Bigfoot legend lives large in Northwest lore, locales

By John Terry

One of the myriad Web sites devoted to he/she/it/them puts it succinctly:

• Born: c. 1811
• Birthplace: United States and Canada
• Best Known As: Big, elusive humanoid beast of North America.

The year 1811 was long before the beast, mythical or otherwise, became known as Sasquatch or Bigfoot. But it is the first formal record of such a critter.

The fellow who set it down was neither slouch nor faker in the exploration department. David Thompson is famous for tracking the Columbia River from its headwaters to the sea and establishing trading posts for the North West Co. on the Kootenai, Pend Oreille and Spokane rivers, several years before John Jacob Astor's crew set up shop at Astoria.

On Jan. 7, 1811, Thompson and party were slogging west across what we now know as the Canadian Rockies when they saw something worthy of a detailed journal note, which Thompson later expanded in "Narrative of His Explorations in Western America."

"I saw the track of a large Animal — has 4 large toes abt 3 or 4 In long and a small nail at the end of each. The Bal of his foot sank abt 3 In deeper than his Toes — the hinder part of his foot did not mark well. The whole is about 14 In long by 8 In wide and very much resembles a large Bear's Track. It was in the Rivulet in about 6 In snow."

In his "Narrative" he added: "We were in no humour to follow him; the Men and Indians would have it to be a young mammouth and I held it to be the track of a large old grizzly; yet the shortness of the nails, the ball of the foot, and its great size was not that of a Bear, otherwise that of a very large old Bear, his claws worn away, the Indians would not allow."

In 1840, the Rev. Elkanah Walker wrote that members of the Spokane Tribe spoke of hairy giants that inhabited remote parts of their territory.

Indeed, Native American tradition across America is replete with creatures generally referred to by some native term for "Big Man." In his 1980 book "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse," author Peter Mathiessen quotes Joe Flying By, a Hunkpapa Lakota:

"I think the Big Man is a kind of husband of Unk-ksa, the earth, who is wise in the way of anything with its own natural wisdom. . . . Some of the people who saw him did not respect what they were seeing, and they are already gone."

In the Chinook language, the term "Skookum" connotes a large, powerful entity who bestows ill fortune and makes bumpy noises in the night.

In 1893, no less a no-nonsense personality than Theodore Roosevelt wrote of his Western adventures and passed on an account of such creatures he attributed to "a beaten old mountain hunter named Bauman."

In his 1978 "The Apes Among Us," author and Sasquatchologist John Willison Green recounts Albert Ostman's 1924 claim that, while prospecting in the British Columbia wilderness, he was kidnapped and held for six days by the creatures:

"They look like a family, old man, old lady and two young ones, a boy and a girl. The boy and the girl seem to be scared of me. The old lady did not seem too pleased about what the old man dragged home. But the old man was waving his arms and telling them all what he had in mind."

Also in 1924, miner Fred Beck reported that a cabin he occupied with others in the wilds above Kelso, Wash., was assaulted by giant creatures that pounded on the structure, threw rocks and at one point thrust a hairy, outsized, menacing arm through the wall.

About this time the term "Sasquatch," derived from Northwest native dialects, came into vogue in reference to the creatures.

In 1967 came a defining event in Sasquatch history. Sasquatch hunters Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin took to the hills around Bluff Creek, Humboldt County, Northern California, and came up with about a minute of 16 mm film showing a form of Sasquatchian magnitude galumphing through some underbrush, obviously of no mind to be photographed.

A newspaper account, noting the size of the creature's tracks, called it "Bigfoot." The nickname stuck. So did the controversy surrounding the sighting.

Doubters point to such as retired logger Rant Mullen who in 1982 confessed to creating large footprints out of alder and whomping fake tracks into soft earth in various Northwest locales. Likewise road contractor Ray Wallace, who died in 2002 at age 84, told his family he had planted Sasquatch tracks in the area of the Patterson-Gimlin film.

Bigfoot partisans grant fakes abound. But, they say, experts have identified significant animalian tracks that can't be duplicated in wood and can't be equated with any other known biped.

Sasquatch sightings are frequent — more than 500 in Oregon alone over the years. Many are by people otherwise trustworthy — police officers, foresters, college professors, outdoor enthusiasts. Recent sighting hot spots include Northern California, the Cascade Range mountains above Estacada, and the Wallowa and Blue mountains.

Scientific inquiries are inconclusive. DNA samples from supposed Sasquatch hair and scat can't be verified. No skeletons or other remains have been found.

And although he or she (the Patterson-Gimlin film shows clear signs of femininity) is regularly the subject of news stories and TV documentaries -- trailing only Liz Taylor, Elvis and UFOs in tabloid coverage -- Sasquatch is shyly resolute in refusing to show face or provide other solid evidence of existence.

After 200 years, the reclusive, smelly (extreme body order is an often-reported characteristic) beasts seem content to remain an enigma wrapped in mystery cloaked in fur.

From: The Oregonian, 5 June 2005.