Believers spellbound by Bigfoot

By Claire Ogilvie, Staff Reporter, May 23, 1993
From The Province newspaper
Meeting draws experts, laymen
At first it looked like a black speck against the snow. It moved rapidly down the mountain and as it came closer it looked like a moose. But through the binoculars the hunters realized it was walking upright. They watched spellbound- the adrenaline just pumps through you when something doesn't make sense-as the creature moved effortlessly through the snow without snowshoes. Or clothing, either. "It was running bare-naked through three feet of snow," the astounded outdoorsman told two dozen Bigfoot believers at a conference at Harrison Hot Springs, in the heart of Sasquatch country. "It was big and black. This creature must have been a minimum of eight feet tall. Was it just casually on a Sunday afternoon stroll? I don't think so. I'll have a mystery in my mind for the rest of my life." The men who spotted the humongous hairy humanoid near Christina Lake, 60 kilometres southwest of Castlegar, last October won't be identified for fear of ridicule-like a lot of other Sasquatch spotters. But believers say you can't discount the thousands of sightings, footprints and even a video. Sasquatch sympathizer John Green, who has been looking for Bigfoot for 40 years from his Harrison home, said: "Reports of this creature come from all over the world and can be traced as far as there are records. Either you've got an animal with feet like this or you have a human conspiracy to manufacture evidence, and it's worldwide and it goes back as far as history. Either explanation is ridiculous but one must be true. It must be an animal, because that is the simplest explanation." Green said Bigfoot can reach 4.5 metres in height and weigh 450 kilograms (1,000 pounds). The hair covering its body is either black, brown or auburn. Its strides are 1.8 to 2.4 metres long. Its footprints are about 60 centimetres long and 20 cm wide and look similar to man's. Author Tom Steenburg of Calgary told the conference that Bigfoot is probably a great ape that migrated across the Bering Sea land bridge tens of thousands of years ago. "What scientists really need to prove this animal exists is a body or a piece of a body." he said. "Nothing else will do."