When media accounts of the huge footprints were released, people from the area began to step forward to exhibit their own plaster casts of massive, mysterious footprints and to relate their own frightening encounters with hairy giants—stories that they had repressed for decades for fear of being ridiculed.
Some anthropologists, who take such accounts seriously, believe that Bigfoot may be a two-footed mammal that constitutes a kind of missing link between humankind and the great apes, for its appearance is more primitive than that of Neanderthal. The descriptions given by witnesses are amazingly similar. Height: six to nine feet. Weight: 400 to 1,000 pounds. Eyes: black. Dark fur or body hair from one to four inches in length is said to cover the creature’s entire body with the exception of the palms of its hands, the soles of its feet, and its upper facial area, nose, and eyelids.
Based on the eye-witness descriptions of hundreds of reliable individuals who have encountered these monsters of the woods, it would seem that the creatures are more humanlike than apelike or bearlike. For one thing, these giants are repeatedly said by witnesses to have breasts and buttocks. Neither apes nor bears have buttocks—nor do they leave flatfooted humanlike footprints.
In North America, the greatest number of sightings of Bigfoot have come from the Fraser River Valley, the Strait of Georgia, and Vancouver Island, British Columbia; the “Ape Canyon” region near Mt. St. Helens in southwestern Washington; the Three Sisters Wilderness west of Bend, Oregon; and the area around the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, especially the Bluff Creek watershed, northeast of Eureka, California. Various Native American tribes have called the man-beast by such names as Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Wauk-Wauk, Oh-Mah, or Saskehavis. In recent years, extremely convincing sightings of Bigfoot-type creatures have also been made in areas of New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida. Not to be out-done, Canadians began telling of their own startling encounters with Sasquatch, a tribal name for Bigfoot, that had been circulating in the accounts of trappers, lumberjacks, and settlers in the Northwest Territories since the 1850s.
Bill Oliver, who has contributed so much fine art to this book, is also an investigator of the UFO phenomenon in his native British Columbia, Canada. Back in the late 1990s, Oliver was checking out some sightings near Kitimaat Village, a native community of about 600 people, and he asked if there had been any Sasquatch reports in the area. One of the villagers said that he knew of a story of a man who had seen four during a hunting trip years before.
The man passed on the telephone number of someone who knew the story better, so Oliver called and spoke to an elderly man, Ken, who first asked Oliver why he wanted to know. Ken said that it was his grandfather who had done the shooting, and he had become irritated how the story had changed over the years since it happened. In particular, it disturbed him that people said his grandfather shot a Boqwish and that maybe this was an opportunity to tell it like it happened.
According to Bill Oliver‘s report:
In the spring of 1918, William Hall was out hunting for the family’s needs with his good friend. In this case he was bear hunting eight miles west of Kemano in a small area known as Miskook/Miskuk (in native language), a small inlet on the Kemano River. He and his friend were joined by an elder whose job was to wait in the canoe and watch the supplies.
A display case at the Cryptozoological Museum in Portland, Maine (photo by International Cryptozoology Museum/Loren Coleman/Jessica Meuse).
As William and his friend made their way through the terrain they came upon a split in the valley. It was here where they went separate ways. As the custom went, a wooden stake was pounded into the ground. Upon return, the first hunter would remove it and lay it on the path to let the other know he had safely arrived and to meet him down at the river’s edge.
William, being the first to return, did so and started on his way back to the waiting elder. It was here on a small trail he came upon a group of four Sasquatch, or as known to the Kitimaat Indians, the Boqwish.
In absolute terror he started to run, but apparently blacked out. When he came to, he found himself on a large rock. The four Boqwish were below, reaching out and attempting to grab the startled hunter. In his own native tongue he spoke to them and said that he was not there to harm them but only hunting for food for his family. It was at this time that the aggressors seemed to back off, as if they understood. He made his way off the rock and began back to the river’s edge where his partner had been waiting in the canoe. Along the way the creatures continued to follow him to the river and now the waiting elder also said, in his language, that they were not out to harm them. Again, seeming to understand, they left.
Upon getting into the canoe William Hall slipped into a coma that lasted four days. It was on the fifth day he awoke. It is well reported that accompanying the Bigfoot is a foul odor that fills the air whenever the creature is near. William had the same rancid odor permeating from his body until the day of his death, eight years later. So bad was the smell that he built a hut for himself to sleep in, so as not to offend his family. Since the day he came out of the coma, Ken said, “My grandfather could foresee the future.” He displayed other traits of a psychic nature as well.
One night around the fire, William gathered the elders and chief to experience his newly acquired supernatural powers. He picked a salmonberry branch that was bare of any leaf or fruit, as it was now the fall, and walked past the chief who was seated. He displayed the branch and proceeded to walk around the circle of hot coals and fire. After the first time around he again stopped in front of the chief, this time displaying a freshly grown leaf, a second time around he displayed a large bud that upon the third encompass of the fire yielded a full rose. On the final two times around the elders he displayed an immature salmonberry and finally a large ripe berry that he placed in the chief’s mouth.
Perhaps the most stunning display of William’s powers came when he warned his people of a snake-like creature with bugs on it that would destroy their land. Twenty or so years later the ALCAN Project began. The “snake-like creature” was believed to have been the winding black highway put in and the “bugs” the many trucks that ride the road. His grandson also said William Hall picked the day of his death.
I find this story amazing in that it came from an offshoot of a hotline call regarding another matter. Had I not asked of any other reports this story would have remained in the village to be passed on down over the years. One wonders how many other villages and small towns have their share of amazing stories. I have been told also that the Sasquatch or Boqwish legend continues on in this part of British Columbia. In Ursala Channel, just a few miles away, the spring air is punctuated by the sound of yelping Sasquatch.
On October 20, 1967, near Bluff Creek, north of Eureka, California, an event occurred over which Bigfoot hunters and skeptics have been arguing ever since. Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin managed to film several feet of what appeared to be a female Bigfoot, thereby capturing one of the most famous and controversial strip of images in the world. The forest giant had pendulous breasts, and it looked back at the cameraman as it walked steadily toward a growth of trees. The creature appeared to