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Bigfoot Eat Their Dead

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A crazy ski trip through the Pacific Northwest touching down at all the hotspots for Sasquatch sightings turns up no Bigfoot but plenty of believers.
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61 LYNSEY DYER AT STEVEN’S PASS, WASHINGTON. If there’s one thing the perpetual fogs of the Pacific Northwest have in common with the mists of time, it’s the mysteries contained within them. BIGFOOT EAT THEIR DEAD by Leslie Anthony photos: Paul Morrison 83
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LYNSEY DYER AT STEVEN’S PASS, WASHINGTON.

If there’s one thing the perpetualfogs ofthe PacificNorthwesthave incommonwith the mists oftime, it’s themysteriescontainedwithin them.

BIGFOOTEAT

THEIRDEAD

by LeslieAnthonyphotos: PaulMorrison

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Saturday, March 22, Harrison HotSprings, B.C.

First light on a stormy March morning. We’re driving east along thebroad reach of the Fraser River on British Columbia’s dank southcoast. It’s murky, with rain falling in sheets, smoky tendrils of cloudangling off mountainsides, and fog pooling in the valley—typical win-ter conditions.

When the sky clamps down here, the clouds swallow peaks whole,and roadways become veritable enclosures; colour bleeds into thedark forms of rock and tree that loom from ditches, shrinking sugges-tively toward the woods in the rearview and defining the region’s oft-cited spookiness. Nosing off the highway toward Harrison HotSprings, such foggy phantoms take on a whole new context.

The sign as you enter town reads “Sasquatch Country.” Andwhether the legendary creature exists or not, Harrison can claim thesign as legit. After all, this is where John W. Burns first alerted thepublic to what local Chehalis Indians were telling him about hairygiants; “Sasquatch” being Burns’ spelling of the Chehalis name.

The iconography parades past: Sasquatch Provincial Park,Sasquatch Springs RV Resort, and Bigfoot Campgrounds, with its life-size wooden carving hoisting a rock, and next door a30-foot-tall statue with an erect, foot-long penis thatmunicipal council forced the owner to turn because itsphallus pointed directly at people entering town.

Today, 90 years after Burns’ proclamation and anavalanche of alleged sightings later, Harrison remainsground zero for Sasquatch lore and research, or—depending on your point of view—the industry of delu-sion that clings to it like a hungry tick.

It’s also a jumping-off point for Hemlock Resort, asmallish ski area 45 minutes to the west with themotto “Discover the Secret.” Intended or not, this dou-ble entendre alludes to Hemlock’s role as one of ahandful of areas—Mt. Baker, Alpental, and StevensPass in northwest Washington being others—rooteddeeply in both the soils of Bigfoot belief, and thepromise of another captivating myth: sunny powderdays in empty resorts in one of the wettest places onEarth. Which is more realistic?

Considering that the magnitude and density of theregion’s mountainous jumble is a virtual metaphor forwilderness, it had seemed a reasonable plan to plumbthe intersection of both. The kicker was something I’dread.

“It would be kind of sad if we found [him],” Bigfootenthusiast Richard Knoll of Edmund, Washington,mused in an Oregon newspaper. “Without the possibil-ity of Bigfoot, there is no wilderness left.”

Welcome to Harrison.

Checking into our hotel, I jokingly ask the clerk if she’s seenSasquatch.

“No, I’ve heard it, though. And a girl in my class saw it. And anothergirl in my class—well, her grandfather is an expert. He lives here. Wanthis phone number?”

John Green turns out to be an internationally renownedSquatchophile, with several books to his credit and a sideline careerof verifying reports filed with The Bigfoot Field ResearchersOrganization (bfro.net). He isn’t home when I call, a fact for which I’mstrangely grateful.

The Lakeside Café, facing the beach, engages in the ubiquitous prac-tice of giving kids crayons to draw on placemats. Waitresses tack themore interesting ones to the wall. Among these is an excellent render-ing of a Sasquatch—the pose culled directly from the infamous and nowdiscredited 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film of a supposed Bigfoot crossing acreek bed in Northern California. How many kids would know this?

So pervasive is the hirsute hominid vibe here that, shoveling downthe last of my eggs, I overhear this from a mother riding herd on a near-by family of scribbling brats: “That’s a nice, hairy Sasquatch, dear.”

In a nearby souvenir shop, however, lurks the true Bigfoot bonan-za: T-shirts, mugs, key fobs, fridge magnets, letter openers, tea-spoons, pins, books and a genuine “Sasquatch Crossing” sign. Whenwe mention we’re “hunting” Bigfoot, the shop girl pauses to take ourmeasure, then grows straight-faced with concern.

“You guys know there’s a law here that says you can’t kill a Bigfoot,don’t you?”

Sunday, March 23, Hemlock Resort,Agassiz, B.C.

The short drive from Harrison to Hemlock is tantamount to running aBigfoot gauntlet. At the confluence of Highway 7 and the Hemlockroad sits the Sasquatch Inn, Café and Pub, showcasing another,almost comic-like carving. (Most in the region feature caveman-styleclubs, but this one has a rock attached to its weapon in an advancedNeolithic overture.)

Unsure of the gimmickry’s origins, all the owner knows is that hisSasquatch burgers move well: “It’s local culture. Awoman up valley who says she saw it was interviewedhere in the bar a couple years ago by the DiscoveryChannel. But for real believers, talk to the natives… it’spart of their mythology.”

This is obvious when we pass a native healing centrewhose sign features a Sasquatch rendered in the famil-iar, stylistic Northwest native art form. Once again, thepose—full stride perpendicular, nonchalantly turningits head toward the viewer—is lifted from the iconicPatterson clip.

The road winds up through dense brush, with cot-ton-candy fog teased through the teeth of an evergreencomb for a classic West Coast feel. Up top there’s newsnow, and we waste no time charging the socked-inpistes.

A true family gem, Hemlock’s three chairs service35 runs of mostly intermediate and expert terrain com-prising a wide, wraparound bowl with open powderfields up top, natural halfpipes down the middle, asmattering of trees, several cool terrain features andhiking that accesses everything from open bowls toclassic slot-like Cascade couloirs. In big snow years—frequent, given the region’s heavy precipitation—it pro-vides plenty of powder for the dedicated Fraser Valleyclientele who help dig out the lifts.

The wind howls and graupel stings our faces as wemake several runs in uncertain conditions with zero visibility.Wondering where we are, we huddle around a rime-encrusted signthat confirms Hemlock—with rumoured annual sightings and Bigfootas de facto mascot—as the heart of the legend. Its infrastructureprominently features the nomenclature: Sasquatch Triple, BigfootLodge, runs like Abominable and Yeti.

The lodge’s bar contains a DJ booth set into the discarded cab of agroomer and walls adorned with the usual ski kitsch. Looking around,we marvel at an old-style poster of helmeted, goggled, smiling parent-and-child Sasquatches, skis slung over their shoulders. Created longbefore Kneissl introduced its “Bigfoot” snowskate or B.C.’s KokaneeBrewery dreamed up its popular snowboarding-Sasquatch campaign,the Hemlock poster stands as the first official pop-cultural melding ofsnow-sliding tomfoolery and corporate Bigfootery.

Marketing/promotions manager John Ens, who’s skied Hemlocksince 1976 and worked here 25 years, follows our gaze.

“Yup, that’s a good poster,” he allows, “but we want to update the storya bit, modernize it, you know? We’re thinking about a race of snowboard-ers that result from crossing a Sasquatch with a human. Whaddya think?”

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“It wouldbe kind ofsad if wefound[Bigfoot].Without the possibilityof Bigfoot, there is nowilderness

left.” —Richard Knoll,Edmund, Washington,Bigfoot enthusiast

“…my husband… and I were picnicking… in the area ofHeather Meadows. About 2 p.m. we observed a largeblack figure that appeared to stand erect traversing asnowfield below Table Mountain…. At first we thought wewere watching a person but realized a human could notmove at that speed…. We were mesmerized by the speedand the steepness of the terrain...” —2001 sighting, Mt.Baker, Whatcom County

“There had been sightings… near our home, and at that time my husband and I laughed about [it]…. One[spring] morning, I decided to take a walk… I had crossed [the] small creek by our place… when I heardthe most God-awful sound. I can still hear it in my mind… the volume was immense…. I knew all the callsof the animals around… and this wasn't the same…. Later I was watching Unsolved Mysteries. Theyplayed [Sasquatch] sounds that [were] very similar, and [I] said to myself, ‘There’s the sound… no one’sgoing to believe this!’ For 10 years I walked all through those mountains, my small children with me, andthese Sasquatches never bothered us.” —1970 report, Stevens Pass, Snohomish County

“For a Sasquatch to be aneasy target for casual pho-tographers, it would have towander repeatedly into theopen, in daylight, and in pre-dictable places frequented byhumans.… Because viewingopportunities are exceeding-ly rare to begin with, espe-cially in daylight, the odds ofa random person photo-graphing a Sasquatch arenegligible.” —bfro.net

LYNSER DYER, ALPENTAL, WASHINGTON.

est and I know he’s out there. I did see a UFO, though. I was sittingright out here in the parking lot, and…. Hey, Barb—you remember thatUFO that scanned us?”

The sudden, lateral digression toward other paranormal phenome-na sends us scurrying for the car. On the way, a pierced and goateedmodern primitive overhears our mutterings.

“My old man swears he saw one,” he offers enthusiastically. “Upnear Mt. Pilchuck, where we used to go hiking when I was a kid. Hetold me about it over and over. Don’t know if he was just trying to scareme or not, but he had that look—you know the one someone getswhen they’ve seen something real spooky? So I think he was tellingthe truth. ’Course, he used to tell me moose were 16 feet tall….“

Consulting my sightings file, we opt for a lengthy detour beforethe return to Seattle. Roslyn is a tiny, coal-mining community

on the eastern slope of the Cascades, a patchwork of hopeful pastelroofs adrift in a sea of skeptical pine. The town’s most recent claimto fame—real-life set piece for filming of the popular ’90s television

series Northern Exposure—is a perfect ode to its outpost feel andquirky characters.

We’re in the local pizza parlour only five minutes before we’retipped off that a woman named Sarah—who claims a recent sighting—is drinking at a bar called Marko’s. Electric at the thought of a genuineencounter, we track her down.

Young, hippie-ish, half-cut, and rolling a cigarette with methodicalprecision, Sarah is happy to talk: “Dad and I were putting up signsnear the watershed, watching somegoats across the valley feeding on thehillside, when all of a sudden they gotspooked, and something huge startsrunning up the hill, arms swinging sideto side. Just booking it. All of a suddenit turns and looks at us. It was big andwhite—you know, like a Yeti, anAbominable Snowman. Weird. We justsaid, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ Dad wanted

Monday, March, 24, Mt. Baker Ski Area,Glacier, Washington

The notion of a human-Sasquatch mating seems as remote as beingabducted by aliens… until you drive the Deliverance-esque back roadsof Washington’s Whatcom County. Typical Bigfoot signposts may befew and far between, but the hulking, bearded primates lurkingaround tarpaper shacks and backing rusted Subarus up to the gaspumps in Glacier (the most backwater “ski” town in the lower 48)make up for their absence.

Glacier is gateway to Mt. Baker, a legendarily isolated ski area situ-ated in what can only be described as a contemporary visage of MiddleEarth. If Sasquatch exists, then the creeping, iridescent, moss-encrusted understorey of this claustrophobic landscape is just theplace you’d expect it to dwell.

Above snowline, however, it’s a whole new ballgame. With the gla-cier on 2,900-metre Mount Shuksan hanging like a malevolent chan-delier, Mt. Baker boasts the most dramatic ski-area backdrop in theU.S.—not that many see it; with annual snowfall averaging 20 metresand a world record approaching 30 (1998-99 season), any visibilityhere is considered a blessing.

But sunny skies are only the first of several benefactions. The sec-ond, as we crest the top of the C-8 chair, is patrol’s opening of ShuksanArm—Baker’s massive, in-your-face OB showcase—to hikers after 100centimetres of new. Should we be surprised? Not at a place that adver-tises 94 days of fresh snow per winter, 35 powder days of 20cm ormore, and 15 days of 35 to 95cm. As we offload, the rope drops and asteady stream boot-packs up the ridge through deep snow. From thecrest, we get a commanding view of the area’s sprawling layout, sub-stantial given the modest 460m vertical. Nine lifts service about 30parsimoniously designated runs, some of which are acres across.

Joining the scramble on Shuksan Arm, we make tracks on a myriadof lines that represent one of the continent’s best-kept ski secrets,catching low traverses back to Daytona, one of many impeccablecruisers, then bombing that back to the chair. It’s a glorious yin morn-ing, followed by the yang of afternoon gloom and fearful turning inheat-weighted snow—Pac-Nor’westese for “time to leave.”

On our final run I gaze west toward the 3,250-metre volcanic cone ofMount Baker, across an expanse of snow-covered mountain wildernessthat, according to bfro.net, represents dozens of Sasquatch sightings.

The truth, it seems, is out there.

Tuesday, March 25, Alpental Ski Area,Snoqualmie Pass, Washington

Two days later, a slow-moving Pacific front drags in a long night ofprecipitation. At Alpental, 40 minutes from Seattle up I-90 inSnoqualmie Pass, we find decent turning in deep but dense snow inthe higher reaches of the resort.

Alpental’s steep-sided geographic twilight zone offers a hodge-podge of secrets: Although the vertical is added up in increments,pockets and terrain pods abound, and the rock gardens, cliff hucks,back bowls and welcoming glades form an amalgam that reeks of asmaller, wetter, more northerly Squaw Valley.

Eventually the scary high traverse to Alpental’s bountiful backcoun-try opens (mercifully closed to snowboarders and other two-leggedcreatures), and we follow out under nasty loaded chutes, crossingheinous ribs of avie debris just shot down by patrol, who uncorked 70kilos of bombs in the area. The descent offers plenty of vertical; thefirst 450 metres are deep untracked pow, the last 160 scary pig snot,an acceptable tradeoff by local standards.

Despite good skiing, yo-yoing freezing levels make for a soggy day.As the meagre light is eclipsed by even denser evening cloud that hasfog battling with silver-dollar flakes for supremacy, we head for thebar, where the lone server—whose name-tag reads “Rex:Alpentender”—responds willingly to interrogation.

“I ain’t seen no Bigfoot, but I heard lots of strange noises in the for-

“Search for Bigfoot Outlivesthe Man Who Created Him.”—New York Times headline,January 2003

“The Sasquatch is a wild man… who makes his home in acave [near] the head of Harrison Lake. He is… the legendaryenemy of the Chehalis Indians. How many… there [are] isnot known, no census taker ever having been brave enoughto make a cave-to-cave survey.” —“Sasquatch Still Fearedby Indians,” Vancouver Daily Province, January 1, 1914

We’re lucky enoughto haveanotherclearing day, 65 centimetres of unforecast

Marchsnow, pole position for the openingof the chair,and two unchallenged

runsdown the region’sall-time,fall-linetree run.

BRYCE PHILLIPS, ALPENTAL, WASHINGTON.

MOUNT SHUKSAN, WASHINGTON.

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to report it to town council….”But dad didn’t, echoing the unreported nature of most

sightings and begging the question: With so many reportsdocumented, and an order of magnitude more not, justwhat is going on out in these woods? Whatever it is, folksseem more comfortable with bemused beliefs than actu-al facts. Fittingly, the wall at Marko’s features Kokaneebig-feet—six-toed graphic reminders of Sasquatch’swhimsical hold on the region and perfect comic juxtapo-sition to someone seriously discussing the issue.

As Sarah finishes, expertly crafting another hand-rolled while juggling a pool cue, a wild-eyed characternamed Aaron—who’s been sitting silently next to me atthe bar—leans over and, in hushed tones, offers: “I thinkthey can materialize and dematerialize. You know?Appear and disappear whenever they want.”

“They’re of higher intelligence, like humans, but justdecided to go a different, kinda spiritual route,” explainsAaron. “They’re watching us and thinking, Whoa, don’twant to be like that, so they just evaporate whenever weget too close. That’s why there are so many sightingsbut no actual proof.”

Satisfied his hypothesis covers all the bases, Aaronsits back, sips his beer and moves on to other concerns.“Hey, nice jacket…. Do you ski?”

Wednesday, March 26, StevensPass Ski Area, Stevens Pass,Washington

Ascending a grimly dark expanse of the highwaybetween Seattle and Stevens Pass, with the jagged-glass massif of 1,900-metre Mt. Index rising from theforest and dense brush cowing the road, we round a cor-ner to behold a most bizarre oasis.

The Espresso Chalet, caught in the crosshairs ofSeattle coffee culture and Bigfoot leitmotif, is surroundedby signs hollering, “Welcome to the Cascade MountainsBigfoot Park” and “Bigfoot Crossing next 4 mi.”

Whether cause or effect, a litany of Bigfoot parapher-nalia reveals this as the filming location for the BigfootMuseum in Universal Pictures’ Harry and theHendersons—the John Lithgow vehicle documenting theadoption of a Sasquatch by a Seattle-area family that hitit with their car. In fact, the actual Sasquatch suit wornin the movie now sits, ratty and sun-damaged, behind acracked pane of glass illuminated by bare light bulbs—like some macabre diorama from a turn-of-the-centurycarnival sideshow.

Proprietor Mark Klein pulls espresso and chattersabout the movie production through a trailer windowframed with Sasquatch dolls, postcards and jerky. Butlest we think this enclave simply a slice of Disneyesquewhimsy straight off the Universal back lot, Klein dispelsthe notion with a quick shrug.

“First time I came across Sasquatch I was 25 milesup Chiwawa Creek with my sled dogs,” he states mat-ter-of-factly. “There were tracks coming over a hill anddown to the river. They couldn’t have been made by any-thing else, and there was no one else around because Ibroke trail all the way in. The dogs weren’t happy.”

As if to emphasize the point, a spine-tingling howlerupts from the valley and is soon joined by others, ris-ing into a wailing canine chorus. Spooked, we stare intothe forest, shifting feet.

“My dogs,” interrupts Klein, prying our minds fromwerewolves and wendigos, but keeping them firmly sub-merged in freakishness, “probably know we’re talkingabout them.”

“Anyway, I made an outline of the tracks from memo-ry,” he concludes, fishing under the counter for a wood-en replica, an unremarkable giant foot covered in whatcould be a coffee menu—or simply the autographs ofvisiting Sasquatch scholars and Bigfoot groupies.Another wooden footprint, hanging on the map boardand labeled with “Nordegg, ALTA, 1969” and “RubyCreek, B.C., 1941” looks suspiciously similar. But then,so do all the footprints.

Half an hour later we’re making our own footprints inthe snow. It’s positively blizzarding at Stevens Pass;

the jet stream has shifted south, and heavy snow show-ers accompany the unstable air of a descending coldfront. Up high, it’s blowing a gale, and deposition in leeareas is over the knee, ramping up the already consider-able avalanche hazard above 1,400 metres. Careful butdedicated powder hounds like ourselves are in heaven.

The terrain at Stevens—550 metres of vertical onthree sides of two separate mountains—is wicked, andthe snow quality a blush of midwinter magic; a shortstroll from the top of Double Diamond chair, the steepchutes into Big Chief Bowl offer an energizing intro to aMach 3 pow-fest, while the Mill Valley side’s Orion pow-der fields are sweetly deep and empty. Late in the day,local Zach Getsinger, an Oregon State grad who’s beenhere three winters, leads us on a long tramp acrossridges to a secret cabin, below which spread severalhundred virgin turns down to the highway. But it’s noth-ing compared to what’s to come.

Late in the afternoon, intermittent snow showersharden in their resolve, and by sundown it’s dumpingseveral inches an hour. We spend the night at Zach’scabin buried—literally and figuratively—deep in thepass. When the snow finally slows around midnight,there’s a solid 30 cm of new, and by morning 35 more.

There are no questions next morning, save whichshovels to dig out with, and the only lingering mystery ishow we’re lucky enough to have another clearing day,65 cm of unforecast March snow at January tempera-tures, pole position for the opening of the Big Chiefchair, and two unchallenged runs down the region’s all-time, fall-line tree run, Wild Katz. It’s a long-sufferingPac-Nor’west skier’s dream come true.

After that it’s a shot of steep, thigh-deep onDouble Diamond before plumbing more trees aroundSohim’s Meadow. We join local cognoscenti keepingan eye on the 7th Heaven lift on Cowboy Mountain,which has been closed for days. Joining a line offolks who’ve been standing there an hour while weshralped fairy dust, we watch several give up andleave, while others, even in the complete absence ofany evidence the lift will open, hang on with grimdetermination. It makes me realize that our apparentluck is, in fact, no mystery.

The diehards understand what it has taken us a fullweek to learn. In the Pacific Northwest, encounterswith both powder and Bigfoot clearly involve similarleaps of faith and blind trust. So sighting the beast orfinding deep snow and blue skies is as simple as this:You’ve simply got to believe.

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DNA

Ski areas: hemlockvalleyresort.com, mtbaker.us, alpental.com,stevenspass.com

Bigfoot areas: Believe it or not, Sasquatchsightings occur in almost everystate and province. Predictably,Washington, Oregon, andCalifornia lead the way withtriple-digit report numbers;B.C.’s handful of sightings re-flect a strange paucity for such avast geographical area: IsSasquatch taken so seriouslythere that few feel compelled toreport sightings?

Selected books: Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us,by John Green; Bigfoot SasquatchEvidence, by Dr. Grover S.Krantz; In Search of Giants:Bigfoot Sasquatch Encounters, byThomas Steenberg; My Quest forthe Yeti, by Reinhold Messner(yes, it’s that Reinhold Messner)

bfro.net: The Bigfoot Field ResearchersOrganization is the only “scien-tific” organization probing thephenomenon, as shown by thesite’s extremely professionalcontent: an extensive geograph-ic database including maps, the-ories, research projects,detailed reports and follow-upanalysis, plus tips on collectingevidence and a standardizedsightings report form.

bigfootmuseum.com: A collaboration of the cryptozo-ology community (which studiesweird, legendary and mythicalanimals) and the Bigfoot Society,this is an open forum for sharingresearch, information, stories,and art. Despite a recent and his-toric bibliography database, thephotos of souvenirs and an on-line store with plaster casts,videos and books suggests thissite is less professional thanbfro.net, a tenet proven by a list-ing of events like the “3rd AnnualOklahoma Monkeychasers BBQ.”

“We both spend our lives chasing that beast, and we bothhave to look at ourselves in the mirror every morning andsay, ‘I am not a fool!’” —One Sasquatch hunter to another inUniversal Pictures’ Harry and the Hendersons

“Bigfoot eat their dead.” —Regional axiom explaining thelack of evidence

“I… came upon three crea-tures I thought were grizzlybears, but they were uprightand… scuffling. Two beganmating in the normal humanfashion instead of from therear. I… took a shot at one witha rifle but missed, and thethree ran into the woods...”—A case of Sasquatch coitusinterruptus?

“I noticed what looked like a big stump at the back of the sunlit area. All of a sudden it got up and start-ed running… I saw a long thigh come up level as it ran… it was very muscular in the back; I could see howthe hair came to a V shape at the spine…” —1999 sighting, Chilliwack, B.C.

“I looked at the ‘tree trunk,’ and the hair on theback of my neck stood up. I was about 25 yardsfrom it and… it had eyes and they moved. My sonsaid [yes], he saw it move… It was almost blackwith a lot of grey hair… about six to seven feettall, no neck, very wide.” —1990s sighting, Cle Elum, Kittitas County

BRYCE PHILLIPS, STEVEN’S PASS, WASHINGTON.


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