In 1958, enormous footprints found near Bluff Creek, California made Bigfoot a worldwide phenomenon, elevating the mystery primate to cryptozoological superstardom. But believers have always maintained that ideas about Sasquatch predate this key year, both in the legends of Native Americans and in the reports of white settlers.
In this episode of Wide Atlantic Weird, Cian relocates to his cabin in the woods for summer and cracks open a bevy of Bigfoot reports that predate 1958 to find out just how this myth might have come about. He also cracks open a Mirror Pond Pale Ale.
Hear from the diary of Elkanah Walker, the missionary who wrote about hairy giants and hidden tribes in Washington State in the 1840s. Wonder at the stories of the Seeahtik, the mystery tribe who seemed both flesh-and-blood as well as supernatural, and could use hypnotism to hunt their animal prey.. Visit the cabin where a number of Bigfoot lay siege to five miners at Ape Canyon in 1924. And discover the works of JW Burns, the man who coined the term ‘Sasquatch,’ and was indirectly responsible for the very first opportunistic Bigfoot festival.
After all, there must be something behind the Bigfoot mania that’s swept America and the world since 1958 – right?
Sources:
Mrs Wakeman Vs The Antichrist, 2014, Robert Damon Schneck
Introducing B.C.’s Hairy Giants, 1929, JW Burns
Mysterious Entities of the Pacific Northwest Part 1, 2007, Joe Nickell