SASQUATCH
The legend of Sasquatch goes by many names, but only one foot size.
Bigfoot? The Yeti? Ol’ Hairy Feet? (We made up that last one.) Sasquatch is a front-runner of common-knowledge folklore. Perhaps the cryptid poster child if we could be so bold. It’s impossible to walk in the woods—especially in the PNW—without the slight inkling that you may run into this legendary missing link. He seems to be as perennial as the trees on our trails, as elusive as the wind. But we all know about him. So where did this guy get a foothold on our collective folktale psyche?
History Channel recounts that in 1958, journalist Andrew Genzoli of the Humboldt Times highlighted a letter from a reader about loggers in northern California who had discovered mysteriously large footprints. “Maybe we have a relative of the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas,” he off-handedly wrote.
However, the image captivated more than readers. Genzoli’s fellow journalist started writing follow-up articles and even dug into the anecdotal evidence from the loggers. They had apparently named the creature who left the tracks “Big Foot.” Apt, if not less than clever. But a legend was born.
Wild man myths are not common to northern Californian mid-century loggers. As Genzoli first reported, the Himalayas had their Abominable Snowman and Canadians had their version, too: the Sts’ailes First Nation have the “Sasq’ets,” the supposed origin of the word “Sasquatch,” meaning “wild man” or “hairy man” in Salish. Indian agent J.W. Burns coined the term in the 1930s, probably when those loggers were barely hacking away at little saplings.
The Canadian Sts’ailes people’s legend is arguably cooler than our American Jack Links Beef Jerky-loving idiot. They in fact claim a close bond with Sas’qets, and believe it has the ability to move between the physical and spiritual realm. Some modern believers think Sasquatch is a nearly extinct species of hominid that survives in isolation, while others consider the creature to be the product of folklore and a hoax. So, maybe he’s real. Maybe he’s not. But that only proves the point. He can be both. That’s what a legend is: something between physical and spiritual.
See you out there. Or not.
