Where Bigfoot Walks Read online

  Books by ROBERT MICHAEL PYLE

  PROSE

  Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land

  The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland

  Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide

  Nabokov’s Butterflies (editor, with Brian Boyd and Dmitri Nabokov)

  Chasing Monarchs: Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage

  Walking the High Ridge: Life as Field Trip

  Sky Time in Gray’s River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place

  Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year

  The Tangled Bank: Writings from Orion

  Through a Green Lens: Fifty Years of Writing for Nature

  POETRY

  Letting the Flies Out (chapbook)

  Evolution of the Genus Iris

  Chinook and Chanterelle

  ON ENTOMOLOGY

  Watching Washington Butterflies

  The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies

  The IUCN Invertebrate Red Data Book

  (with S. M. Wells and N. M. Collins)

  Handbook for Butterfly Watchers

  Butterflies: A Peterson Field Guide Coloring Book

  (with Roger Tory Peterson and Sarah Anne Hughes)

  Insects: A Peterson Field Guide Coloring Book (with Kristin Kest)

  The Butterflies of Cascadia

  Where Bigfoot Walks

  Copyright © 1995, 2017 by Robert Michael Pyle

  First Counterpoint paperback edition: November 2017

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any

  manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  eISBN: 9781619029651

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  Cover designed by Faceout Studio, Charles Brock

  Book designed by Domini Dragoone

  COUNTERPOINT

  2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

  Berkeley, CA 94710

  www.counterpointpress.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FOR THEA

  For all the searchers and dreamers

  For the Ones who walk in mystery

  Contents

  Introduction: Bukwus and Dzonoqua at Play

  I – PAN’S BRIDGE

  1 • Not Looking for Bigfoot

  2 • Juniper Ridge

  3 • Ghost Moths at Moonrise

  4 • Sunrise with Bears

  5 • The Saddle

  II–HEART OF THE DARK DIVIDE

  6 • Of Ouzels and Old Growth

  7 • Monty West and the Well-Adapted Ape

  8 • Legends of the Dark Divide

  9 • Yellowjacket Pass

  10 • Grendel Redux: Snagtooth

  III–DEVILS IN HEAVEN

  11 • Whistling with Bigfoot

  12 • “Bigfoot Baby Found in Watermelon, Has Elvis’s Sneer”

  13 • One Hundred Hours of Solitude

  14 • Natural History of the Bigfoot Hunters

  15 • Back to Earth

  IV–FOOTSTEPS ON THE WIND

  16 • Northern Spotted Bigfoot

  17 • Lost in the Big Lava Bed

  18 • Mermaids, Monsters, and Metaphors

  19 • Carson on the Columbia

  20 • Something in the Night

  Epilogue: Monsters in the Mist

  Back to the Dark Divide: 2017

  Map of the Dark Divide

  Appendix: A Protocol for Encounter

  References

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  A giant has swallowed the earth,

  And when he sleeps now, oh when he sleeps,

  How his eyelids murmur, how we envy his dream.

  —Pattiann Rogers, Firekeeper

  Introduction

  Bukwus and Dzonoqua at Play

  This was D’Sonoqua, and she was a supernatural being, who belonged to these Indians . . . I said to myself, “I do not believe in supernatural beings. Still—who understands the mysteries behind the forest? What would one do if one did meet a supernatural being?” Half of me wished that I could meet her, and half of me hoped I would not.

  —Emily Carr, Klee Wyck

  Something is definitely afoot in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Either an officially undescribed species of hominoid primate dwells there, or an act of self- and group deception of astonishing proportions is taking place. In any case the phenomenon of Bigfoot exists. Whether the animals themselves are becoming scarcer or whether they even walk as corporeal creatures at all, their reputation and cult are only growing. More and more people, including credible and skeptical citizens and scientists, as well as the gullible, the wishful, and the wacko, believe that giant hairy monsters are present in our midst. What does this mean? Who is this beast, described by the great ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson as “our shadowy, perplexing, and perhaps non-existent cousin”?

  Bigfoot, also commonly called Sasquatch (from the Salish saskehavas), is the North American counterpart of Yeti, or the abominable snowman, in the Himalaya. Cryptozoologists, who study undiscovered animals, now recognize at least four possible species (other than humans) of upright apes in Asia, of which Yeti is one. They tend to think that the North American animal represents a single, different species. Although reports, tracks, and putative sightings have come from almost every state in recent years, most of the lore centers on the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to central Alaska, and especially southwestern Washington.

  Arriving on the continent, European settlers encountered a rich and varied array of native tales concerning giant, hairy, humanlike monsters. Native Americans, from the Hoopa of the redwood forests to the Athabascans of the Yukon River, have stories of hairy giants. And the Sasquatch stories did not arrive with trade beads; for centuries the Kwakiutl of the British Columbia coast have consorted with the wild men and wild women of the woods.

  Mountain men, trapping far beyond the westward advance of their racial kin, brought tales of ape-men along with beaver pelts to the rendezvous at Jackson Hole. Teddy Roosevelt, in The Wilderness Hunter, recorded the story of one such trapper raked off by an unknown beast at his campfire while his partner checked the trapline; Roosevelt called it “the Snow Walker.” Pioneer trainmen in the Fraser River country stopped to catch and cage a baby ape found near the rails; named Jacko, he was extolled in the press and exhibited for a while, then disappeared. A British Columbian fisherman, Albert Ostman, returned from a wild inlet to tell of being kidnapped by a family of Bigfeet and kept captive until he freed himself by sharing his snuff. The same year, 1924, the famous Ape Canyon incident took place, when miners in Washington’s Skamania County reported shooting a Bigfoot and then being attacked by several others.

  Reports continued to generate from Skamania County, and in 1969 an ordinance was passed protecting Bigfoot. Monster hunters Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin, encountering a female ape of great proportions on a northern California stream, returned with a shaky film shot on the run when Patterson was bucked from his horse. Shown worldwide, the film set off an epidemic of hunters, who dispatched reports no more or less compelling than the hundreds of tracks and glimpses and fuzzy photos and hanks of hair turne
d up by ordinary folk with no monsters aforethought. Bigfoot societies were formed and expeditions mounted as hundreds of huge humanoid tracks were discovered, from Maryland to Minnesota, from Pikes Peak to Mount Hood.

  Most academics and forest managers remained firmly unconvinced, while the growing cadres of true believers argued over whether or not to kill the animal when it was found. Movie spoofs and tabloid dramas fanned the flickers of the faithful while degrading a once-powerful set of native traditions into a staple of kitsch journalism. Thus have we come from the early frontier fables of bogeymen, which accompany every advance into the wilderness, to a state of mass fascination mixed with general unbelief.

  As assembled from some hundreds of eyewitness reports, traditional legends, tracks and other signs, a few vague photographs, and the famous filmstrip made by Patterson and Gimlin at Bluff Creek in 1967, a portrait of Bigfoot emerges fairly clearly. The animal is large or immense, from six to ten feet in height and weighing perhaps three hundred pounds to half a ton when mature. It stands upright, and though its powerful arms are long, they do not touch the ground, as those of the great apes do. Russet, beige, brown, or black fur covers the massive body except for the palms, soles, and most of the face. The neck is short, the sagittal crest pronounced, the brows heavy and beetling. Bigfoot may have red eyeshine in headlights. Males have small genitals and are half again as large as females, whose breasts can be pendulous, as Patterson’s film shows. Almost all observers agree that the animal leaves behind a very strong disagreeable odor and that the face is more humanlike than animal.

  The most frequently described feature, and the most prominent, is the feet, which are, in a word, big. Tracks commonly measure fifteen to eighteen inches or more in length. They have five toes, a double ball, and a low arch. Grover Krantz, a professor of anthropology at Washington State University, has analyzed many tracks and has pronounced some of them genuine. He hypothesizes that Bigfoot represents a living population of the huge primate Gigantopithecus, known from Pliocene and Pleistocene fossils in Southeast Asia. Most cryptozoologists believe that if the big galoot exists, it is a relict hominoid ape that occurs in dispersed populations totaling several hundred or several thousand across the forested montane Northwest.

  Many relict species—animals or plants extinct over most of their range but surviving in pockets—are known. The tailed frogs of the Northwest, whose only relatives occur in New Zealand, are a good example. The mountain gorilla is another. And some such species have remained hidden until recent times. The fact that Gigantopithecus did exist makes it impossible to dismiss giant hairy apes out of hand. The idea that a large bipedal ape might have evolved, died out overall, but survived in remnants strikes no biologist as outrageous. The problem is not whether Bigfoot could exist but whether, if it does, how it has remained so long unknown.

  Obvious difficulties arise in any conversation about Sasquatch. Why isn’t it seen more often? Why haven’t any bodies, or even any bones, ever been found? Why are all the pictures fuzzy? How could something so large be so hard to find? Wouldn’t loggers, hunters, and others who spend their time in the woods be well acquainted with such a dramatic animal in their midst?

  Believers reply that encounters occur often; that we seldom find bodies or bones of bears or pumas because scavengers eat them; that no one would believe in the authenticity of a clear picture of Bigfoot; and that if you were intelligent, hunted, and extremely adept in the bush, you too could stay hidden in the huge, rough territories in question. As for sightings by those who work and play in the woods, many of the reports do come from loggers and hunters. And, the believers add, how are the tracks to be explained? Hundreds of clear, consistent casts that pass podiatric and forensic examination in terms of weight, stress, indentation, and stride have been recovered from scores of disparate, remote locations. And so the dialogue continues, between naysayers and yea-sayers unable to either embrace or demolish each other’s arguments.

  In many ways the search for Bigfoot brings to mind the popular preoccupations with UFOs, aliens from outer space, and the Loch Ness monster. In fact it has something in common with each of these. Statistically the likelihood of alien travelers is not so very remote, as cosmologists such as Carl Sagan contend. Also the body of UFO sightings that are difficult to dismiss grows by the month. Likewise, reputable zoologists consider the possibility of relict plesiosaurs in Loch Ness and several other deep lakes to be considerably better than nil. Yet most of us feel that disturbed or disingenuous people have invented bogus incidents that have obscured the real issues. And the tabloid-type hysteria that accompanies serious inquiry makes it tough for sensible people to sort the possible from the preposterous and makes them fear that open-minded will appear oatmeal-minded. We feel justified in ignoring those who present the cases of aliens, UFOs, Nessie, and Bigfoot as if they were somehow related, part of the same weird parade, usually wrapped up with paranormal phenomena and interdimensional travel.

  Any of these phenomena might be real—but how can we know? In each case the problem seems to be one of agreeing on acceptable evidence. As skeptics insist, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. That leaves us with an uncomfortable question: will it be necessary to bring in a body before any as-yet-unseen form of life is considered real? And if so, is the prize worth the price? Beyond the question of mere belief, this is the issue that sharply divides the several camps of eager Bigfoot hunters.

  −−

  Each year hundreds of Sasquatch seekers take to the woods, and some lesser numbers gather in annual jamborees, such as the one known as Bigfoot Daze in Carson, Washington. To get a feel for their motives and modi operandi, I joined them at the Bigfoot Trailer Park one recent fall. There, following the beefy fumes of a barbecue serving Bigfoot Burgers, I found

  the assembled enthusiasts of the Western Bigfoot Society.

  As the October light faded into vague mothglow, the Coleman lanterns came out. In the absence of a campfire, the members gathered around a Coleman to share Bigfoot tales old and new. Martin Witter, an older man with a silky white beard, recounted his wife’s sighting of a seven-foot ape on their honeymoon forty years before, as Lusette nodded approvingly. A hunter told of finding eighteen-inch tracks all around his RV in an apple orchard near the coast.

  Datus Perry, a white-bearded old-timer with wild eyes and a jack-o’-lantern grin, described the latest of his many sightings near his cabin in the hills outside of Carson. He demonstrated the sign you must make—crossing your arms over your chest and patting—to show apelike interlopers that your intentions are peaceful. Behind him stood a life-size Bigfoot model he had made, with the peculiar pointed head and deerskin shawl that he insists upon.

  Peter Byrne, khaki-clad dean of the Northwest Bigfoot students and leader of the well-funded Bigfoot Research Project, listened with narrowed eyes and an analytical set to his handsome Irish jaw. Eventually he was persuaded to tell something of his days in Nepal in search of evidence of Yeti. The evening aged, tales dwindled, and most of us drifted off to our accommodations as winy accounts of UFOs took over.

  Back at our cabin at Carson Hot Springs, Byrne and I exchanged news of our inquiries into the nature of the Sasquatch phenomenon and shared our frustration over the difficulty of sorting the chaff from the kernels, if any. I confessed that I was as intrigued by the people who share a common infatuation with the beast as with Bigfoot itself. Who are they? Why do they care so deeply about something that might not even exist? And what does the growing passion for monsters among us mean for our own self-image, our fears, our wild hopes? Peter said to let him know if I figured it out, and we retired. I fell asleep with gentle giants on my mind.

  The next day the testimonies continued as a teenaged girl in a monkey suit infiltrated the small crowd. I had known Ray Crowe, the founder of the Western Bigfoot Society, as a dedicated lepidopterist before Bigfoot captured his fancy. The hefty, mustachioed bookseller emceed in between selli
ng Bigfoot books, newsletters, and plaster casts of footprints. Eventually the voices and stories ran together, and my head was spinning from the muddy mix of information and dreams. It occurred to me that this business was like one recipe for adobe bricks: a certain amount of solid earth blended with horseshit and bonded with hair—Bigfoot hair.

  Heading for home, as I crossed the toe of the Cascades on small logging roads, I found myself watching for shadows behind every fir, imagining tracks around each muddy bend.

  −−

  Certain social anthropologists like to consign Bigfoot to the category of archetypal myth: the contemporary expression of Beowulf’s Grendel, the modern manifestation of the medieval Green Man—the wild counterpart to our domestic selves that all folk seem to need. Probably it works well for this purpose, for we do require bogeymen. But is there more to it than that? Looking at the traditions of Northwest Coast Indians, we see through the moss and the mist a furry figure who fits that deep myth of the monster beyond the fire circle, while clutching about itself a coarse-haired cloak of reality.

  For the Kwakiutl, Bukwus is the Wild Man. On totems and masks he wears a wild face and a shock of black, unruly hair. Dzonoqua, when appearing as the Wild Woman, purses her lips to whistle. According to one tradition, when a young man, the Hamatsa, is to attain chiefdom, he goes into the forest for several weeks. Roaming the mossy damps, he might encounter the cannibal spirit Bakbakwalanooksiwae, from whom Bukwus and Dzonoqua receive their power. The wanderer acquires some of that power through his ordeal and the winter ceremonial dances that greet his return. The rest of the year the Wild Man and the Wild Woman abide in the deep shadows, vaguely disturbing and malevolent presences capable of stealing children and souls. Other clan stories have interpreted these figures quite differently, but all recognize that giants walk among them.

  All of this lore would be only colorful and strange, and we would show the same polite interest we use to patronize native traditions everywhere, if it weren’t for the fact that Bukwus and Dzonoqua are still around. While modern Kwakiutls have left Sisiutl the sea serpent and Thunderbird behind in the realm of imaginative myth, those who still live on the northern fjords and in the forests accept the wild people the same way they accept frogs, ravens, and bears—as literal facts.