There is a truck in our neighborhood with a bumper sticker that says, “Bigfoot doesn’t believe in you, either.” Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is a large, hairy creature said to inhabit forests in our region. It is a matter of who you consult whether or not Bigfoot is a living animal. Most scientists dismiss the evidence provided by Bigfoot enthusiasts as misidentification or hoax. However, there is a definite subculture around Bigfoot. Bigfoot memorabilia are sold in shops and tourist venues around the area. There are wooden carvings of the creature in many locations, including right on main street in Blaine in front of the Amoco station. There is a steel cutout made to resemble the figure strolling in the woods at a campground where we like to stay in the mountains of western Montana.

People have been telling Bigfoot stories, often without always using the names Bigfoot or Sasquatch, for a long time in a lot of different places. Some indigenous cultures feature wild man stories about a creature that walks upright and lives in the forests and is rarely seen by humans.

We in the Pacific Northwest, however, want to stake our claim on our own unique stories of Bigfoot. We also want to keep the profits from Bigfoot t shirts, caps, bumper stickers, cardboard cutouts, figurines, and other items to ourselves. Whether or not Bigfoot is a mythological creature, we enjoy having a few good stories to tell to visitors when they come to our area.

For those who are not familiar with our Bigfoot, it is important for us to distinguish Bigfoot from some other legendary creatures that appear in different places:
Bigfoot is not Yeti, the Abominable Snowman who lives in the snow covered mountains of Tibet and Nepal.
Bigfoot is not Yowie, who lives in Australia where everyone knows the animals are unique. You won’t find any Tasmanian Devils in Washington, either.
And despite recent news stories about Bigfoot sightings in South Carolina, we are quite sure that there is no Bigfoot in the southeast. A bit of jealousy and perhaps some wishful thinking have convinced Carolinians that the Skunk Apes they have spotted are Bigfoot. Bigfoot prefers the Pacific Northwest, especially Washington and British Columbia.

Dedicated Bigfoot Fans acknowledge that the original range of the creature may have been much bigger than the Northwest. In California, on the Tule River Indian Reservation, there are petroglyphs that depict a family of Bigfoot. According to local legend, Big Foot is good for humans because he eats animals that might harm people. However, folks in California also warn their children not to go near rivers because they might encounter the creature.

Sasquatch, the local name for Big Foot comes from Hale’emeylem, one of the Coast Salish languages of British Columbia spoken from Vancouver Island and up the Fraser River on the mainland. The Hale’emeylem word for the creature is sasq’ets, which has been anglicized to become Sasquatch.

Members of the Lummi nation, which is the Coast Salish tribe closest to our home and on whose traditional ancestral lands we live, tell stories of Ts’emekwes, their word for Bigfoot. Some of the stories are specific about the creatures’ diet and activities. In the Lummi stories, the creature is not intentionally frightening or dangerous to humans, but they only go out at night. Stories of Ts’emekwes are sometimes told as a caution to children that they should stay inside, safe in their beds, at night.

In the 1840s, Reverend Eliana Walker, a Protestant missionary, recorded stories of Bigfoot told by Spokane Indians in Eastern Washington. Those stories included tales of Bigfoot stealing salmon from the nets of fishermen.

There was a television show on the Discovery channel, produced in 2021. The series follows a team of five men who explore Portlock, Alaska, which experienced a sudden decrease in population in the 1940’s. The series is titled “Alaskan Killer Bigfoot.” Although the description of the appearance of the creature is similar to indigenous stories, most native stories depict a safer and less violent Bigfoot.

I personally have never seen Bigfoot, although I am persuaded that the Spokane may have something about Bigfoot stealing fish. That might explain my lack of skill or luck as a fisherman. Perhaps I haven’t done enough hiking in the mountains around here. Perhaps because I’m a big fan of making a lot of noise and even using bear bells when hiking because I have no intention of catching a grizzly by surprise. I think it is likely that Bigfoot, being shy of humans, would be warned by the noise I make and stay out of sight whenever I’m hiking in the forest.

When we do hike in the forests around here, we are aware of how different they are from the forests west of the Cascade Mountains. The other places we have lived have been much dryer. The forests here are classified as temperate rain forests due to the amount of precipitation and the lush undergrowth of ferns and mosses. In addition, the forests here on the coast are filled with trees that are much larger than the ones in the Black Hills of South Dakota or the Rocky Mountains of Idaho and Montana. If Bigfoot likes the weather around here, he might not be as comfortable in places that have less moisture and where the temperatures go below zero on a regular basis.

Now that we’ve settled here in our home in the Pacific Northwest and gotten good rain gear so that we are comfortable walking in wet weather, we’ll continue to keep our eyes open for possible sightings of Bigfoot. Sometimes, when it is raining hard and we are walking, I tend to look down at the ground a lot. I wear glasses and water spots on the lenses make navigation a challenge. By looking down, I can sometimes avoid some of the raindrops getting on my glasses. That posture and keeping my eyes on the ground might make me more likely to see the tracks of Bigfoot, who by the name must leave gigantic prints behind.

If I see one, I’ll be sure to report it in my journal.