BIGFOOT! Read online

  In the book Oregon Place Names, written in 1928, author Lewis A. MacArthur explained, “The Indians, particularly of the Coast Range region, were fearful of a number of lakes and localities that were supposed to be inhabited by skookums, or evil wood-spirits. Some of the lakes are still called Skookum lakes, others are called Devils lakes. Many Indians avoided these places and considered them haunted.”

  In 1998, Franzoni outlined his thoughts about Skookum. “The modern Chinook jargon meaning,” he stated in an e-mail to me, “is ‘big, strong, and swift’ whilst the original Chinook village meaning is ‘Evil God of the Woods.’ Places have to be examined as to when they were named, and often a correlating old story has to be located to really suggest that a particular skookum place is worthy of our Bigfoot interest. A number of skookum places fit the bill just fine after being investigated though. Places like Mt. Duckabush in the Olympic Range was once named ‘Mt. Arleta’ by Lt. Patrick O’Neill, who led the second group ever across the Olympic Mountains in 1890. O’Neill mentioned in his diary that the native guides he had with him called it skookum and believed their gods lived on it. His native guides abandoned him and his group when a panther shrieked at their camp continuously one night. Oddly enough, most native peoples of the Olympic Peninsula did not venture into the interior, because they thought their gods lived there. There are some interesting parallels between some stories of the Himalayan Shangrila and native legends of a hidden valley in the Olympics, guarded by Skookums…. The Chinook jargon does have many different interpretations for the word skookum depending on which expert is consulted. I used MacArthur’s 1924 definition, but for me the Bigfoot connection was strong once I went to a skookum place and figure that I stood ten feet from a smelly Bigfoot on my very first day of looking.”

  Franzoni’s experience is remarkably similar to that of others. Paul Kane (1810/79), who was a well-known painter of Native Americans, mentioned in his journal entry of March 26, 1847, of hearing that Skookums at Mt. St. Helens, in what is now Washington State, had eaten a man. At Skookum Lake, Clackamas County, Oregon, Bigfoot was encountered in 1991, 1993, and 1995. As the twenty-first century was breaking, Kyle Mizokami, a former Bigfooter, who was on a casual hike at Skookum Creek, Washington, found two fourteen-inch-long Bigfoot tracks. The biggest prize, of course, was to take place at another Skookum place.

  Imprint of the Century

  When reports of twisted trees and hair alerted investigators to new activity in the spring of 2000, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) decided the Skookum Meadows area was a good location to search for Bigfoot. Frustrated by past searching there, they decided in September 2000 to get a group of specialists together to look anew and use a variety of techniques. Those there included tracker Richard Noll, psychiatrist and pheromone expert Greg Bambenek, zoologist LeRoy Fish, wilderness guide Jim Henick, local Gifford Pinchot Park guide Jeff Lemley, assistant Erin Lee, bait expert Thomas Powell, animal tracker Derek Randles, communications professional Alan Terry, and BFRO founder, director, and expedition leader Matt Moneymaker. Joe Beelart was the off-site equipment supplier, and a film crew from the British television series Animal X was along to see what they could find.

  As the group established base camp on September 16, 2000, they were well prepared. They had infrared cameras, night-vision goggles, sound equipment, and a sexual attractant. Since no Sasquatch pheromone has ever been gathered, Bambenek (nicknamed Dr. Juice) created a mixture of human and gorilla scent. They placed samples of this special fragrance on trees near their camp, in hopes that a Bigfoot would come for a visit. They also set out fruit in and around a “mud trap” they constructed, in the hope of getting some Bigfoot tracks.

  They also broadcast a sound recording of what was supposedly a Bigfoot call from California, recorded in 1999. Soon they heard “answers” to these screams. Rick Noll told reporter Mark Hume of the National Post that the responses “sounded sort of like a highpitch scream by a woman, trailing off to a gurgle.”

  On September 22, Noll, Randles, and Fish checked on the fruit “traps” and noted the fruit was gone from two locations. Whatever took the fruit from those places did not leave behind any footprints. When they came to what they called the Skookum Meadows “mud site,” however, the three noticed that half of the six locally grown apples were gone. They also noted the presence of older tracks of coyote, bear, deer, and elk.

  Then, suddenly, Noll was startled to see another large impression at the edge of the muddy patch. Fish and Randles came over to view what Noll had found, and they all quickly agreed that it seemed to show an animal, indeed the animal they were pursuing.

  Others from camp rushed to the site, and photographs and other recordings and measurements of the area were made. Noll was transporting some casting material, Hydrocal B-11, in his truck and thus had a larger amount than normal. A casting of this half-body print was taken by Noll, Fish, and Randles. Meanwhile, Lemley, Terry, and Bambenek helped in the making of the cast—holding a sun shade, retrieving water, lifting the cast out of the ground, and removing food debris and hair from the cast site. Moneymaker coordinated the whole effort.

  It took 325 pounds of casting material to capture the imprint, while the crew from Animal X videotaped the event. The BFRO folks were stunned to realize that they had a good plaster copy of a Sasquatch’s butt, ankles, testicles, hip, thigh, left arm, and apparent hair on the body. They believe the impression was made as the creature sat down and reached over to pick up the bait. The imprint of hairy buttocks in the mud is the strongest hint yet that Bigfoot is roaming the American Pacific Northwest, according to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, which sponsored the expedition.

  Other evidence was gathered, such as portions of the apple the creature had chewed, to see if any Sasquatch salvia could be found.

  Details of the events at Skookum Meadows were widely reported in daily newspapers, by Channel 5 in Seattle, and in the New Scientist. The media had a field day with the Skookum cast discovery, with several wire service stories playing with the obvious “butt” imprint humor in their headlines and articles. Nevertheless, a serious piece of the puzzle had been found, and the investigation kicked into full gear after the BFRO members returned from the rain forest.

  Skookum Cast Analyses

  One individual, Cliff Crook, a sometimes thorn in the side of the Bigfoot community and the former director of Bigfoot Central, quickly came forward and convinced some in the media to print his theory that the cast collected was nothing more than impressions from the chest or belly of a kneeling elk. Crook called the Skookum cast either the “Spoofem” or “Wapiti” cast. “Wapiti,” Crook e-mailed to Bigfooters across the country, “is the name given to the elk by the Shawnee Indian Tribe and means ‘white rump.’”

  Crook didn’t convince many of his theory. In response, BFRO’s Richard Noll pointed to the fact that besides the hair of coyote and elk, unknown primate hairs and a Bigfoot footprint was found in the Skookum cast area. “The imprint,” Noll wrote to Bigfoot researchers, “is consistent with an animal that can use its forelimbs as leverage separate from the hind limbs in raising its body from a sitting position. There are no elk prints behind the heel marks, nor in the main body of the cast impression, as would be expected if it were a four-legged animal. It apparently could use one of its limbs to support its weight and thrust it out of the mud to leave this imprint.”

  Meanwhile, Grover Krantz and others not on the expedition began to examine the Skookum cast. I got a chance to examine the cast of the leg imprint when Rick Noll showed it to me at a Bigfoot conference in 2001. And anthropologist Jeff Meldrum of Idaho State University also examined the cast. In an article published in New Scientist, Meldrum noted that the imprint seems to have been made by a large, hair-covered hominoid more than 2.5 meters tall. Meldrum found markings that look like human dermal patterns (such as those found on human feet) on the heel print. “All we’re trying to say at this stage is that there’s evidence that justifies
objective consideration,” Meldrum wrote.

  In rebuttals to the Skeptical Inquirer’s attacks on the Skookum cast, Sasquatch chronicler John Green stated, “Some of the holes in the mud, not readily identifiable in that form, turned out in the cast to be beautiful prints of huge, humanlike heels, complete with hair patterns on the Achilles tendon—good enough to cause the author of a text on primate anatomy to reverse a long-held opinion as to the existence of the Sasquatch. And those poor fools who have found the cast completely convincing include several people with relevant doctorates and careers, one of them considered by many to be the greatest field zoologist of our time. Primatologists at the Smithsonian Institution, on the other hand, have said they will not look at the cast even if someone drives clear across the country to show it to them. Who are the scientists and who are the believers?”

  In June of 2002, the Discovery Channel gathered three noted anthropologists in an Edmonds, Washington, hotel to tape them examining anew and commenting on the Skookum cast. Financing for Sasquatch searches is wanting, but cable television subtly supports the efforts of interested parties in at least attempting to gather information and in scrutinizing the evidence. University of Washington professor emeritus Daris Swindler, American Museum of Natural History anatomist Esteban Sarmiento, and Idaho State University anatomy professor Jeffrey Meldrum were gathered together to investigate the cast of the imprint for the filming of a documentary on the science behind the search for the Sasquatch. The presence of Sarmiento, a functional anatomist who has concentrated on African gorilla populations and the study of hominid skeletons, constituted the first sign of interest in Bigfoot by the New Yorkbased American Museum of Natural History.

  David Fisher, a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was allowed to observe the anthropologists’ examinations. According to Fisher, one impression “lined with hair marks,” said Sarmiento, “could have been made by a huge hindquarters.” Meldrum pointed out for the camera that “a deep knob-shaped hole with a fluted groove running into it could have been made by the back of a huge heel jammed into the mud. Fine lines, reminiscent of the fingerprint patterns on human heels, are faintly visible.”

  Meldrum feels all the evidence points to an eight-foot-tall Bigfoot’s having left the overall impressions at Skookum Meadows.

  During 2002, zoologist LeRoy Fish and anthropologist Grover Krantz, both strong Skookum cast supporters, died. The Discovery Channel documentary, entitled Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, was shown in January 2003. The program highlighted the scientific analysis of various pieces of purported Bigfoot evidence, including the Skookum cast.

  As exciting a find as the Skookum cast is, the decisive quest still remains—for the animal that made the hairy-buttocks impression.

  “Obviously, to me,” remarked Sarmiento of the American Museum of Natural History, “the ultimate evidence that this thing exists is if somebody found one and brought it back.”

  “Bringing one back” to prove they exist has not always been the goal of people knowledgeable about Bigfoot. For the first people on the continent, the Bigfoot were simply cohabitants, the giant hairy neighbors in the woods.

  Part 2

  A Look Back

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  5 Fruit Crate Label Art and Ruby Creek

  Curiously, there are no contemporary accounts of Bigfoot in California from 1900 through 1957. As Bigfoot researcher John Green recently observed, “Checking my files, there are several dozen reports from California before 1958, but all are recollections of one sort or another. Not a single one is from a newspaper story in the 1900s. That is indeed odd.”

  Though news accounts of Bigfoot for this era are not available, some stunning cultural evidence for the existence of Bigfoot in California in this period does exist. I recently found a fruit crate label that appears to have a direct bearing on Bigfoot in early-twentieth-century California.

  “Fruit crate labels,” so called even if the items being packaged were vegetables, were in common use from the 1920s through 1950s. These labels were originally designed to get the attention of distributors and wholesalers. The labels were glued to the ends of wooden crates of produce so as to distinguish one grower’s product from another’s. The label art reflected local items of interest and were made to be highly visible in the fruit and vegetable auction sales. The most desired brands were those that could be recognized from a distance and were distinctive, often by taking advantage of a local pun. When new technologies and cardboard replaced these labels, the old labels became prized as art and have been highly sought after items among collectors of printed ephemera.

  In October of 2000 I stumbled upon a fruit crate label called the California Giant while scanning items for sale on eBay. The vendor from whom I purchased it, Dwayne Rogers of Chico, California, informed me this specific label would simply be called Giant, or California Giant, among fruit-crate-label collectors.

  The label shows a large, hairy, humanlike form not unlike what we have grown to know from the descriptions of Bigfoot. The California crate label references either the Giant brand lettuce or carrots from the Salinas area. From a label collector’s point of view, Rogers told me, the fact the California Giant is actually carrying a crate of lettuce with the same label is unique in crate label art.

  Since I knew that such labels essentially disappeared in the 1950s, I decided to track down, if possible, the age of this particular art. I thought it curious that a hairy giant would be on a California crate, and that no one in cryptozoology had ever mentioned this before. Rogers thought it dated back to the 1930s, perhaps from the 1940s, but certainly before 1950. Rogers also remarked that a black-and-white image of this label is dated to the 1930s in Gordon McClelland’s 1983 book, Fruit Box Labels.

  Rogers suggested I talk to agrilitholigist Thomas P. “Pat” Jacobsen, dean of fruit crate art and author of Pat Jacobsen’s Millennium Guide to Fruit Crate Labels!!

  Jacobsen did some digging for me and sent me these findings: “I have gone into my collection, and found a few samples of the label ‘California Giant’ or ‘Giant.’ There are two different versions of the artwork that I know of; one says ‘carrots,’ the other says ‘lettuce.’ One of the labels I have says ‘lettuce’ on it and was made by the L. A. Miller Label Co., in business from 1925 to 1934 when they ostensibly merged with H. S. Crocker Co. Then, in December of 1936, I have a dated file copy from Schmidt Lithograph Company, the largest in the West, whose basement I acquired. On the bottom of the label in green letters is their name. This is the only printing of ‘carrots’ that I know of. Another copy is dated August 1941 and still [has] the green Schmidt name. In 1950, it is produced again with a black Schmidt name and ‘Produce of the USA’ added in the bottom border. So I am sure [this California Giant label] was used between 1934 and 1950 … probably more like the Depression era (1932, 33, but it may be older).”

  California Giant = Bigfoot

  The image on the California Giant brand lettuce fruit label definitely shows a large, hairy, hominid form. The figure looks strong, well muscled, with brown, short hair all over the body but on the face. The neck is unusually solid-looking and well defined. It is a rather typical image of a Bigfoot.

  The label itself serves as a scale for how large this “Giant” is. The label is nine inches long, and the artistic mirror image of the label itself is three-quarter inches in length. The image of the repeating California Giant label on the label tells us how big this creature is. Basically, the label shows items that are on a 1:12 scale. Therefore, we find that the hairy giant depicted is about ten feet tall and has a foot that is approximately twenty to twenty-four inches long.

  These dimensions are comparable to Roger Patterson’s “Giant Hairy Ape” (a creature he discussed in his 1966 book), which had humanlike footprints measuring twenty-two inches long and was taller by several feet than the regular Bigfoot reported at the time. John Green also noted some reports from the 1950s and 196
0s that told of hairy men with giant, almost two-foot-long foot tracks.

  I am convinced the label speaks to knowledge of reports and traditions of hairy giants in northern California in the 1920s and 1930s, when the label was first created. In the absence of news articles on Bigfoot sightings in California from these early years, I find this surprising bit of evidence from a fruit crate label worth pondering.

  But can this label truly be regarded as cultural evidence for the existence of hairy-giant motifs in early-twentieth-century California? Or is this no more than yet another example of folklore immortalized through art? What do we know about the connection to realism in other fruit crate art?

  Reality-Based Labels?

  Fruit crate labels embellished boxes of Louisiana sweet potatoes, French plums, Washington State apples, and California oranges with vivid artwork of cats, butterflies, beautiful women, cowboys, lions, peacocks, baseball players, and many other reality-based images from nature and history. The labels I have examined rarely show mythical or fanciful creatures, though Santa Claus, knights, and romantic historic figures are sometimes illustrated.

  However, one image, familiar to most of us, parallels the California Giant, which we must not ignore. This would be the Jolly Green Giant. If the Jolly Green Giant is mythical, as we must assume, is there perhaps nothing to the California Giant? But let’s look for a moment at the tradition underlying the Green Giant, as it was originally known.