Went digging around for some materials to help me with my finding mission and came across this book: Sasquatch Field Guide: Identifying, Tracking and Sighting North America’s Great Ape. Looks to be more like a laminated pamphlet than an actual book, but interesting none the less. Check it out and see what you think:
What it did bring to my attention is that I need some good forensic rules for taking photos of what I might find. Gotta make sure you have something for scale reference in the pictures and a table measure looks, well, like a tape measure. I want something that looks professional so I did some googling and came across ttps://destinysagent.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/forensic-rulers/ and I must say these look great. Going to print it out and laminate it with some clear mactac I have laying around.
In May of 2016 my wife and I moved into our new home in the Harrison area with great excitement of learning about this wonderful world of lakes and trees and mountains. I knew nothing of this area save for the Hot Springs but my wife did all the research and assured me this was the place. I was busy packing up the old house and dealing with my career. I trusted her, she was right, it’s amazing here.
On May 28th, John Willison Green died in Chilliwack, at the age of 89. I read a tribute to him in the local paper and was intrigued. He lived a hell of a life. He had been major player out here, owned and operated the local paper and was one of the leading Bigfoot researchers in the world. He contributed sooo much to this area, read the article I linked to for yourself and see. I just missed him but his legacy lasts. But then there was this Bigfoot thing…
My wife suggested I enter a submission to a local art gallery show for the public, at the Harrison Hot Springs Ranger Station Art Gallery to be precise. I decided I wanted to create a piece that reflected the area’s history and have a good back story. I wanted the piece to need research. I love research. And John’s work with Bigfoot was stuck in my mind, and to be honest around here with all the tourist marketing, it’s hard to forget Bigfoot.
So I started with data, I dug around the internets and was able to get a copy of John’s Microsoft Access database of the sightings he recorded.
I also discovered his physical files were on display at the local Kilby Historic Museum that he helped be declared as a historical site by the province, and served as president of the museum society for a decade.
Then I had to learn how to convert old long lat gps data to new Google map friendly gps. Almost 100 years of data here.
Then I mix that map with government water maps.
Then I cut it into a million little pieces
And then I make Bigfoot feet stickers.
This is my submission to the Harrison Hot Springs Ranger Station Art Gallery. It is called “Green’s Sightings”.
And with this, things started to get serious. Now I was officially hooked. Actually more like infected with Bigfoot Fever. But what really really put me over the edge was sitting in a local bar with my wife and as we are waiting for our cold beer and fish & chips she says “look up!”. And there hanging on the wall above our table is an amazing set of plaster casts. Now it’s official, I have to find those feet!
About six years ago or so I was lucky enough to have a wonderful house up on Vedder Mountain just outside of a small village called Yarrow in British Columbia.
My backyard led straight up the mountain into old growth cedars and there was no sign of civilization until you hit the USA. The smell of the air was amazing. We had families of deer, bears, possums and all sorts of wildlife on our land.
One day my neighbour down the hill in the flats by the railway line comes up to me with his digital camera with a big smile. “I’ve got a picture of Bigfoot but you can’t tell anyone about it or have a copy”. Needless to say I was intrigued. Long story short, the photo was amazing, and a fake. And even more incredible it was taken between my mailbox and my house. Turned out a film production was shooting a Bigfoot movie in our little Yarrow. They used the deli, my barber and the train tracks I mentioned are right next to them in the cast photo above.
The movie was OKish I guess, it was a horror movie. Very cool to recognize so much of our neighbourhood while watching it. I wish I had that photo he had taken, it was amazing. But he had signed an NDA.
This was another step towards my passion and planning for finding Bigfoot.
Another big step into the world of Bigfoot for me was my Mother buying me the book “The Best of Sasquatch Bigfoot”. I devoured this book back then. Revisiting it now I am able to make copious notes that I will be sharing as I move forward on this blog.
The book is mostly highlights and interviews from John Green’s huge database of encounters (which I will also cover in the future). Many are interviews he conducted himself but most are from newspapers and historical record. This makes sense as Mr.Green was a newspaper reporter and owner. The first part is focused on the details of the Patterson/Gimlin film and how it could not been have faked.
But what really got my attention was the $100,000 reward that had been offered by the Willow Creek China Flat Museum. I can’t find any detail of it being offered any longer. But no matter, it’s not the money that interests me but the details. The reward was for anyone who could demonstrate how to fake the Bigfoot tracks that were found in the Bluff Creek valley in northern California in 1958.
Here were their requirements:
A successful applicant will have to be able to make flat-footed, humanlike tracks with more than twice the area of human feet and longer-than-human strides which do the following:
1) Traverse a variety of terrains, including climbing, descending and crossing steep slopes covered with underbrush;
2) Show variations of shape and toe position and stride accommodating to the terrain;
3) Sink into firm ground to far greater depth than human footprints specifically as much as an inch deep in hard sand where human prints barely penetrate at all;
4) Leave hard objects in the ground, such as stones, sticking up above the rest of the track.
The applicant will also have to be able to make these tracks under the following conditions, although not all in combination: 1) In the dark, hundreds in a single night; 2) In places where it is impossible to bring any vehicle or other machine or any equipment except what humans or animals could carry; 3) Without doing anything to attract the notice of people a few hundred yards away.
I was about 9 years old or so and I saw the infamous two part episode of “The Six Million Dollar Man” called “The Secret of Bigfoot” and it blew my mind. I already had read about the episodes coming soon in TV Guide so knew that Bigfoot was to be portrayed by my favorite wrestler André the Giant. But knowing who was in that costume didn’t keep away the nightmares. That ice tunnel terrified me.
As so began a life long fascination with Bigfoot.
The photo above is of Kenneth Johnson the writer/producer of those episodes. He is holding a plaster cast of Andre the Giant’s size 24 foot.
So the Bigfoot finding begins. And that’s the word that is important: finding. Finding, not hunting. Let’s look at the various meanings of the word “hunt”:
to pursue for food or in sport
to manage in the search for game
to pursue with intent to capture
to drive or chase especially by harrying
to traverse in search of prey
None of these apply. I mean no harm and don’t plan on doing this for sport or capture. I am not going to be hunting him. I just hope to find him. And to do that, I will look. I might setup trail cameras and bait but I will not hunt. I will look and wait and be patient. I want to find him or proof.
This is my intent.
PS – I call him Bigfoot cause every time I try to type the word Sasquatch I screw it up and that really hurts my brain.
