That we do not know
is your perfection
and our hope. The darkness
keeps us near you.
—Wendell Berry, “To the Unseeable Animal”
I favor broad, if provisional, acceptance of Grover Krantz’s description of Gigantopithecus canadensis based on the tracks and casts he has examined, followed by the preventive listing of this species under the Endangered Species Act. Then the penalties for killing a Bigfoot would have to be harsh enough to prevent a killer from recouping the fine through media rights and sideshow or museum sales. If not manslaughter, the crime should at least be an imprisonable felony.
I do not propose using the species designation to dramatically disrupt the forest-planning process without better ecological information. Rather, serious research efforts should be launched by federal, tribal, state, provincial, and private groups and coordinated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its Canadian and Indian Nation counterparts to determine the likely range of the species and its ecological requirements. Then, if logging must adapt to a new protection priority in the woods, let the chips fall. Such a change won’t be easy, but the results of overharvesting for all these years aren’t easy either. Bigfoot could drive the change toward better use of logged-off private and federal lands at a time when the electronic revolution is supposedly reducing the need for pulp. Thus Bigfoot’s listing, if temporarily a nuisance because it causes us to look much more closely at how the forest works and what it needs to keep on working, could help create an eventually stable logging industry. And if the animal is never found, little harm will have been done by these measures.
And what if it is found? I have long favored the adoption of a protocol for first contact with Bigfoot or with any other outlandish life form. Such a plan could be adapted for extraterrestrial aliens, dinosaurs in the Congo, or plesiosaurs in Loch Ness and Lake Champlain, as well as for the five or so unproven manlike primates. Each of these categories, and others of seeming unlikelihood, has their serious-minded champions—people with both oars in the water.
Roy P. Mackal, a former University of Chicago biologist who went to West Africa to track a putative dinosaur, told Audubon writer Peter Steinhart, “We are far from the bottom of the barrel. We may penetrate all the areas on Earth and establish that there are no more large species. But we are a long way from that now.” Rory Nugent followed Mackal to the shores of Lake Télé and came back to write Drums Along the Congo: On the Trail of Mokele-Mbembe, the Last Living Dinosaur. Nugent never saw the animal, but a local witch doctor, thumping his chest, told him “Mokole-Mbembe is in here, and out there in the forest. He is a great spirit, so he is everywhere.” While this certainly doesn’t prove the physical existence of the dinosaur, it hardly proves otherwise. As George Zug, Smithsonian herpetologist, told Steinhart, “There are unknown things.”
One of the most eminent biologists ever to give his serious attention to cryptids was G. Evelyn Hutchinson, the Yale ecologist whose theory of the n-dimensional hyperspace in the 1920s spawned the popular concept of the ecological niche. As his 1959 Herald Tribune review of Bernard Heuvelmans’s On the Track of Unknown Animals stated, “Many long and slimy beasts from forests, swamps, and the depths of rivers must be essentially nightmares, whose true home is the unexplained terrain of the unconscious mind. Yet some of these beasts may be lurking in forests or mountain valleys waiting to disturb our complacency.”
But the actuality of the phenomena need not be at issue. Statistically there is a good chance of eventually finding more creatures like the coelacanth, the mountain gorilla, the Komodo dragon, and they might be far weirder than any of the above. Should we not have a plan in place for the event? If we don’t, we might as well ask Hollywood to script the news release in advance, for we know the ending.
So how to avoid that ending? We might start with the International Society for Cryptozoology (ISC), which was founded in 1982 as a forum and clearinghouse for questions and information concerning unknown animals. Perhaps ISC could coordinate a working group of concerned scientists and others to write such a master plan. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) should be involved, along with the wildlife and conservation authorities of each affected governmental district. In the case of Bigfoot, IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group, the International Primate Protection League, learned societies of primatologists and anthropologists, the Bigfoot Research Project, BFRO, and similar organizations and institutions should be invited to contribute.
It would be neither possible nor desirable to exclude the local, state, and tribal police, the sheriff’s departments, and perhaps the FBI from the plan. None of these should be in command, however. The Bigfoot “situation manager” should be appointed by a council of the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History, USFWS, and Nature Canada. He or she should have full authority to direct the response, after the fashion of a fire boss on a forest fire, within the context of an agreed-upon procedure, which would include neither killing nor dangerously confining the subject.
In order to give credit for prior involvement and to ensure maximum cooperation for verification and follow-up, a first-call list should be drafted of major Bigfoot researchers who have agreed to participate without remuneration and without arms. Thus, if they agree and are willing to cooperate with one another, a roster of currently active Bigfoot investigators should be notified simultaneously and invited to convene.
All signatory agencies and individuals would agree to abide by a set of behavioral prescriptions. When a scenario occurred such as the one that begins Chapter 18, the sheriff would telephone a coordinator who would activate the communications grid. The principals would travel to the site as soon as possible. In the meantime the sheriff’s main job would be to maintain public calm and to protect the animal or corpse. The military should sign the protocol but remain uninvolved unless riot conditions required the National Guard to maintain safety.
For the scene to unfold as peacefully as possible, agreements would have to be made in advance at the highest levels of security and intelligence. This would be especially important for contact with aliens (as so many films have shown), but to some extent it would also hold for Bigfoot. Therefore the protocol should be signed by the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and a cabinet-level representative of the president and the Canadian prime minister.
But what should happen and what will are two different things. I don’t think such a protocol has much of a chance of being created until it is too late to prevent a tragedy, because most of the relevant officials agree with the scientist who told Washington magazine: “It’s as pointless a pursuit scientifically as the man in the moon.” Only the commissioners of Washington’s Skamania and Whatcom counties, to my knowledge, have had the foresight (some say good humor) to pass protective ordinances for Bigfoot in advance of definite proof.
And even if a plan were in place, everyone having put his or her neck out to sign it at risk of derision, would it be followed? Or would human nature, driven by fear and base motives, lead to a dead or wounded creature after all? Even if the plan worked splendidly, I can’t say what should or would happen next. Without an ironclad promise to release any captive creature within a specified time, the temptation to keep the animal (and the danger of confiscation by authorities above the treaty) might frustrate the intention of peaceful encounter.
Nevertheless, I feel we should try to devise a civilized and intelligent procedure to protect our unwilling quarry. For in the end, how much better for all concerned if we could hear the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson above the soundtracks of the monster movies we all grew up with:
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun;
Loved the wood-rose and left it on its stalk;
Unarmed faced danger with a heart of trust;
And loved so well a high behavior in man or maid,
That thou from speech refr
ained,
Nobility more nobly to repay?—
O be my friend and teach me to be thine.
References
I have made no attempt to systematically survey or summarize the large Bigfoot literature, though I have drawn from it freely and widely. The following titles are some that I found particularly engaging, worthwhile, helpful, or otherwise meritorious. They will lead you to many sources of further information.
BOOKS
Bindernagel, John A. The Discovery of the Sasquatch. Courtney, B.C.: Beachcomber Books, 2010.
———. North America’s Great Ape: The Sasquatch. Courtney, B.C.: Beachcomber Books, 1998.
Byrne, Peter. The Hunt for Bigfoot. Woods, OR: Amazon Publishing, 2015. (www.peterbyrne.com)
———. The Monster Trilogy Guidebook. Surrey, B.C., and Blaine, WA: Hancock House, 2013.
———. The Search for Bigfoot: Monster, Myth, or Man? New York: Pocket Books, 1976.
———. The Hunt for the Yeti. Woods, OR: Amazon Publishing, 2015. (www.peterbyrne.com)
Coleman, Loren. Tom Slick and the Search for Yeti. London: Faber and Faber, 1989.
Cronin, Edward W., Jr. The Arun: A Natural History of the World’s Deepest Valley. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979.
Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.
Gloss, Molly. Wild Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Gordon, David George. Field Guide to the Sasquatch. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1992.
Green, John. Bigfoot: On the Track of the Sasquatch. New York: Ballantine Books, 1973.
———. Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us. Surrey, B.C., and Blaine, WA: Hancock House, 2006.
Halpin, Marjorie, and Michael M. Ames, eds. Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early Records and Modern Evidence. (Proceedings of the conference “Sasquatch and Similar Phenomena,” University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, 1978). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1980.
Heuvelmans, Bernard. On the Track of Unknown Animals. New York: Hill and Wang, 1959.
Hunter, Don, with René Dahinden. Sasquatch/Bigfoot: The Search for North America’s Incredible Creature. Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books, 1993.
Krantz, Grover S. Big Footprints: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch. Boulder, CO: Johnson Books, 1992.
———. Bigfoot Sasquatch Evidence. Surrey, B.C., and Blaine, WA: Hancock House, 2008.
Mackal, Roy P. The Monsters of Loch Ness. Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1980.
Meldrum, Jeff. Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. New York: Forge Books, 2006.
Murphy, Christopher L. Know the Sasquatch/Bigfoot. Surrey, B.C., and Blaine, WA: Hancock House, 2010.
Napier, John. Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973.
Patterson, Roger. Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist? Yakima, WA: Franklin Press, 1966.
Perez, Danny. Big Footnotes: A Comprehensive Bibliography Concerning Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowmen and Related Beings. Norwalk, CA: D. Perez Publishing, 1988.
Powell, Thom. The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation into the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon. Surrey, B.C., and Blaine, WA: Hancock House, 2003.
Sanderson, Ivan T. Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life. New York: Jove/HBJ, 1977.
Shackley, Myra. Still Living? Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986.
FOR YOUNG READERS
Baumann, Elwood D. Bigfoot: America’s Abominable Snowman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1975.
Brockenbrough, Martha, and Cliff Barackman. Finding Bigfoot: Everything You Need to Know. New York: Discovery Communications, 2013.
Douglas, William O. Exploring the Himalaya. Eau Claire, WI: E. M. Hale, 1958.
Halls, Kelly Milner. In Search of Sasquatch. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
Lachenmeyer, Nathaniel, and Vicki Bradley. Searching for Sasquatch. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2007.
Place, Martin T. Bigfoot All Over the Country. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1978.
Soule, Gardner. Trail of the Abominable Snowman. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1966.
OTHER RESOURCES
The World Wide Web is rich in Bigfoot information, misinformation, experience, imagination, and opinion. This takes tolerance, persistence, discrimination, and a truckload of salt to navigate. Two of the best, smartest, and most reliable entry points are these:
Cliff Barackman Bigfoot Research: cliffbarackman.com.
Bigfoot Lunch Club: www.bigfootlunchclub.com. (especially good for links to many more sites).
The following two sites will keep you up-to-date on conservation threats and opportunities, trails, wilderness, and other aspects of the Dark Divide, the GPNF, and across Bigfoot Country:
Cascade Forest Conservancy (formerly the Gifford Pinchot Task Force): cascadeforest.org.
Washington Trails Association: www.wta.org.
Acknowledgments
This book grew directly out of a Fellowship to Assist Research and Artistic Creation from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. I wish to thank the foundation and its officers profoundly, as well as my referees: Willard R. Espy, Sue Hubbell, David Rains Wallace, and Ann H. Zwinger. My writers’ group—Jenelle Varila, Lorne Wirkkala, Pat Thomas, John Indermark, Diane Matthews, and Susan Holway—gave treasured responses to many drafts. The Bigfoot Research Project and its staff—Peter Byrne, Tod Deery, and Deborah Wolman—extended enormous courtesies, as did Grover Krantz. Dee Molenaar kindly made the map, and the Wilderness Society’s Pacific Northwest Regional Office provided the Dark Divide diagram. I am humbly and deeply grateful to Alan Hall and the Haisla Nation for sharing Billy Hall’s story, to the Hoopa and Klickitat people for their hospitality, and to all First Americans who generously gave of their rich tradition and experience.
About a billion people and institutions assisted me, of whom the following are a few. Those whom I have forgotten to name or whose material I did not use directly can be sure that their contributions are deeply embedded in the text. Thank you to JoAnne Heron, Fayette Krause, Laura Smith, Ed and Cathy Maxwell, Ann Musché and Alan Richards, Jim Fielder, Susan Saul, Bob Pearson, Carl Forsgaard, Keith McCoy, Stuart and Mildred Chapin, Mary Schlick, Marlene Simla, Fostine Lone Tree, Sally Dole, Patti Fawn, Don Smith (Lelooska), Martha Dementieff, Gerald Amos, Ken Margolis, Arthur Dye, Spencer Beebe, David Campiche, Bill Holm, Tony Angell, Jeanne Gammell, Robert Dirig, David Wagner, Harriet Reinhard, Barbara Deutsch, John and Florence Hinchliff, Sally Hughes, David Shaw, Howard W. Pyle, Jim and Leona Elder, Jane Elder Wulff, Bill Crary, Harry Cody, Josh Haney, Alan Cossitt, Kevin Landacre, Howard Bulick, Joel Freeman and Debby Schaefer, Martin and Lusette Witter, the Dorsch family (Glenn, Dotty, Ian, Libby, and Hilary), Jack Gladstone, John Sparrow, Steve and Kristi Nebel, Richard Cook, Dean and Caroline Wood, David Branch, Monty West, Edgar Wymans, Paul Dorpat, Arthur Kruckeberg, Peter Matthiessen, Pattiann Rogers, Chris Merrill, Ron Carlson, Jane Hirschfield, Scott Sanders, David Quammen, Peter Steinhart, Gary Nabhan, Dick Nelson, David Guterson, Kim Stafford, Edwin Wirkala, Mathew Tekulsky, Gary Cummisk, Brian Doyle, René Dahinden, John Green, Ray and Theata Crowe, Ray Wallace, Danny Perez, Cliff Crook, Steve Harvey, Sally Newberry, Bonnie West, Fred Bradshaw, Jim Hewkin, Larry Lund, Richard Lyttle, Al Hodgson, Mary Roberts, Jimmy Jackson, Stephen Suagee, William Saxe Wihr, Henry Franzoni, Captain Gutz-Balls, Mojo Nixon, Karölis Bagdonas, Datus Perry, Lillian Dillingham, Bill Lawrence, Mary Stough, Jim Anderson, George Earley, David Gordon, David Burhson, Orin Bridges, Bob Walls, Richard Wiggin, Ken Clark, Andre Stepankowsky, Cat Warren, James Halfpenny, Kent and Irene Martin, Carolyn and Don Maddux, Susan Bahkov, Jerry Powell, Pam Pratt, Susan and Ted Kafer, Jean Anderson and Ugo Pezzi, Jan and Ray Chu, Ron Wahl, Ron Cisar, Sheri Sykes, Dede Killeen, Su Rolle, Paul Sullivan, David Somdalen, Emily Hiestand, Chris Simons, Nonie
and Grant Sharpe, Pauline Larson, Brian Larson, Hilary Richrod, Eleanor Robinson, Jay Windish, Chuck Williams, Mel Hansen, David Stone, Bob LiaBraaten, Libby Mills and Rusty Kuntze, Marc Hudson and Helen Munde, and Rainy Knight.
Special debts are due to the archivists and librarians of the Timberland Regional Library System, Longview Public Library, Astoria Public Library, Washington State Library, and the Weyerhaeuser Company Archives; the Cispus Environmental Learning Center, the Skamania County Pioneer, the Skamania County Prosecutor’s Office, the Yakama Nation, the dedicated professionals of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and the good people of all the towns around the Dark Divide; Powell’s Books, Carson Hot Springs, the Whitecap Brew Pub, and the Logs Tavern.
My warmest thanks flow to my agent, Jenny McDonald, and the people at Houghton Mifflin who made the book (and made it better), including Peg Anderson, Michaela Sullivan, Susanna Ralli, Melodie Wertelet, Mab Gray, and, especially, my long-time and much admired editor, Harry Foster.
As always, Thea Linnaea Pyle and Bilak Bokis deserve the best of my love and appreciation.
For the 2017 edition, further thanks are due to more recent Bigfoot friends and teachers including Cliff Barackman, Jane Goodall, Jeff Meldrum, Bob Gimlin, Todd Neiss, Guy Edwards, Joe Beelart, and Thom Powell. For giving new life to this book, I thank my agent, Laura Blake Peterson, filmmaker Tom Putnam, Kurando Mitsutake and the Tokyo film crew, Jeff Baker, Molly Gloss, Shari Bosler, and all the good people at Counterpoint Press including Jack Shoemaker, Harry Kirchner, Jenny Alton, Jennifer Kovitz, Megan Fishmann, Kelli Trapnell, Wah-Ming Chang, Barrett Briske, Irene Barnard, Domini Dragoone, and Charles Brock at Faceout Studio. Thanks to David Lee Myers for the author’s photo and his longtime friendship. And I warmly thank Neil Johannsen, David Branch, Bo Diddly, and especially Florence Sage for their steadfast support and ever-loving encouragement.
ROBERT MICHAEL PYLE is the author of twenty books, including Wintergreen (John Burroughs Medal), Sky Time in Gray’s River (National Outdoor Book Award), Chasing Monarchs (Washington Book Award), and Through a Green Lens: Fifty Years of Writing for Nature, as well as two collections of poems. A Yale-trained ecologist, Guggenheim Fellow, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, he lives in rural southwest Washington.
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