Bigfoot, you're invited to breakfast... Options

[tugboatwa]

http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.WOTRArticle?article_id=17446

Bigfoot, you're invited to breakfast

by Chuck Bolsinger

A few years before the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington, I worked on a timber-cruising crew near that mountain. We stayed in a barn-like lodge and ate at a nearby diner. During breakfast one morning, Harry R. Truman, who owned Harmony Falls Lodge on Spirit Lake, came in. He was wearing an ancient raincoat and the same wrinkled cap he wore years later when he told a cameraman, a helicopter pilot and the world that he'd never leave his mountain. Days later, it blew.

Nodding to the diner's proprietor, he poured himself some coffee and came to our booth. "You fellas must be the timber cruisers,"� he said. He'd obviously had his morning whiskey. "There's something you boys should know. A Big Hairy Guy hangs out in these woods. Someday you'll be taping a tree, and a shadow'll fall on you. He'll know you're fixin' to log his forest, and he'll be mad."�

He sipped his coffee. "I can show you scratch marks 10 feet high where he tried to get in my barn. I know when he's around by the smell. Whew! But my cats warn me before he gets that close. They go crazy! Edna, my wife, won't go out at night, at all. The Big hairy Guy's passed up many chances to get me, 'cause he knows I'm on his side. You boys, though."� He shook his head.

We figured that Truman was saying he didn't like our being there (I couldn't blame him), while ostensibly warning us about Sasquatch, as some Native Americans call the legendary creature. We considered ourselves duly advised on both counts. But in weeks of beating the brush, we saw no sign of the Big Hairy Guy, though in that mysterious forest of shadowy glens and hulking, mossy trees, believing in such a creature wouldn't have been much of a stretch.

It could be the way we timber beasts were living: Our so-called ski-lodge was nothing but a cavernous wooden frame building with cots lined up, army-barracks style. To heat water for a shower, we had to build a roaring fire in a woodstove. It took over an hour to produce enough hot water for one person taking a short shower. The weather was cool and rainy the entire time, and after the first day we decided a shower was optional. Maybe that's why we never encountered Bigfoot.

For more than a century, Bigfoot sightings have been reported all over the Northwest. In 1890, railroad workers in British Columbia supposedly captured a rock-throwing, apelike creature they called Jacko. It escaped before anyone photographed him.

Several sightings have been hoaxes, such as those engineered by Ray L. Wallace, who 'fessed up before he died three years ago. Though his faked footprints and films were amateurish, many believed they were authentic representations of something furry and big. His bio-hoax, built on a legend already in place, was not the first involving a cryptid, a word meaning "hidden animal,"� or creature of unproven existence. Yeti of the Himalayas and Nessie of Scotland's Loch Ness are cryptids.

They lend themselves to bio-hoaxes because their existence is physically possible, and for reasons that might be termed romantic or psychological, people want to believe they exist. Sometimes they do exist. Former cryptids include gorillas -- discovered in 1847, giant pandas -- found in1869, Komodo dragons -- spotted in 1912, and giant geckos -- found in 1984.

While Wallace's motive in fooling people was unclear, several bio-hoaxes have been perpetrated for political reasons. A bio-hoax by environmentalists involved planting endangered plants in a forest scheduled for logging. On the flip side, loggers made sure one forest harbored no spotted owls by shooting them. This is perhaps more bio-hit than bio-hoax, though the shooters aided their "enemy"� by killing a barred owl, which threatens spotted owls through interbreeding.

One rumor had it that a Bigfoot was shot and secretly buried so "enviros"� wouldn't find out and demand Bigfoot refuges with connecting BFRs -- Bigfoot runways -- a mountain myth no less incredible than others that persist. It's interesting to speculate on what might happen after a confirmed Bigfoot discovery. Personally, I'd like to celebrate by taking the discoverer to breakfast at the diner where I met Harry R. Truman. But, of course, the eatery is buried under millions of tons of volcanic debris. As is, apparently, Harry, and perhaps -- who knows -- his Big Hairy Guy.

Chuck Bolsinger is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a freelance writer in Boring, Oregon.

[billgreen2005big...]

hey everyone tugboatwa this is a great new article about sasquatch. opinions please... thanks bill

[911Guy]

Nice article, a good read.
Makes me wonder though.
I did hear from a friend once that he had a friend who was a logger, in Northern CA(not WA) that a memo was attached to the paychecks saying, if anyone spoke to a bigfoot researcher who was in town that they were be terminated.
I always thought the government or whomever shooting a bigfoot and hiding the body was X-file type stuff but after that report from a known person I wondered.
Oh and of course when I had my friend contact his friend to get a copy of the memo, it had been discarded.
Of course!

[Robert]

Oh and of course when I had my friend contact his friend to get a copy of the memo, it had been discarded.
Of course!

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Wouldn't most people save something like that?

[tugboatwa]

The story is picked up by the Redding (CA) Record-Searchlight under the headline Bigfoot, you have an open invitation.

[SwampApe_FLA]

So perhaps logging companies do not want people to know about the existence of bigfoot for fear their prime logging land will become an endangered species protected habitat?

[lookoutman7]

So perhaps logging companies do not want people to know about the existence of bigfoot for fear their prime logging land will become an endangered species protected habitat?

You're on a track, more than you know - hit the nail right on the head! I'm involved with a story right now, that may have something to do with such things.

If there is anyone here at the forum, that knows more about 'loggers keeping quiet' or anything pertaining to such things, could you please contact me.

Thank you...

[bipedalist]

http://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_report.asp?id=3777

Here are some good logger accounts that I have heard nothing about in regard to followup.

[lookoutman7]

bipedalist...thanks

Thanks for the info.

What I'm really trying to get at - are logging individuals that are willing to remain quiet about such a creature, so that ultimately, jobs would not be affected. Also things that would possibly close sections of forest, for things such as migration, reproduction - environmental groups and supporters of species over business. I know of three instances thus far - where men (loggers) are keeping things hushed. (Embarrassment or ridicule) are par for the course with the Sasquatch-Bigfoot phenomena, understandably. But there are others that want this to be kept quiet if possible. This could take food off their tables if the creature was to be discovered, and truly proven.

lookoutman

[bipedalist]

Yes, I see what you are saying could be why no followup of the previous posted accounts has not been done, maybe they had too many loose lips and somebody got too them since these were older sightings. These were second hand accounts but the primary reporters were listed by name. So it would be easy for somebody to bring pressure to bear on them (unless of course they are retired with no relatives in the industry). I would imagine that they would still hang together though rather than hang separately.

This post has been edited by bipedalist: Apr 11 2009, 06:50 PM

[COGrizzly]

Ummmmmmmmm, norcal??? (Caption Staph....hope I'm spelling that right)

[COGrizzly]

Captian Staph, not Caption Staph!

[wickie]

Captian Staph, not Caption Staph

[bipedalist]

Mo, Capitan Staff, Not Caption Staph or Captian Staph !

This post has been edited by bipedalist: Apr 12 2009, 06:33 AM

[lookoutman7]

Everyone...

Are there 'threads' on the forum, that have to do with what will happen if a Sasquatch-Bigfoot is discovered - the 'consequences environmentally?' I haven't found the catrgory just yet. (If there is one?)

Thanks for your help...

lookoutman