In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond

by John Zada

  But the creature’s alleged ninja-like prowess has kept it one step ahead of the hunter-investigator paparazzi. So far no Sasquatch, living or dead, or any of its mammoth body parts has been produced. Bigfoot enthusiasts say that because the creatures are nocturnal, numerically rare, and highly evasive, it is difficult to see one, let alone capture one. No Sasquatch remains are found, they add, because bodies of animals who die natural deaths in the forest are seldom ever found. Animals usually go into hiding when sick and vulnerable. Their remains, including bones, are picked apart by scavengers, and what’s left quickly decomposes. When asked why there isn’t better photographic evidence than the handful of blurry, inconclusive pictures taken to date, Sasquatch enthusiasts say that it’s hard to take quality pictures in high-contrast or dimly lit cluttered forests where Bigfoots, often seen at a distance, are usually exposed in the open for just a few seconds. Observers, they add, are so shaken by an encounter that most of them forget to use their cameras or phones.

  Scientists, citing the lack of hard evidence, deny the existence of the animals and even deride the enthusiasts’ efforts. Wild-man aficionados concede that hard proof of the Sasquatch has indeed been hard to come by—but that other clues suggest the creature is real. They say that a high number of geographically clustered sightings, anatomically sound footprints, and a convincing piece of film footage taken of one of the creatures in California in 1967 indicate that there is something real to this phenomenon.* Bigfoot’s strikingly consistent physical and behavioral traits, they add, lend credence to its existence.

  Covered in either black, brown, red, gray, or white hair, the adult Sasquatch stands anywhere from around six and a half to ten feet tall. In a few rare cases, the animals are reported to be taller. Some are lanky. Others are bulky and intimidatingly muscular, with broad shoulders, little or no neck, and a slightly pointed head. Their long arms drop to their knees, and they are often seen walking in a somewhat stooped and exaggerated fashion. Some Sasquatches give off a wretched, indefinable smell, likened to that of a wet dog that has rolled in its own excrement and rooted in garbage. They are primarily nocturnal and exceptionally shy, and do their utmost to avoid humans. Though they seldom physically attack people, they are given at times to terrifying displays of aggressive territorial behavior. Loud vocalizations, throwing rocks and branches, stomping, whacking tree trunks with sticks, and slapping and shaking buildings are frequently reported behaviors. Bigfoots are believed to be hunter-gatherer-scavengers par excellence. They are said to eat everything under the sun, from plant matter to salmon, shellfish, rabbits, mice, deer, and elk, as well as items looted from farms and trash cans. Some Bigfoots, especially smaller, younger ones, have been seen in large trees. They are believed to build nests and shelters in the forest, speak a kind of gibberish, and live and travel in small groups or families.

  These most basic details are about all the self-proclaimed experts agree on. The Sasquatch community is known for its incessant infighting and divergent views on what Bigfoot actually is and where it falls in the grand scheme of nature. Vectors of discord crisscross the entire field of what I call “Sasqualogy.” The fault lines in these debates are many and the bickering is often cantankerous, if not outright vicious.

  Investigators tend to fall within three main groups, believing Sasquatches are either: (a) animals, (b) spirits, or (c) extraterrestrials. Some in the first group believe Bigfoots are a surviving species of great ape, a conclusion drawn from their general appearance and apelike behaviors. These investigators have drawn a hypothetical connection between Sasquatch and an enormous prehistoric species of Asian gorilla (inferred by tooth and jaw remains) known to science as Gigantopithecus blacki. “Not so!” says an opposing clique, which insists the animals are far more humanlike, given their higher intelligence, behavior, and self-awareness. Their adroitness in remaining almost entirely concealed, according to this clique, is indisputable proof of that claim.

  Those who take the spiritual line (b), sometimes called paranormalists, invest the animals with supernatural qualities such as prescience, telepathy, trans-dimensional movement, and the ability to shape-shift into other objects (or animals) or inflict injury or death by psychic means. For them, the creatures can be benevolent or malevolent depending on the eyewitness’s spiritual condition and intent. Though evasive, Bigfoots will communicate with humans that they deem worthy enough. Some members of the newest generation of Bigfooters have recorded and posted online pictures and footage showing the results of reported gift exchanges with Sasquatches. Orbs woven from twigs, marbles, and squirrels with their heads bitten off are among some of the goodwill offerings.

  Of course, stories of UFOs and space aliens also tend to elbow their way into discussions about Bigfoot. The extraterrestrial proponents (c) claim Sasquatches were dropped off on our planet aeons ago for purposes ranging from Earth-colonization to the study of human behavior.

  Every difference of opinion between researchers eventually finds expression in online fisticuffs. One group believes a Sasquatch should be shot and killed to prove its existence. Another faction, outraged, says Bigfoots are an endangered species and must be protected at all costs. Somewhat famous and well-paid reality-TV Sasqualogists endure murmurs of envious criticism from their cash-strapped counterparts who work in obscurity. Debates have even raged over the plural form of Bigfoot. Is it Bigfoots—or Bigfeet? Or is it simply Bigfoot? Sensitive Sasqualogists insist the term Forest People is more politically correct than the moniker Bush Indian. Every significant shred of data and every hypothesis put forward by a researcher draws its inevitable detractors from some other camp. Even interesting and creative conjectures, like those positing that Bigfoots emit paralysis-inducing infrasound in their vocalizations (as tigers do to stun their prey when they roar before attacking) or that they generate bioluminescent light from their eyes to see in the dark (explaining eyewitness accounts of eyes shining at night) are eventually derided.

  This frenzy of antagonism, reminiscent of the bickering common in academia, can at times mimic a battle-royal scene out of professional wrestling, with dozens of athletes pummeling one another, each in an attempt to emerge the lone victor. Meanwhile, the hardened skeptic, a combatant in his own right, stands at ringside, pointing to the spectacle as proof that what Bigfooters say exists simply cannot.

  I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, or the watershed moment, when I was captured by the Bigfoot mystery as a kid. But certain memories stand out. The main one is reading a cache of Sasquatch books from the local public library during my primary and early high school years, hardcover tomes sporting pseudoscientific titles superimposed over illustrations of footprints or shadowy woods with silhouetted humanoids peering out of them:

  On the Track of the Sasquatch

  The Sasquatch File

  Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us

  The Search for Bigfoot: Monster, Myth or Man?

  Wildmen: Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma

  Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?

  The Bigfoot and Yeti books were slotted into a crowded section in the back corner of the library and shared space with other cryptozoological gospels. They were bracketed by titles on the Bermuda Triangle at one end and a larger collection of books on UFOs at the other. I grew up during a time when Sasquatch fever ran rampant. It was the 1970s, a cultural epoch in which receptivity to paranormal subjects and “the unexplained” was particularly high. Bigfoots and Yetis, despite their rarity and their elusive nature, appeared everywhere—in books, television, movies, and even consumer products.* You couldn’t avoid them if you tried.

  One popular 1970s TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man, featured the most memorable fictional cameo involving the Sasquatch. In a two-part episode, the show’s protagonist, a bell-bottomed cyborg secret agent named Steve Austin, fought a scraggly-looking, cave-dwelling Sasquatch (played by the seven-foot-four-inch-tall wrestler André the Giant). That bearded, white-eyed, feral beast, who
turned out to be a robot created by space aliens, and whose image, I’m certain, bore into the consciousness of millions of young people like me, derived its spellbinding horror from the fact that it looked and acted more like a human than an ape. It was cognizant, a “wild man” in the truest sense of the term.

  Steve Austin’s Bigfoot may have set the stage for my obsession, but it was the real-life accounts I read about in the emerging Sasquatch literature that hooked me. The most memorable tales were set in the mountainous and exotic Pacific Northwest. The region’s wildly picturesque expanse made it a kind of fantasy world where anything seemed possible.

  The Sasquatch books I read were not innocuous bedtime stories for entertainment’s sake. They were frightening catalogs of alleged real-life monsters encountered by traumatized people. The accounts were interwoven with compelling arguments for the existence of the animals. The books pushed an agenda. The authors sought converts for their worldview, and my young, malleable mind, thirsty for the possibility of some expanded reality, took the bait. The books convinced me to believe in the creatures, even though I had no objective, experiential knowledge of whether they existed or not.

  We know from studies involving conditioning that high emotional arousal makes us susceptible to the ideas and opinions of others. Fear, anger, sadness, and excitement function as trance states that focus and lock our attention. When we’re overtaken by these emotions, we’re unable to discern subtleties or think rationally. Emotion puts the gatekeeper of our thoughts, our devil’s advocate, to sleep, opening the door for messages to imprint onto our minds. When the same messages repeat over and over, the risk of thought engineering is especially high.*

  My belief in these creatures seemed reasonable at the time. How else could one explain the sheer number of sightings? And the huge, deep tracks? Could thousands of people claiming to see the same thing actually be wrong? Was this all a great hoax spanning centuries and distant corners of the continent? Surely not. There had to be something to it.

  But as time passed, no definitive answer emerged. As with all things cyclical, Bigfoot’s popularity ebbed. For a long stretch of time, coinciding with my transition into adulthood, Sasquatch fell from the public eye. I remained intrigued by the subject but didn’t give it much more thought. But a trip to British Columbia in 1998 brought it all back.

  In 1998, I visited the town of Nelson in the Kootenay region of British Columbia’s southern interior. It was my first trip to the province. Nelson, a historical silver-mining town nestled in the heart of the Selkirk Mountains, is a sort of promised land. Life in the isolated community is tranquil and unhurried. The mountains guarding it have a rugged, ageless disposition, bristling with lush forests and peppered with crystal deposits and hot springs.

  This also happens to be serious Sasquatch country, though a lot of people don’t know it. Unlike some places with more obvious Bigfoot tie-ins, Nelson doesn’t have a widespread reputation for being a wild-man hub. But its Bigfoot bona fides are merely less conspicuous. This I learned later—I was simply there to visit a friend who had recently made Nelson his new home. It was the middle of winter. The town was covered in a blanket of freshly fallen snow, the kind that floats down in clumps the size of silver dollars, muffling all sound and rendering everything inert. It was a lazy kind of week; we had no real plans other than lounging around, drinking beer, and frequenting the town’s sushi restaurant and vegetarian cafés.

  Then one day we decided to go for a hike.

  The trail we chose began at the top of my friend’s street on the edge of town and curved its way around the slopes of Silver King Mountain. We stepped out in the crisp, pine-scented air and made our way up the snowy road to the trailhead. Above us, the forested mountain grew ever more deeply white until, alabaster and heaving with snow, the high slopes vanished behind voracious clouds. The farther we went, the whiter the world became. Every branch of every tree along the trail was loaded to capacity with snow, a thousand miniature avalanches in waiting.

  Over an hour in, we stopped to rest. It was midafternoon. A premonition of dusk hung in the air. The woods were uncomfortably still. We had seen no other people on the trail that day.

  “How much farther should we go?” I asked.

  Before my friend could answer, something caught our attention. Above and behind us, in the distance, we could hear movement. It was a diffuse rustle at first but grew louder and more methodical. Something, or someone—it had to be someone!—was walking, almost marching, through the snow toward us, and was covering ground fast.

  Crunch-crunch …

  Crunch-crunch …

  Crunch-crunch …

  Soon the sound was almost directly upon us. It had an excruciatingly heavy presence. Deep panting accompanied every thundering step, which resonated surreally, as if in surround sound. It was so close—whatever it was—it seemed as if we could reach out and touch it. Yet we couldn’t see a thing. Not a single moving tree, or a cloud of snow thrown off branches. Just a heavy plodding, like a locomotive chugging past us. The jolt of intense, heart-stopping fear didn’t kick in until after the sound had started to recede around the mountainside. My friend and I turned to each other, wide-eyed.

  We spent the next few moments in terror-fueled speculation, trying to determine what had walked past us. We had just ruled out woolly mammoths when the presence began plodding back toward us—this time from the other direction—as if it had forgotten something.

  Crunch-crunch …

  Crunch-crunch …

  With it came that same deep, seething panting.

  It sounded agitated, almost as if it were deliberately announcing itself with stomps and anxious pacing. The floodgates of dread blew wide open. It was too much to handle.

  In perfect synchrony, the two of us broke into a panicked sprint. Like ultra-athletes, we ran nonstop all the way back to Nelson.

  I may have fled the forest with lightning speed, but I was nowhere near fast enough to outrun my latent beliefs, which were waiting for me at the head of the trail. By the time I stepped back onto the concrete, I was convinced I’d rubbed shoulders with a Sasquatch. My friend, although also sure we’d skirmished with something rare and untoward, eventually got tired of talking about it and lost interest.

  But I couldn’t let it go. I started to make inquiries around Nelson. After a bit of sleuthing I found myself at an artisanal coffee shop sitting across from the local Sasqualogist, a man in his early fifties named Robert Milner. He was the first Bigfoot researcher I’d ever met, and, contrary to expectations, he had no weird quirks. He was a normal guy who spoke openly and matter-of-factly about Bigfoots as if he were talking about his vegetable garden. He’d never seen a Sasquatch, he said, but had concluded from years of in-depth research that the animals lived in a dense cluster within a fifteen-mile radius of the nearby Kokanee Glacier.* Sasquatches, he added, had been seen a few times on the edges of town, but he insisted—for no particular reason—that what my friend and I had heard was most likely an elk passing above the trail.

  I casually brushed off his dismissal as envy and, eager to confirm my bias, asked him how many people in town had seen the animal.

  “More than are willing to admit,” he replied, with an air of mystery. Forest rangers, loggers, a former policeman, and the owners of a local hot springs resort were among the eyewitnesses who had confided in him.

  “One hunter I know,” he said, “had a distant Sasquatch in his rifle sights but chose to lower his gun rather than shoot.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “For the same reason that all hunters in the same situation do: he couldn’t pull the trigger.”

  “Because he was paralyzed by fear?”

  “No, because it was too human-looking. At one point the thing casually turned its head and stared straight at the guy through the crosshairs of his scope for a full minute.”

  My mind took in that eerie moment. Then a disturbing thought came to me. “How far away was the Sasquatch?” I ask
ed.

  A look of affirmation came over Rob’s face. “Several hundred yards,” he said, pausing before delivering his denouement. “The Sasquatch knew he was there.”

  In the years after Nelson, several people I met, or knew, came out of the woodwork with personal tales of their own. The first was a Toronto acquaintance with Pakistani roots who told me that a group of Shino Mohenu, or “men of snow,” raided his mother’s village in the Kashmiri Himalayas when she was a child. The creatures made off with armfuls of chickens and goats during a particularly bad winter. That was followed by a story from a friend in Vancouver who claimed to have seen a reddish-brown Sasquatch running between trees as she and a friend were hiking in the nearby Coast Mountains. A third, shell-shocked account came from a female work colleague in Toronto who had seen a huge, hairy biped cross a wooded rural road near the Niagara Escarpment, three hours north of the city. The strange thing was that the last two eyewitnesses had had almost no foreknowledge of the Bigfoot phenomenon—yet their descriptions of the animals, down to the most minor details, matched those of classic reports. Though I’d moved on from that incident in Nelson, each story had the effect of rekindling my interest in the subject. By the end of my first trip to the Great Bear Rainforest, where I had met Clark Hans while on assignment, my lifelong curiosity about the mystery had reached fever pitch.

  Why are many otherwise normal people from different walks of life seeing giant, hair-covered humanoids? And why do scores of others who haven’t seen them believe in them anyway, with an unshakable conviction? It seems to be more than just some passing vogue. The Bermuda Triangle, the Loch Ness Monster, crop circles, spontaneous human combustion, lizard men, and the Chupacabra all had their popularity spikes before falling off the radar like one-hit wonders. Not so with the Sasquatch. It has survived the test of time as successfully as it has avoided capture. Scores of blogs and websites track the latest research developments and eyewitness accounts. Citizen sleuths, armed with the best in affordable technology, have taken up the search in their own backyards—or in secret wilderness “habituation zones,” where they claim to play cat-and-mouse games with the creatures. Documentaries on the subject continue to pour forth and capitalize on an insatiable thirst for wonder. One reality show called Finding Bigfoot, which follows the semi-staged exploits of four Sasquatch hunters in the field, has developed a cult following. The series inspired several offshoots, and for a while garnered some of the highest ratings for the broadcaster, Animal Planet.