The lendgend of Bigfoot.

The legends of Bigfoot go back beyond recorded history and cover the world. In North America – and particularly the Northwest – you can hear tales of seven-foot-tall hairy men stalking the woods, occasionally scaring campers, lumberjacks, hikers and the like.

Bigfoot is known by many titles with many different cultures although the name Bigfoot is generally attributed to the mountainous Western region of North America. The common name Sasquatch comes from the Salish Sasquits, meaning “Wild man”, while the Algonquin of the north-central region of the continent refer to a Witiko or Wendigo. Other nations tell of a large creature much like a man but imbued with special powers and characteristics. The Ojibway of the Northern Plains believed the Rugaru appeared in times of danger and other nations agreed that the hairy apparition was a messenger of warning, telling man to change his ways.

North American settlers started reporting sightings during the late 1800s and into the 1900s with the occasional finding of footprints, sporadic encounters and even a few grainy photos and videos adding to the mystery. Those who claim to have seen Bigfoot have described everything from a large, upright ape to an actual hairy human, sometimes standing over eight feet tall and described as powerfully built. The debate and research continue. Entire organizations exist to study and document Bigfoot and prove its existence and groups regularly search the Northwest woods, looking for that ultimate proof.

well, I live in the Pacific Northwest, and have travelled extensively through the region, from Northern California, where my home is, through Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, but The closest I have come to seeing Bigfoot is a redwood carving at a roadside stand being offered for sale to tourists. Yes, I bought one! I’m a Bigfoot junkie. It is on display on my front porch. I want to see the real thing so bad, which leads me to the idea my friends and I concocted. If Bigfoot won’t let himself be seen, we’ll make him, or her, I guess, be seen. And we will have fun doing so.

we started off by purchasing a plastic life size Bigfoot foot that I found at a garage sale in Oegon while visiting one of my friends and fellow Bigfoot junkie. Our eyes lit up when we found it, and I think we both had the same idea at the same time. We could make footprints in the mud after a rainstorm, and photograph them. I couldn’t wait for the rainy season to start. But while we waited for the rain, Halloween came, and the local Halloween store ( which was seasonal) opened up for business, and they had a large gorilla costume for sale, which I snatched up before anyone bought it. Our plan was taking shape. Jack, my friend, came down to stay with me, and because he was the biggest of all my friends, he was going to be Bigfoot.

we chose as the location for the Bigfoot sighting a line of small immature redwood trees that I had planted several years ago, and Jack got dressed in the gorilla costume, now a bigfoot suit, and walked in the line of trees. Because the trees were on the small side, and he was on the large side, the grainy, out of focus photo made Bigfoot like big. We looked at the sequence of photographs I took, and they looked convincing and authentic. We were pleased with the results. Next we took the plastic foot and made some footprint’s in the mud near some larger older growth redwoods and photographed them and also some of the trees and of Jack without the costume as he”found” the spoor of Bigfoot, so that we would have a size comparison of the trees Bigflot was walking past. Oh, we felt so clever.

Jack was a sticker for details, and he had collected some bear scat much earlier (ok, so we are a little weird), and now he placed it on the ground also near the line of larger redwood trees but near the creek that ran next to them, and we photographed that. Also near the scat was a wild blackberry bush loaded with ripe blackberries, and on the thorns we placed some Brown Bear hair we had found on a barbed wire fencing last year and kept as a souvenir. We also photographed that. Armed with all this evidence, we contacted the local newspaper and told our story of the Bigfoot sighting I had experienced on my property. I was interviewed by the local reporter of a Sacramento T.V.station who was afiliated with the newspaper, and before I knew it I was the center of a national news story. Reporters came flooding in, filmed the tree line, and me. I wasn’t prepared for that, I was nervous, what if it was proved I had perpetrated a hoax? Besides making a fool of myself, would I be prosecuted for a crime? I didn’t know what crime, but there must be something criminal about doing a hoax like this on the public. Oh god, I hadn’t thought this through! Tourists came in droves and were seen hiking all over the place, camping next to rivers, trespassing on private land, all the hotels were booked out for several weeks, and restaurants were full. Luckily for me, the focus went off me and onto Bigfoot. Funnyily enough, Bigfoot sightings were reported a lot in the immediate area now, and I didn’t know it, but it Seems Bigfoot has always been here in this area. What a coincidence that he would be seen so much now after being so elusive before. Huh, maybe I will be lucky and see him again. Maybe I will find his den, and his babies. Oh, oh, now there’s an idea. Let me swing it by Jack. I’ll bet you we will find the entire family of Bigfoot. Maybe his mate will be pregnant. Oh, the possibilities Are endless!