Screaming or howling in Itasca County, Minnesota

My mother told me this story a few years ago. The incident happened when she was a young in the woods surrounding her child hood home. She said she was picking blue berries one day. It was near dark and she was by herself. She wasn't far from home but she was on the edge of a very large forest and swamp. She said she got a funny feeling, like someone was watching her. She looked up from her blue berry pail and noticed someone crouched in the blue berry patch a little ways away staring directly at her. Then it ducked quietly below a line of brush and berries At first she tought it was one of her brothers or possibly her father who had come to bring home. She took a few steps toward the place where she had last noticed the person. At that point the "whatever-it-was" bolted unseen into some nearby brush. She saw alot of brush move when it bolted and she was sure at that point it wasn't a person. It simply moved to mush brush to be a person. Thinking it was a bear enjoying the same blueberries as her, she began walking quickly toward home. A few steps from the blue berry patch she turned to look over her shoulder. She then noticed (I will describe it in her words) "something really, really tall standing by a tree. It looked like a huge man all covered with hair. When I saw it, it ducked behind the tree. I was so scared I started running for home as fast as my little legs would go. "I looked back when I got near the edge of the woods. I saw it comming after me, but it was like it was keeping its distance and it was bent over. Its arms were huge and at its sides. "I screamed because it was chasing me and saw it jump off the trail behind a tree. It almost hit its head on some low limbs but it put its arm up to move the branches away. It made alot of noise when it crashed into the brush. I kept screaming because I knew it was following me and I ran to the house and told my brothers." Evidently her brothers went armed to the site and found an area of brush that had be matted down. They tought a bear must have been there because the whole area smelled bad. My mother never mentioned a bad smell. Just the funny feeling that someone was watching her. She said that not much was mentioned after that evening about it and she only remembered it because it scared her so bad. She also said none of her family teased her about it and her brothers wouldn't talk about it. (Did they find something in the woods or have they had similar experiences?)