road “valley” goes down into a valley to Kenny Creek and goes uphill.
Going up the hill was slow going for the dogs. It was nighttime, being about 10:30 p.m., but it was a moonlit evening, so everything was virtually lit.
Everything was dead quiet too; even the dogs were panting lightly, going up the hill that night.
I was halfway up the hill at the time when I happened to look behind me and saw something walking from one side of the road. It had just walked from the creek in the valley.
I kept looking at what I saw while I was moving up. The being stopped halfway in the middle of the road and I saw it looking at me. This was no bear; it was tall and walked upright – like a human.
I froze at the sight of the creature; I didn’t say or do anything as the dogs crept forward and I could do nothing but look back at it.
This being stared at me. It did not do anything either, other than keep staring at me. Then, as I inched away, the being moved and walked to the other side of the road.
There is no chance this was a bear. This was not a human being either. There are no houses in the area.
In this part of the woods, I have no explanation for what this could have been.