Sasquatch: Real or Myth

Native Americans have always regarded Sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot, with respect. Bigfoot is an upright walking, hairy, human like creature that lives in our forests. Most Tribal Elders feel Sasquatch is 'special' because of his closeness with the Human Race. Some Native American Tribes consider Sasquatch a 'messenger' or a somewhat 'psychic being'. When Sasquatch appears, or there is a sighting, some Native Americans feel he is sending a silent message from Mother Earth that things need changing. Others feel he may have 'psychic' powers and knows when Humans are searching him out and is able to hide or Sasquatch chooses who he allows to see him. Is Bigfoot psychic? Or does Bigfoot, being a wild animal, just have strong instincts and sensory perception? If his sense of smell is as strong as a dogs, he can easily elude people.
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Here are some undisputed facts about the Bigfoot / Sasquatch mystery:

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  For more than 400 years people have reported seeing large, hair-covered, man-like animals in the wilderness areas of North America.
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  Sightings of these animals continue today. Real or not, these reports are often made by people of unimpeachable character.
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  Over seventy years, people have been finding, photographing, and casting sets of very large human-shaped tracks. Most are discovered by chance in remote areas. These tracks continue to be found to this day.
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  Cultural histories of many Native American and First Nation peoples include stories and beliefs about non-human "peoples" of the wild. Many of these descriptions bear a striking resemblance to the hairy man-like creatures reported today.

Check out this footage:

The Patterson footage shows a dark hair covered figure with large muscles quickly walking away from the camera. This occured in October of 1967 in a remote, unpopulated mountain valley near the California/Oregon border.

There are other videos: The Freeman footage and The Memorial Day footage. I was not able to find an uplink to view the footage.

Some recent sightings:

• April 2005 in Alberta Canada, north of Stony Plain on hwy 16 a man and his 13 year old daughter were traveling towards Edmonton when an animal came out of the bush by the Highway, on the right. Here is the man's recount of what happened:

" I was watching it carefully to see if it was a deer and had others following it. It was the size and shape of a large chimp. It was light brown in color and was moving with a two armed swinging motion. I was concerned enough that it may be an animal not meant to be loose, that I called a fish and wildlife officer. He was convinced that it was a bear cub. I have seen many bear cubs running and this was very different. It was much faster and there weren't the large paws that you would see with a bear cub. We watched as it crossed ahead of us towards the north and did not see a tail (even a tucked one)."

• January 2006 a British Columbia family on a nature outing observed what looked like a group or family of Sasquatches near the Similkameen River in South Okanagan Valley . Here is thier story:

"The first encounter happened last summer. My family and I were on another family outing in the Cawston, B.C. area. We had travelled to this spot once before, and thought we would go for a walk again in the same area. After we had finished our walk, we were coming back to the truck, and I noticed four black objects standing in the Similkameen River. Two were standing and it looked as though the other two were bent down drinking. I said "What is that?!", and the rest of my family and I watched these things move around in the water. The only thing we could say for sure due to the distance (roughly 300 meters) was that they were all completely black, and they looked huge. It's funny, I've often wondered how people guess that something is so large when it's far away, but trust me, it's really obvious. We wanted to get a better look, so we hopped in the truck to try to drive around to get a better view. We couldn't find a spot , so we turned around and returned to the original location. They were gone. We were excited, but we had nothing concrete, so we just kind of chalked it up as something we MIGHT have seen.The next incident happened last monday (Jan.02/06). We went for another family drive, again looking to do a little hiking. We passed through Keremeos and turned off to go up the Ashnola toward a camp that is there with a provincial park strewn with trails. we pulled off not very far from the main road, and the minute we got out of the truck, we heard screaming coming from the forest. I have shown my son screams that are reported to be sasquatch on the internet, and right away, said "That's like the sounds on the internet!" I totally agreed. We stood there frozen as we listened to this freaky sound. I wanted to investigate, but my wife would have none of it, not with two small kids. So the got back in the truck ,and I headed off down the trail to try to get closer to whatever it was. Just as I start, suddenly, I hear "BEEP,BEEP,BEEP....." [car horn] my wife either was freaked out and did it on purpose or she really did do it by accident, but either way, the howling stopped immediately. I went back to the truck, and told everyone it was a coyote. My wife bought it, but my son didn't. He said "That didn't sound like a coyote." So we went to leave, but I thought we could go down the road in my truck as I hadn't been there before, and wanted to see where it went. We had gone about a quarter mile, when I could see footprints in the snow in the middle of the road. I stopped to check them out. I could'nt believe what I was looking at. They had to be twenty inches long and roughly 8-10 inches wide. The first thing I looked for was stride length, and it was large. The tracks were old, but totally convincing when we had just experienced such a strange noise coming from the forest. "

• Windsor County Vermont, 2005 Columbus Day weekend, a family on a weekend outdoor outing see a creature cross the road. They were traveling off Rt 100 outside of Ludlow Vermont. This road crosses some very heavily wooded, desolate areas. Here is thier story:

"My family and I went to Ludlow, Vermont for Columbus Day weekend since we enjoy the northeastern woods.We all enjoy observing the local flora and fauna in their natural settings and we often drive and/or walk the back roads looking for deer, moose, bear and whatever else we can spot. One evening we went "Moose Spotting" on Tyson Road since during a summer trip to the same area, earlier, we had observed eight moose in one evening.As we drove along Tyson Road I saw a large bipedal form cross the road in two strides. I asked one of my daughters, "Did you see that? Tell me what did you see." I purposely didn't say what I'd seen since I wanted to know if she'd seen what I'd seen. I wanted to be sure I had not imagined it.Very quickly she said, "I don't know what it was but it was real big, maybe eight feet tall, hairy and crossed the road in two steps."She saw the same thing I did. It crossed the road about 50 feet ahead of us and judging from the trees where it crossed the road I'd say her height estimate is accurate +/- 20%.My other daughter didn't see it since she was in the back seat and was looking out the side windows of the car.I still don't quite believe it but I know what bear, deer and moose look like in natural settings since I've been hunting for 40 years.It wasn't anything I had ever seen in the woods. It walked across the road in two strides, was heavily built, covered in short dark hair and, as stated previously, approximately eight feet tall.One more thing. The day before, we had driven the same area, didn't see anything at all, no fauna at all, but we did hear some very odd vocalizations that sound very much like the recordings available on BFRO website.

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My Sighting? I cannot write about other's sightings without telling my story. In the summer of 2003, in Northern Michigan, I accompanied my youngest nephew T. and his friend Phil out looking for Elk. It had gotten dark and we were on our way home leaving the edges of the ceder swamp in the Pigeon River State Forest, when we spotted something on the right side of the dirt road. A large upright dark form ran down a good sized slope out of the woods to the edge of the road and then just as quickly disappeared into the thickest set of trees on the same side of the road. It acted as if it had changed its mind about crossing the road and ran back into the swampy area. This was all viewed with the pick up trucks headlights. Prior to seeing this incident, we had been chatting about some everyday nonsense. We immediately became silent. I was sitting in the front passenger seat and I turned around and looked at Phil who right away asked me "Did you see that!?!??!!" I thought maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, I was about 4 1/2 months pregnant at the time and well, being preggers can make a girl a little crazy. Anyhow, I told Phil I had seen it also. T. was driving and he said he saw a huge shadow like shape but he was watching the road because we were rounding a corner. We voted against turning around and checking it out. I have to admit, Phil and I were kinda creeped out, and it takes A LOT to creep me out. But, we analyzed what it could have possibly been, it was not a bear. If it was a black bear, it was a massive one running on 2 paws! To this day we still joke about our 'sighting'.

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When my best friend L. and I were in our mid to late teens, we coon-hunted often. We even ran our dogs out of season, we just did not carry any firearms or kill any racoons. As 2 young girls, we were fearless. We trampled by foot behind our dogs thru any swamp, forest, and on more than one occassion, corn field. Plenty of times L.'s dad accompanied us on our night hunts. We learned everything about coon hunting with hounds from him. Not once did we ever experience anything 'strange' during our night outings. We also used to load up our horses and go for long trail rides in the Pigeon River. We covered many miles on and off the trails. We would run with elk, see large amounts of white tail deer,a few badgers, all kinds of wildlife. But, nothing odd was ever experienced on one of those many rides.

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Some Bigfoot History and interesting stuff:

• The first sighting of a Sasquatch by a white man apparently came in 1811 near what now is the town of Jasper, Alberta Canada. A trader named David Thompson found some strange footprints, fourteen inches long and eight inches wide, with four toes, in the snow.
• In 1924 cccording to a Canadian lumberjack named Albert Ostman, he had been prospecting near Tobet Inlet when he was captured by a family of Bigfoots. The father and daughter guarded him while the mother and son prepared the meals. The family was vegetarian and ate roots, grass and spruce tips. After about a week Ostman was able to slip away. He didn't tell his story to anyone till 1957, fearing people would think him crazy.
• Interest in Bigfoot began to pick up in the United States in 1958 when a bulldozer operator named Jerry Crew found enormous footprints around where he was working in Humboldt County, California. Crew made a cast of the footprint. A local newspaper ran the story of Crew and his footprint with a photo. The story was picked up by other papers and ran throughout the country. It was the picture of Crew holding the "Bigfoot" that made the name stick.
• In Skamania County, Washington, it is illegal to kill a Bigfoot under penalty of $1,000 fine and five years in jail. The Sioux Indians, who called Bigfoot "Taku he", have forbidden hunting of him on their ground.
• Glenn Thomas offered a story that might explain the creatures feeding habits. Thomas was walking through the woods when he spotted a family of Bigfoots in a clearing. They were digging through a pile of rocks and eating the small animals they found underneath. (Mostly woodchucks and marmots) Investigators returned to the spot later and found some 30 holes dug. Some of the boulders shifted weighed 250 pounds.

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Whether Sasquatch is real or a myth, it is very interesting to hear about. I like reading/learning about the strange and unknown, but at a distance! I also find it fun to try to debunk theories and mysteries. So, I have really enjoyed writing about Sasquatch. My oldest sister J. is a very much down to Earth professional but she likes Sasquatch stories. So, I had her in mind when I wrote this piece, in fact, I wrote it for her.

special thanks to:

http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bz050/HomePage.bfna.html

http://www.unmuseum.org/bigfoot.htm

http://www.bfro.net/