New Exhibit Options

[FredSneakers/Dav...]

I haven't seen this posted yet.


http://www.washingtonhistory.org/

Looks pretty sweet.

[Hairy Man]

Very cool. I hope someone goes and gives us a report!

[HarryHenderson]

And it's FREE. I guess they might charge to get in the museum, but the presentation is free. You mean Meldrum isn't getting rich on Bigfoot?

[FredSneakers/Dav...]

I'd love to go that day, but I doubt I will as I will be busy with school. It doesn't help that it's in like a week. It will be open (albeit Meldrum and Pyle-less) for a year it looks like.

[billgreen2005big...]

hey everyone wow that does look like a wonderful new sasquatch exhibit. thanks bill

[Bobby Orangeboom]

The link is broken for me ??

[AZnative 24]

Totally cool. I had no idea a Sas was the mascot of a pro team. If someone goes, please take lots of pix.

[tugboatwa]

http://www.theolympian.com/southsound/story/230895.html

Bigfoot adds to attraction of forest

John Dodge - The Olympian

Sasquatch believers, nonbelievers and the many of us still not persuaded one way or the other should find a yearlong exhibit that opens at the State Capital Museum on Saturday informative and entertaining.

"Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch," is an exhibit that explores what we know and don't know about the hairy, half-human, half-ape creature that has stimulated so much discussion, debate, storytelling and expeditions across cultures and across time.

Come to the exhibit, and you'll see:

• Never-before-seen foot and hand casts collected by anatomy and anthropology professor Jeffery Meldrum of Idaho State University, a Discovery Channel regular and Bigfoot author.

• Artifacts and artwork that clearly show how larger-than-life creatures are embedded in the cultures and forest landscapes of Northwest tribes. Particularly impressive is a prehistoric, ape-like stonehead found in the Columbia Basin and on loan to the museum from the Maryhill Museum of Art.

• Physical evidence gathered in the field by Washington State University anthropologist Grover Krantz, who concluded that Sasquatch was a form of Gigantopithecus, a giant ape believed to have gone extinct more than 200,000 years ago.

• Supposed hoaxes and some examples of how the lure of Sasquatch permeates society, everything from Bigfoot Ale brewed by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. to photographs of "Squatch" the Seattle SuperSonics team mascot who is in danger of going extinct if something doesn't happen fast to keep the NBA team's new owners from moving the franchise to Oklahoma City.

As I toured the exhibit last week during the last minute hustle and bustle of getting the exhibits in place, museum manager Susan Rohrer talked about the decision to commit so much energy and time to the exhibit.

"It's a classic Northwest story with roots in Northwest culture and history," she said. "It's the type of exhibit that lends itself to anthropological research and environmental science of the Pacific Northwest."

Look a little closer at the exhibit and you notice it is just as much about the old-growth forests that Sasquatch — fact or fiction — calls home as it is anything else.

Robert Michael Pyle, noted naturalist, author and resident of Grays River in southwest Washington, sums up the theme behind the exhibit best with these words from his book, "Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide."

"If we manage to hang on to a sizeable chunk of Bigfoot habitat, we will at least have a fragment of the greatest green treasure the temperate world has ever known. If we do not, Bigfoot, real or imagined, will vanish; and with its shadow will flee the others who dwell in that world ..."

Pyle, Meldrum and Peter Byrne of Bigfoot expedition fame will be there Saturday for a free public opening of the exhibit. Also scheduled are hands-on activities for children, a chance to shake hands with the Sonics' Squatch and native storytelling with Harvest Moon of the Quinault Indian Tribe.

Back to Sasquatch. Whether he exists will remain an open question without some hard physical evidence such as a skull or skeletal remains or evidence of an irrefutable encounter. Short of that, I remain firmly in the camp of those open to persuasion, but not yet convinced.

In many ways, I'd just as soon Sasquatch remain an unsolved mystery. I don't need, or want, a scientific explanation for every big, or little, thing.

John Dodge is a senior reporter and Sunday columnist for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5444 or jdodge@theolympian.com.

•More information: For the full schedule of Saturday events from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., go to www.wshs.org/wscm or call the State Capital Museum and Outreach Center at 360-753-2580.

•Address: Lord Mansion, 211 21st Ave. S.W., Olympia, seven blocks south of the Capitol Campus.

•Cost: Admission Saturday is free, but normal prices are $5 family, $2 adults, $1.75 seniors, $1 kids 6-18, free kids younger than 6.

•Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Closed Sunday through Tuesday.

[Bobby Orangeboom]

Thanks Tug, top man...

[Kucta-qa]

State Capital Museum is in Olympia, right? I might be able to make it to Meldrum's thing...

[Make(Me)Believe]

I'll be making the drive to meet up with The Dad for some disc golf and the exhibit / Meldrum sighting. I'll write up a report. You can post some questions here if you like and if I have time I'll try and remeber to check back tonight and, given an opprotunity, ask some during the meet and greet.

[tugboatwa]

http://www.theolympian.com/southsound/story/236998.html

Sasquatch exhibit starts run at state Capital Museum


Diane Huber- The Olympian

OLYMPIA — John Callender swears he saw Bigfoot deep in the woods near Montesano on Friday.

"It was something walking upright, like a human," the Federal Way resident said.

According to Callender, it was too late at night and too remote an area for the shadowy figure to be human. And its stride was far to big to belong to any man.

Callender was one of more than 120 people who attended the opening day of a new yearlong Bigfoot exhibit at the Capital Museum. "Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch" explores the history and evidence of the hairy, human-like beast that is so much a part of Pacific Northwest lore.

The exhibit includes never-before-displayed artifacts and artwork, such as reproductions of footprints and an ape-like stone head found in the Columbia Basin. There also is information about stories and sightings by tribes worldwide.

Some of the younger visitors decided the evidence was pretty compelling.

"I think maybe he's real. This footprint is truly amazing," 6-year-old Colson Utter of Olympia said while examining a 17-inch cast of a footprint through a magnifying glass.

Diane Utter said Colson and his younger brother Eli, 4, are fascinated by Sasquatch.

"They're always asking me to look at it on the Internet. They're always asking if it's real and who believes in it," she said.

The Steiner siblings are torn.

"There's a lot of convincing sightings," 9-year-old Jack Steiner said.

But he and his sister Emma, 12, have a hard time believing Sasquatch could survive in modern times.

"The only weird thing is ... since we have so much development and with cutting down the forests — how can they live? These are big creatures. What are they eating?" Emma said.

Museum manager Susan Rohrer said it took a year to compile the research and artifacts. Museum staff plan to have educational programs throughout the length of the exhibit, including a panel in spring of representatives from local tribes who will talk about the stories and cultural significance of Bigfoot.

She said the exhibit goes beyond evidence of Bigfoot's existence.

"We wanted to tell the story of the Northwest culture that is the basis of Sasquatch," she said.

After dedicating so much time and research to the project, is Rohrer a believer?

She's "skeptical, willing to be persuaded," she said. "But I do respect a lot of the work people have done on the subject."

Diane Huber is a reporter for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-357-0204 or dhuber@theolympian.com.

About the exhibit

•What: "Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch," a yearlong exhibit at the Capital Museum

•Address: Lord Mansion, 211 21st Ave. S.W., Olympia, seven blocks south of the Capitol Campus.

•Admission: $5 for families, $2 for adults, $1.75 for seniors, $1 for ages 6-18, free ages 5 and younger.

•Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Closed Sundays through Tuesdays.

•More information: www.wshs.org/wscm, or call the State Capital Museum and Outreach Center at 360-753-2580.

Squatch, the mascot for the Seattle Supersonics basketball team, plays around with Seth Gilbert, 4, of Tacoma during Saturday's opening of an exhibit on Sasquatch at the Capital Museum in Olympia. (Tony Overman/The Olympian)

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Kucta-qa]

I attended. It was awesome. I actually got to meet Jeff Meldrum and discuss all things bigfoot with him. Quite the experience. I got him to sign my copy of Legend Meets Science. During his speech, I actually learned things, it wasn't just a repeat of all the information I'd heard before. For example, I had no idea that the scientific community now recognizes Sasquatch footprints as authentic, and they gave them the scientific name of Anthropoides Ameriborealus or something of the sort.... I'm bad with remember latin. Still, it's a great first step. They've realized that SOMETHING is causes non-faked tracks out in the woods of the PNW. Now we just gotta convince them that there was a foot in the footprint at one point.

Also, was anyone there? I was the tall kid with the shaggy hair and the black sasquatch-face shirt.

This post has been edited by Kucta-qa: Oct 7 2007, 12:47 AM

[rockinkt]

And it's FREE. I guess they might charge to get in the museum, but the presentation is free. You mean Meldrum isn't getting rich on Bigfoot?

Money is not the only motive.
He's in it for the babes!

[Huntster]

.....I had no idea that the scientific community now recognizes Sasquatch footprints as authentic, and they gave them the scientific name of Anthropoides Ameriborealus or something of the sort.... ...

I'm just now reading Meldrum's "Legend Meets Science". He did an outstanding job of presenting the phenomenon in scientific terms.

Maybe the hearts of stone are being softened?

[BigfootDad]

I'd like to see some photos from anyone who attended...
I will definitely be going to Olympia, WA in the next year...and then on to the Olympics for some squatchin'!

Photos? anybody?

Sounds like it was a great time...glad you got to meet Jeff Meldrum...

[Kucta-qa]

Here, I'll try to post some pics later tonight.

[wolftrax]

For example, I had no idea that the scientific community now recognizes Sasquatch footprints as authentic, and they gave them the scientific name of Anthropoides Ameriborealus or something of the sort.... I'm bad with remember latin. Still, it's a great first step. They've realized that SOMETHING is causes non-faked tracks out in the woods of the PNW. Now we just gotta convince them that there was a foot in the footprint at one point.

Are you sure this wasn't a name Meldrum is proposing to science, maybe in the journal publicaton he has been working on? I've yet to see any announcement published in any scientific publication that translates into "North American Primate", especially named to plaster casts of footprints.

[Make(Me)Believe]

Are you sure this wasn't a name Meldrum is proposing to science, maybe in the journal publicaton he has been working on? I've yet to see any announcement published in any scientific publication that translates into "North American Primate", especially named to plaster casts of footprints.

I was unable to attend but my Dad did end up going on without me. I got his report this morning which I will try to summarize to the best of my knowledge, ordered most important to least. Or there abouts:

1) He too noted Meldrum's excitement at the scientific classification (Dad wasn't sure of the name of the field, he just wrote "track scientists" in his notes) of a few bigfoot prints. It is not Meldrum's idea or doing. My Dad did not catch the name verbatim, but Meldrum was exceptionally enthusiastic about now being able to refer to certain casts of prints by their new scientific name, not, "You know, the one with a long third toe" or whatever.

2) Medlrum is heading a project called the Relict Hominoid Inquirary which will be an online peer reviewed journal.

3) Mentioned that he believes "very few" dermatogliphics to have any legitimacy beyond casting artifacts.

4) Had a chat with my Dad in the bathroom. I had asked him to get Meldrum's reaction to fairly convincing evidence that the Skookum cast is of an elk. Meldrum said he remains unconvinced; a) hair pattern, b- Achilles, c) corollary behavior in other apes. Also, hadn't heard this before, a friend of his killed an elk, and because he knows of Meldrum's interest in the cast and the surrounding "it's a fucking elk" controversy, sent him one of its leg. According to Meldrum, the "Achilles" imprint (Meldrum's main interest in the cast) does not match up with Elk.

Other observation my Dad had were that he's a good looking, well spoken, extremely approachable and amiable man.

At the exhibit they have the actual stone ape mask from whenever B.C.E., a few casts one of which being that one of the knuckles. They have what appeared to Dad to be Dr. Krantz's original Gigantipithiucs head sculpture. Because he wrote a nice inscription in the book, he also stayed for the later talk by the Butterfly dude. In his own words then he said, "It was a... BIG... mistake." His notes from that overly long event were, "Get me OUTA HERE!" Said he was nice enough guy but had no real relevance.

Also, in general about the museum, said it was nice but small-ish. "It was a BIG house, but makes for a small museum."

A lady mentioned that because of the very much larger than usual turn out for the weekend they hope to do another event on the subject sometime later this year or early next.

All I got. Sorry it wasn't first hand. For what's worth...




P.S. Turns out Meldrum is a Carlin fan. Extra points in my book.

This post has been edited by Make(Me)Believe: Oct 7 2007, 10:22 PM

[Bobby Orangeboom]

I attended. It was awesome. I actually got to meet Jeff Meldrum and discuss all things bigfoot with him. Quite the experience. I got him to sign my copy of Legend Meets Science. During his speech, I actually learned things, it wasn't just a repeat of all the information I'd heard before. For example, I had no idea that the scientific community now recognizes Sasquatch footprints as authentic, and they gave them the scientific name of Anthropoides Ameriborealus or something of the sort.... I'm bad with remember latin. Still, it's a great first step. They've realized that SOMETHING is causes non-faked tracks out in the woods of the PNW. Now we just gotta convince them that there was a foot in the footprint at one point.

Also, was anyone there? I was the tall kid with the shaggy hair and the black sasquatch-face shirt.

I can't find anything on Anthropoides Ameriborealus Kucta...

[Kucta-qa]

Yeah, probably spelled it wrong (the footprint name).... but Make(Me)Believe backs me up. Meldrum doesn't have anything to do with the classification of the footprints (albeit alot of his work probably convinced them).
I didn't stay to listen to Pyle. Byrne was incredibly interesting to listen to though. Some of his old stories were amazing. He described the whole incident with the mummified yeti hand and how they smuggled it out of country, and his dealings with Tom Slick. Something that caught my ear was his meeting with Tom about how to collect the yeti thumb. Mr. Slick gave Byrne a replacement human thumb to place on the mummified yeti hand, in good old Indiana Jones fashion. I think overall that Byrne gave an amazing recolection of field efforts, and Meldrum provided scientific evidence and analysis (enough to get my Dad, who attended with me, to believe in bigfoot!)
The museum was dissapointing. Most of the stuff they had there I'd sen in Willow Creek. They did have the Bossburg tracks, though. They were nice.

Here's me with Dr. Meldrum:
http://gallery.mac.com/dmarmion#100046

Here's a video of Meldrum speaking:
http://gallery.mac.com/dmarmion#100055

Sorry about the quality. The room was very poorly lit.

This post has been edited by Kucta-qa: Oct 8 2007, 12:34 AM

[Make(Me)Believe]

Oh and I never thanked Fred / David for the head's up.

Thanks.

[MountainTop]

Sasquatch exhibit starts run at state Capital Museum

theolympian.com/southsound/story/236998.html

Diane Huber
The Olympian

OLYMPIA - John Callender swears he saw Bigfoot deep in the woods near Montesano on Friday.

"It was something walking upright, like a human," the Federal Way resident said.

According to Callender, it was too late at night and too remote an area for the shadowy figure to be human. And its stride was far to big to belong to any man.

Callender was one of more than 120 people who attended the opening day of a new yearlong Bigfoot exhibit at the Capital Museum. "Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch" explores the history and evidence of the hairy, human-like beast that is so much a part of Pacific Northwest lore.

The exhibit includes never-before-displayed artifacts and artwork, such as reproductions of footprints and an ape-like stone head found in the Columbia Basin. There also is information about stories and sightings by tribes worldwide.

Some of the younger visitors decided the evidence was pretty compelling.

"I think maybe he's real. This footprint is truly amazing," 6-year-old Colson Utter of Olympia said while examining a 17-inch cast of a footprint through a magnifying glass.

Diane Utter said Colson and his younger brother Eli, 4, are fascinated by Sasquatch.

"They're always asking me to look at it on the Internet. They're always asking if it's real and who believes in it," she said.

The Steiner siblings are torn.

"There's a lot of convincing sightings," 9-year-old Jack Steiner said.

But he and his sister Emma, 12, have a hard time believing Sasquatch could survive in modern times.

"The only weird thing is ... since we have so much development and with cutting down the forests, how can they live? These are big creatures. What are they eating?" Emma said.

Museum manager Susan Rohrer said it took a year to compile the research and artifacts. Museum staff plan to have educational programs throughout the length of the exhibit, including a panel in spring of representatives from local tribes who will talk about the stories and cultural significance of Bigfoot.

She said the exhibit goes beyond evidence of Bigfoot's existence.

"We wanted to tell the story of the Northwest culture that is the basis of Sasquatch," she said.

After dedicating so much time and research to the project, is Rohrer a believer?

She's "skeptical, willing to be persuaded," she said. "But I do respect a lot of the work people have done on the subject."

Diane Huber is a reporter for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-357-0204 or dhuber@theolympian.com.


About the exhibit

What: "Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch," a yearlong exhibit at the Capital Museum

Address: Lord Mansion, 211 21st Ave. S.W., Olympia, seven blocks south of the Capitol Campus.

Admission: $5 for families, $2 for adults, $1.75 for seniors, $1 for ages 6-18, free ages 5 and younger.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Closed Sundays through Tuesdays.

More information: www.wshs.org/wscm, or call the State Capital Museum and Outreach Center at 360-753-2580.

This post has been edited by MountainTop: Oct 8 2007, 07:23 PM

[HarryHenderson]

Admission: $5 for families, $2 for adults, $1.75 for seniors, $1 for ages 6-18, free ages 5 and younger.

I bet genuine Bigfoot Disbelievers would call even those prices excessive. And I guess just so there's no appearance of 'discrimination', they have a whole 25 cent discount for seniors. Actually, with prices that low I'm surprised they didn't go with something simpler like "Admission: A buck".

[MountainTop]

Bigfoot adds to attraction of forest

theolympian.com/southsound/story/230895-p2.html

John Dodge
The Olympian

Sasquatch believers, nonbelievers and the many of us still not persuaded one way or the other should find a yearlong exhibit that opens at the State Capital Museum on Saturday informative and entertaining.

"Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch," is an exhibit that explores what we know and don't know about the hairy, half-human, half-ape creature that has stimulated so much discussion, debate, storytelling and expeditions across cultures and across time.

Come to the exhibit, and you'll see:

* Skull replicas of the extinct giant ape Gigantopithecus, a lowland gorilla and human are on display at the Sasquatch exhibit at the State Capital Museum.

• Never-before-seen foot and hand casts collected by anatomy and anthropology professor Jeffery Meldrum of Idaho State University, a Discovery Channel regular and Bigfoot author.

• Artifacts and artwork that clearly show how larger-than-life creatures are embedded in the cultures and forest landscapes of Northwest tribes. Particularly impressive is a prehistoric, ape-like stonehead found in the Columbia Basin and on loan to the museum from the Maryhill Museum of Art.

• Physical evidence gathered in the field by Washington State University anthropologist Grover Krantz, who concluded that Sasquatch was a form of Gigantopithecus, a giant ape believed to have gone extinct more than 200,000 years ago.

• Supposed hoaxes and some examples of how the lure of Sasquatch permeates society, everything from Bigfoot Ale brewed by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. to photographs of "Squatch" the Seattle SuperSonics team mascot who is in danger of going extinct if something doesn't happen fast to keep the NBA team's new owners from moving the franchise to
Oklahoma City.

As I toured the exhibit last week during the last minute hustle and bustle of getting the exhibits in place, museum manager Susan Rohrer talked about the decision to commit so much energy and time to the exhibit.

"It's a classic Northwest story with roots in Northwest culture and history," she said. "It's the type of exhibit that lends itself to anthropological research and environmental science of the Pacific Northwest."

Look a little closer at the exhibit and you notice it is just as much about the old-growth forests that Sasquatch â€â€� fact or fiction â€â€� calls home as it is anything else.

Robert Michael Pyle, noted naturalist, author and resident of Grays River in southwest Washington, sums up the theme behind the exhibit best with these words from his book, "Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide."

"If we manage to hang on to a sizeable chunk of Bigfoot habitat, we will at least have a fragment of the greatest green treasure the temperate world has ever known. If we do not, Bigfoot, real or imagined, will vanish; and with its shadow will flee the others who dwell in that world ..."

Pyle, Meldrum and Peter Byrne of Bigfoot expedition fame will be there Saturday for a free public opening of the exhibit. Also scheduled are hands-on activities for children, a chance to shake hands with the Sonics' Squatch and native storytelling with Harvest Moon of the Quinault Indian Tribe.

Back to Sasquatch. Whether he exists will remain an open question without some hard physical evidence such as a skull or skeletal remains or evidence of an irrefutable encounter. Short of that, I remain firmly in the camp of those open to persuasion, but not yet convinced.

In many ways, I'd just as soon Sasquatch remain an unsolved mystery. I don't need, or want, a scientific explanation for every big, or little, thing.

John Dodge is a senior reporter and Sunday columnist for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5444 or jdodge@theolympian.com.

This post has been edited by MountainTop: Oct 8 2007, 09:03 PM

[Kucta-qa]

This is already in a thread. Also, the museum itself was very disapointing.

[FredSneakers/Dav...]

Definetly, I'm glad some people got to go.

Meldrum mentioned Carlin in Santa Cruz too, but I can't remember the context. Did the "never-before-seen" prints show up?


I'd love to see that stone mask someday...

[Make(Me)Believe]

Not sure about those prints. Were they Meldrum's or for the exhibit? I'll ask the Dad.

[HarryHenderson]

5 of the last 7 posts above were merged from a duplicate thread.

[Make(Me)Believe]

Not sure about those prints. Were they Meldrum's or for the exhibit? I'll ask the Dad.

I asked my Dad and he remembers nothing at the museum that he hadn't seen before in print. Seeing the mask in person was cool, and according to Meldrum his online peer reviewed journal was a new item, but no new images that he recalls.

[FredSneakers/Dav...]

I asked my Dad and he remembers nothing at the museum that he hadn't seen before in print. Seeing the mask in person was cool, and according to Meldrum his online peer reviewed journal was a new item, but no new images that he recalls.

Yeah, Meldrum brought that up in Santa Cruz in June too. I'll keep waiting, but It'll be nice to see all the things him and his supporters are saying quantified. I need to go back and check out those photos...