A HUGE ENCOUNTER

“What was that!?” My question was prompted by a high-pitched blood curdling sound that disturbed the peace of the night air.

“Moose?” suggested Ryan Colquhoun, one of the three roommates I was bunked with in our tent.

“Doesn’t sound like any moose I’ve ever heard,” said Cory Bush.

“That’s for sure,” added Grant Lewis.

My name is Tim Forsyth, a grade 12 student at Pattison High School, Vancouver, Canada. I and fifteen of my classmates, under the watchful care of four of our teachers, had taken the ferry across to Vancouver Island, departing from Horseshoe Bay and docking on the island at Nanaimo, a city with a population of almost 100,000. It was a welcome break from the sweltering temperatures we had recently endured on the mainland, although even what we had experienced paled against the staggering 49.6°C endured by the small inland town of Lytton, just over one hundred and fifty kilometers northeast of Vancouver, ending three horrendous record breaking days there from 27 – 29 June this year, 2021, in which many of their elderly succumbed and died from the extreme heat. If that wasn't enough, a wildfire then ravaged the town, reducing much of it to a devastated, black scarred, horror.

Disembarking the ferry we had arranged for transport to take us to our intended camping site at Paradise Meadows in the Strathcona Provincial Park, situated some one hundred and thirty five kilometers northwest of Nanaimo, stopping on the way to load up with food, bottled water supplies and two cans of bear spray repellent, just in case.

Paradise Meadows is well named, its lakes, rich green meadows and evergreen forests largely accessible via timber boardwalks. Although we were camped less than ten minutes walk from the Park’s Wilderness Center, we had acquainted them and also the police with our six day stay and campsite location, in a clearing just within the forested area near the trail. And all had gone well until the second night when that blood curdling scream occurred.

“Let’s go and see if anyone else heard it,” I said. That was immediately obvious, with all sixteen students and four teachers having exited their tents.

“Did you hear that?” Jodi Millward asked of no one in particular, to a chorus of, “Yes, we heard it.”

As students do, even when we’re 16 to 17 years old, we gravitate toward our authority figures, our teachers, hoping they will provide answers that will not only satisfy, but also quell, our concerns. Mr Stewart, our geography teacher, spoke up. “Perhaps it’s someone seeing how far their voice can carry at night.”

“That would have to be some voice,” Cory said.

"Perhaps they did it through a megaphone."

With doubts in our minds we nonetheless accepted Mr Stewart’s explanation, returning to our tents.

The next day dawned, the weather gorgeous, a gentle Pacific breeze filtering toward us mid-morning. We had been walking the trail, returning to our campsite for lunch when Alice Chan spotted something in a muddy patch just to the side of the trail. It was a huge footprint, at least 38 centimeters or 15 inches long, but also very wide, over 18 centimeters or 7 inches across. “Look!” I said. “There’s another one!” I measured the distance between them with my own shoes and it was just over a meter.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” said Liam Frazer.

“What?” Kellie Gleeson asked.

“Bigfoot. Sasquatch.”

“You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?” asked Amelia Southy.

“You tell me what else makes a footprint like that, then.”

“A bear, maybe.”

“Have you seen a bear’s footprint? To start with no bear has a footprint anywhere near that long. Also, a bear's footprint is a totally different shape, and in this mud you’d see evidence of their claws. Where are they? And I’ll tell you something else: look at the distance between the steps.”

“I reckon I could do that with a bit of a run up,” said Logan Russell.

“Yes, of course you could but your second footprint would be deeper and longer, wouldn’t it? That’s simple physics. Yet look at the second footprint,” Liam pointed, “it’s virtually identical to the first one. That suggests to me that it was walking in its normal stride.”

I asked Mr Gilbertson, our science/biology teacher, what he thought but he just raised his eyebrows, nodded and smiled, but said nothing.

“We should take a plaster cast,” said Liam.

“Have you got the plaster?” Mr Gilbertson asked.

“No, but we could get some.”

“Why don’t I see if I can get hold of a ruler and we’ll take measurements and also photos of the ruler next to the prints?”

“I’ve got one,” said Mrs Millward, Jodi’s mother and Math teacher.

“Cool,” Liam said. “Let’s do that.”

Photographs were taken with the 30 centimeter ruler next to each of the prints, both longways and across each foot. Each footprint measured a staggering forty centimeters long and nineteen centimeters across at the widest point.

That evening proved a restless one for a number of us and it took some time to settle down for sleep. In our tent we talked about the footprints but, needless to say, that didn’t help the settling down process. At length I decided to change the subject to my favorite meal I was looking forward to eating on my return home. Unsurprisingly, that struck a chord with my tentmates who shared what they were looking forward to as well. Cory went last. “Satay chicken with baby green beans and fried rice, followed by apple crumble and icecream for dessert. Oh, yeah,” he said. There were a few appreciative sighs and the next thing I knew it was the morning of day four.

Over breakfast it was unanimously decided that we should do a bit of gemstone hunting. Mr Stewart managed to obtain a few small picks from the Mountain Center nearby and we set off to a nearby stream where the bank had eroded and which looked like might yield a few gems. Susie Leung managed to find a piece of jade, as did Billy Taylor. A number of other pieces found would need to be identified to establish what they were and what, if anything, they were worth. Everyone agreed that it had been a worthwhile exercise.

Our camping trip would be over the day after next and we would be returning home reluctantly... or so we thought. That night we had all settled down to bed in our tents, the only sound in our tent being Cory’s snoring. At about 10 p.m. that all changed. Our slumber was interrupted. A distinctive “bop!” sounded on the roof of our tent, like a small branch had fallen and landed on it. Problem was we had done our best to make sure that our tents were not placed under any trees and, other than that sound, there was silence. No breeze was blowing. And then it happened again, but this time it was accompanied by a loud guttural grunting sound. “What the hell is that?” Ryan asked.

All of us in our tent were now wide awake. I grabbed my torch and Grant grabbed his as well. I undid the zip and lifted the tent flap, shining the torch out ahead of me. Nothing. But then it happened again, another distinct “bop” on the roof of the tent. “Look out that way,” Grant said, pointing to our left. We both moved outside with Cory and Ryan following and shone our torches out beyond the left side of our tent. And there it was—a bipedal behemoth, a huge hairy hominid that had to be at least nine feet tall. As our high intensity LED torches shone on it it screamed in protest and then turned and ran into the woods. Within moments the whole campsite was in an uproar, with bleary-eyed campers exiting their tents, wondering what all the racket was. All I could say was, “We just saw Bigfoot! It was huge!”

“Where is it?” asked Alice.

“It ran off into the woods when we shone our torches on it,” Grant said.

“How big was it?” asked Mr Gilbertson.

“Ummm... I would say just a bit shorter than the height of the hoop on our basketball court,” I said.

"Okay. The basketball hoop stands three meters off the ground, so maybe two and three quarter meters in height?"

"Yep. That sounds about right."

"That's nine feet in the old money!" exclaimed Mrs Millward.

“Aaaaarghh!” cried Susie. “I don’t wanna stay here with that thing lurking around!”

“Okay,” Mr Gilbertson said, “Let’s not panic. We can’t do anything until the morning but I’ll tell you what we can do. We can take turns five at a time for two hours. That will take us through to 6 a.m. when the sun will have been up for close to an hour. Keep two of your torches lit and facing into the forest away from the tents while it’s dark. It obviously doesn’t like the intense glare. Two guys, two girls, plus one teacher. Any problems, holler very loudly. What do you say?”

With some trepidation the idea was accepted and, aside from a distant scream that suggested the beast was then quite far away, nothing further was heard other than the distinctive call of a great horned owl.

The fifth morning, Friday, arrived. We checked our tent over and found what had hit our tent roof the previous evening–clods of earth that had left their impressions, courtesy of Bigfoot. At least that seemed to indicate disapproval only. A warning that we were on its ‘turf’ and, if we knew what was good for us, leave.

During breakfast there was wide acceptance that our camping trip was coming to an end a day early. There was no cell phone signal and so at 9.30 a.m. Mr Stewart went to the Wilderness Center just as it opened and ’phoned to organize our premature transport back to civilization.

Back at school the following Monday there was a distinct buzz, the news of our encounter with Bigfoot quickly circulating. In our biology class Mr Gilbertson discussed that encounter with us, heaping praise on Liam for his analysis of the footprints we saw. Then, for all of us who participated in the trip, in our tent teams of four we were given a homework project to compile and then make a presentation of our Bigfoot experience to the whole class. The best presentation would be judged by Mr Gilbertson who had already arranged with the headmaster for it to be presented the following week to the entire school and teaching staff. We would be allowed to use the school’s 70” smart television to assist our classroom presentation and a large projector screen for the School presentation in our auditorium.

Our tent team got together after school to decide how we should go about it. We decided that we would all meet together. Grant suggested his house as it was the most central. He would check with his parents first if that was okay.

On Tuesday after school we met at Grant’s place and booted up his pc. We decided to find as much relevant information as we could online. Yay for the power of google. It yielded a trove of information which we were able to use to formulate what we felt was a worthwhile presentation; one that would prove what we ourselves had witnessed—that Bigfoot exists. We sought to take a leaf out of Liam Frazer’s analytical skills in an effort to provide compelling evidence for our argument.

Two weeks later our big day came. Each team had to provide Mr Gilbertson with a written outline of their presentation so that he could be satisfied that no team was plagiarizing any other team’s presentation that was conducted before theirs. The 70” smart tv was ideal because it enabled us not only to access news items online but YouTube videos as well. We had decided not to over-complicate our presentation but seek to make it as condensed and yet as compelling as possible, but also adding something for our audience to think about.

We drew the first long straw and opted to go last. Liam Frazer did his team’s presentation and it was obvious to everyone that he had presented a compelling argument for Bigfoot’s existence, including YouTube footage and analysis of one we had chosen also.

When our turn came I started by stating the obvious, that in North America there have been thousands of Bigfoot sightings over the years, including in our own region. I recounted our own team’s personal encounter with Bigfoot, describing it as best as we could recall, and then brought up a website: rickgibson.ca that included an article titled, Do Sasquatches Really Exist? On Vancouver Island? Its commentary included, “In October 1988 [John] Bindernagel was chaperoning a junior high school field trip to Lake Helen Mackenzie when a student pointed out a set of large footprints in a muddy patch of the trail… There were five such tracks, and they all seemed to be following the trail… The footprints were 15 inches long and one third wider than a normal human footprint. The step was about 40 inches - much longer than a human step.” I pointed out that that location was right near where we had encamped and close to where we had sighted our footprints.

I then brought up a YouTube video produced by Wayne Dowsent, an Australian artist who had studied the human anatomy to help him add realism to his artwork. He focused on the Patterson Gimlin footage taken of a Bigfoot in California, U.S.A. in 1967 that 4K digital enhancements showed to be a female, its mammary glands – breasts – quite evident. Dowsent debunks those who claim it is someone wearing a suit, referring, for example, to the actors dressed up as apes in the 1968 movie, Planet of The Apes. He pointed to the fact that, in the movie, only the actors’ faces were masked in a way that still enabled speech and facial expressions, the rest of their bodies being fully clothed. But that wasn’t the case in the Patterson Gimlin footage. It shows, not only someone NOT looking out from behind a mask, but whose muscle movements in the back and legs are clearly discernible, as also were the sinews in its swinging upper arms where they meet the torso. It also shows a hominid whose footsteps differ from those of humans, where its foot size and structure requires that it lifts its lower leg higher than humans do when it walks. And plaster casts of other Bigfoot footprints reveal a totally different foot structure to humans. Finally, unlike a costume, it was evident that there were areas of its body that had significantly less hair, like under the sides of the breasts for instance, where its skin could be seen.

Then I added what we hoped would be a platform for further discussion, given that no one before me had done so. I brought up an online article dated February 13, 2013 from the Sasquatch Genome Project in which 111 samples of Bigfoot hair, blood, skin and other tissue were sent anonymously to a number of different DNA laboratories in U.S.A and Canada. On November 24, 2012, Dr Melba Ketchum of Texas, spokesperson for the Project involving a multidisciplinary team of scientists, announced the results of their five-year long study. They concluded that Bigfoot is a hybrid cross of modern Homo sapiens with a novel primate species, the mitochondrial DNA [female] being modern homo sapiens and the nuclear [male] DNA being from an unknown hominid. Expanding, Dr Ketchum explained that the Sasquatch genomes were novel and fell well outside of known ancient hominin as well as ape sequences.

And here was what we hoped would be the kicker: “Does this give evidence of evolution?” I asked my audience. “Not based on the findings of the Sasquatch Genome Project. Why so? Because, as Dr Ketchum stated, quote, “the Sasquatch genomes were novel and fell well outside of known ancient hominin as well as ape sequences.” So where did the Sasquatch male DNA come from? Interestingly, the Bible describes something similar occurring in Noah’s day, where disobedient angels materialized and had sex with human women, producing a giant hybrid offspring called Nephilim. Just saying. Food for thought, though, isn’t it? Thank you for listening.”

Understandably, Liam Frazer was Mr Gilbertson’s favorite biology pupil, but he liked the extra mile that we had gone in order to promote discussion and debate and so he chose our presentation to present to the entire school. That would be huge, just like our encounter with Bigfoot…