July 18, 2025 • 56 mins
This "classic" from the Clobo Archives features a conversation with photographer, journalist, and author John Zada! John's book "In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond" is one of our favorites, and we consider it a modern classic of sasquatchery!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Big Food and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo. These guys
are a fav It's so like say subscribe and read
it five.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Star and me.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Greatest con ques today and listening a watchy limb always
keep its watching.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
And now your host's Cliff Berrickman and James Bubo Fay. Okay,
let's jump into our guests, and we're very very pleased
to have on with us. John Zada. He's an author,
he's a photographer, he's a man of the world, a traveler,
intergalactic traveler. Perhaps I don't know. We'll get into that
in a minute. But he has written a fantastic book
that has come back to my attention called in the
(00:48):
Valleys of the Noble Beyond. Actually wrote it a number
of years ago, and I'll tell you, man, it is exquisite.
This is going to be a great episode because this
book is fantastic. I'm about halfway through reading it. I
kind of forgot about it and got back to it.
But he published his book back in twenty nineteen, and
let's let's bring John on and you can tell us
about it. So Bigfoot and Beyond audience, welcome John Zeta. John,
(01:10):
thank you so much for coming on Bigfoot and Beyond
with us, guys.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Good John, Hi guys, thanks for having me on. Happy
to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh it's great, It's great, And I was astonished to
find out you're actually listened to us.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I am a long standing original from day one fan
of the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yes, indeed, Oh my god, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
That's how a little shocking was. So, so let's bunch
you here. You're like, no way, I.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Mean, I only I only listened to three podcasts. One
is you guys, the other one is a podcast about
spies and espionage, and then the third one is about
writing and self publishing, and so it's you're You're the
three that I that I go to for podcast listening. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Well that's fantastic. Thank you very much for your kindness
and support. Appreciate it. Yeah, And of course the reason
we're having you on is, you know, is your book
in the Valley of the Well Beyond. Now, as I'm
reading this book and a begain, I'm a little over
halfway through at this moment. And again I apologize to
you before we started recording, because you actually gave me
a copy of this book a little while ago and
(02:12):
it just ended up in one of my two do piles,
and I never got to it until I realized, oh, shoot,
got to have it on pru It's ranting how great
this book is, and so I picked it up again,
and I'll say, man, it is a very well written book.
It is fantastic and one of the things I like
about it it kind of reminds me of doctor Bob
Piles book, right, because you're not I mean, you're a bigfooter,
(02:36):
certainly because you're doing this about Bigfoot, but you're not
like the standard Bigfoot, the standard squadh or that I
think we have today. You approach this almost more of
a naturalist sort of way. It reminds me of the
great writers of the nineteenth century, when before science was
really a thing and people call themselves naturalists, and it's
more almost about an exploration of the subject, the animals
(02:57):
and the locations, and it's just so beautifully written and
just so hats off to you or heads off to
you or whatever I was gonna say. So, yeah, so
tell us about how this book came about a boot boots.
You're a Canadian, right.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So yeah, you're gonna you're going to hear more than
your fair share of a boots. But it's a bit
of a lifelong sort of backstory that there's there's, there's
the stuff that happened before and then the more recent events.
But let me just say I started in this area,
or my interest began in my preteen years. I was
(03:35):
an avid reader of John Green's books, and he's if
for those who who are still at this point don't
know who John Green is, he was a journalist who
lived in Harrison, Hot Springs, British Columbia. He was the
mayor of the town for a bit and he wrote
for the newspaper there. He was the first, I mean
real kind of significant journalistic compiler of eyewitness reports, and
(03:59):
not just in the British Columbia area, but then he
was He basically wrote about North America in general, and
so I fell in love with his books, found them
at the library. I was an early reader, so the
adult level, I guess pros wasn't really a huge obstacle
for me, and that really kind of kicked it off.
And but what ended up happening was later on, as
(04:21):
I got into my twenties, after having sort of left
the subject a bit behind, I kind of got dragged
back into it, and there was sort of a series
of events that took place, and I kind of mentioned
them in the book as the backstory of this journey.
But essentially, I was at work one day. I had
this kind of joe job, and one of my friends
(04:43):
at the job came up to me and he said,
you know, one of our colleagues, her name was Calm.
She was like an executive assistant secretary, had come back
from a long weekend a few hours north of Toronto,
and she had claimed to have seen something crossing the
road at night. And my friend, who was at the
job at me knew that I'd had this sort of
passing interest, this old childhood interest in the Sasquatch. So
(05:06):
I went to Carmen and I'm like, you know, tell
me what has happened, right, And she didn't want to
talk to me. She didn't want to talk about it.
She was like, no, no, nothing. She denied that she
had told anyone anything. But as time passed, she did
eventually speak with me and essentially told me that her
and her boyfriend were driving up in the sort of
cottage country area in an area and you're Callingwood, Ontario,
(05:29):
just sort of north of the city, and she had
seen what she described as this tall, hairy, gigantic, monstrous
fur covered man crossing the road at the stop sign
when they stopped. And she knew nothing about sasquatch, knew
nothing about bigfoot. She grew up in this really kind
of sheltered Italian traditional family. This was before Google and
(05:52):
before like any of this stuff exploded on the Internet.
So I was kind of a bit shocked. And she
described the creature as shuffling cross the road like doing
taking these sort of like these very fluid movements. And
once I heard that, I knew that this was not
something that she imagined or made up, and that essentially
(06:12):
pulled me back into the subject. And then from there
I attended a Sasquatch symposium in Vancouver in nineteen ninety nine,
where I met a lot of these sort of big
original characters from the world of bigfooting, from Renee to Hinden,
to Grover Krantz to John Bindernagel, who I eventually became
(06:37):
kind of pals with. Basically because at the Sasquatch symposium,
I was doing documentary work at the time, was early
in the journalism career, and I decided, you know, I'd
like to really do like a documentary film about this
subject and about John. So him and I began a
kind of a friendship and he came to Ontario a
bunch of times to investigate Ontario Reports and I filmed
(06:59):
him and the documentary never got made. But that was
sort of the pore sort of middle phase of my interest.
And then now segueing into the book, I later you
went from from video and documentary and doing TV stuff
to becoming a writer, like an actual you know, like
a print and online writer. And the way things happened
(07:22):
with the book was I went on a press trip
in twenty twelve to an area of the north and
central coast of BC called the Great Bear Rainforest, and
it's essentially a coastal temperate rainforest region that is about
maybe the size of three or four Olympic National Parks,
(07:43):
really big trees, grizzly bears, whales, a lot of First
Nations communities in there. And I went out there to
essentially do an adventure piece for a magazine. And I mean,
in the back of my mind, I knew that I
was going to Bella Bella and Bella Coula and clem
To and all these places that John Green had mentioned
(08:04):
in his book and had visited on several occasions. But
what I didn't expect or realize when I got to
these communities and it was going to be a two
week trip, was as soon as I got there, the
towns were completely absorbed in a bunch of recent Sasquatch reports.
And it wasn't just I landed in Bellabella and that's
(08:27):
where the trip began, but it was happening in all
three communities. And to make a long story short, you know,
my interest and passion was reignited, and I didn't do
so much traveling or kind of investigating the adventure travel
aspects as I did. You know, I began investigating the
Sasquatch reports, and by the end of the two week trip,
(08:49):
I didn't want to leave, and I was like, oh man,
I got to come back. I got to come back
and write about this in a longer form, in a
longer format. And that's when I made the decision at
the end of the trip in twenty two that I
would come back and do an entire summer long trip
and write about it in a kind of a narrative,
nonfiction sort of way, with characters and dialogue and plot,
(09:12):
and that's the genre of the book that you refer to.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Basically, stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff
and Bobo will be right back after these messages. You know, Bobes,
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Speaker 4 (11:08):
Are you at the ninety nine conference?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I was at the ninety nine conference?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Oh man, I was so bund to miss that. I
thought it was in the news, and I was like, God,
I could have went to that if I had known
about it.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
All sorts of Yeah. I mean, all the kind of
major characters were there. So I kind of feel a
little bit like I just sort of tapped into that
history part a little bit.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Oh that's so cool. You know, everybody on the on
the line right now is super interested in Bigfoot history,
and you know at events like this because it was
so quiet at the time, and now you know, you
you throw a rock and you're probably gonna take down
a couple of sasquatch conventions, you know. But at that
time they were very, very rare, and everybody who was
(11:48):
in the game at the time either was there or
wanted to be there. It's really really cool that you
had a chance to go do that before everything blossomed
into what it is now, if that's the right term.
So back to the book here a little bit. There
is a certain tinge I guess of travelogue in the
book as far as the writing flavor, But again, I
(12:10):
really do see it as more of a naturalist sort
of perspective on things, a holistic maybe not an outsider,
but a holistic I'll say outsider, but that's not quite
the word I'm looking for, and holistic outsiders perspective on this.
What are your big takeaways after spending a summer up
in that area where sasquatch sidings are probably pretty common,
(12:32):
I would imagine, just part of the environment, part of
the natural landscape there. What are your big takeaways and
what surprised you and what didn't surprise you about spending
time up there amongst the native communities in these places.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, and just before I answer, I mean, I think
that's a good point that you'd made earlier, that the
that the book is multi layered. I am and was
a travel writer prior to taking the book on, So
I did. I did really want to not only write
a book that would explore the Sasquatch phenomenon, but would
sort of look at the nature the First Nations culture,
(13:07):
the history of the area, the geography of the area,
and so I mean, in terms of things that surprised me,
one of the things that surprised me was I was
expecting the indigenous communities to be generally unanimous about their
take on the phenomenon, meaning that that almost everybody would
believe in them or think that they exist, or you know.
(13:30):
But in fact, there was a lot of there was
quite a lot of people who didn't actually, and I
wouldn't say that they're that they were the majority, but
I would say that I learned to not take it
for granted that the citizens of these communities all had
the same position. I mean, I think I think it's
like a lot of people, either indigenous or non indigenous
(13:51):
who spend a lot of time in the back country,
you know, and are really good at what they do
in terms of in terms of navigating the back country.
If if they haven't seen it one themselves, they think, well,
it couldn't possibly exist. So there were quite a bit
of people who did sort of tell me not, it's
all kind of a it's all kind of a story
or so that kind of caught me a bit off guard.
(14:14):
And also it was really a lot of flesh and
blood type perspectives up there as well, Whereas I also
kind of came in with the assumption that there'd be
a lot of the sort of the spiritual, the mystical,
the sort of the pseudo religious. I was actually quite
surprised by how many people were just pretty much yet it's,
(14:35):
you know, among the among those who did know about
the animal and did you know, support its existence, that
it was flesh and blood, and you don't really get
a lot of the a lot of the WU or
the UFO stuff mixing it up there. It's it's it's
pretty it's pretty sober, pretty sober minded takes, I would say.
And I think maybe that's just because a lot of
(14:55):
the people who were pro Bigfoot have seen that, and
they're like, it's definitely an animal.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Well, it might have something I'm just kind of hypothesizing here.
It might have something to do with just the necessary
practicality of living in those places, you know, like it's
they they are fishing, you know, for a lot of
their meals, or hunting, they're they're they're just living, you know,
They're doing what they need to do to live and
get by and and do what they do in their environment.
That's the people are. And I think I find people
(15:24):
like that are very much more prone to just accepting
that these are normal animals who are cool or weird
in various ways, but like just perfectly normal animals, as
opposed to the people who are attracted to the more
paranormal side of things, who are very often you know,
deeply religious, and then fit these animals into their scheme
of there or you know, or or a prone to
(15:47):
paranormal proclivities or horoscope driven or crystal crystal wearing folks
and all that sort of stuff, just like it's a
much more practical lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I think, No, absolutely absolutely, and I mean I would
even I would even say that it was shocking even
to the extent to which it was considered normal by
some people. It was it was almost like it some
people wouldn't bat an eyelash if someone reported a sighting
in in their presence or like if the subject came up.
It was almost like they were talking about like vegetables
(16:18):
in their garden kind of thing. It's it was, so
it was it was almost considered mundane in some cases.
So I was in some cases they were even laughing
at me a little bit that I was coming up here.
And you know, you know, there there were some there
were some difficult issues facing the communities revolving There was
there was a big fire that had burnt down one
of the band stores in Bella Bella, and they were
(16:41):
they were also doing battle with some big oil companies
that wanted to build pipelines up up the coast. And
people were actually taking me to task for like, well,
you know, we're into big Foot two, but why are
you here like writing about that. You can be writing
about like the politics or like, you know, the difficulties
that we're experiencing because the outside world doesn't know about us.
And so there was there was a bit of actually
a little bit of tension around that when I first
(17:03):
arrived in Bella Bella, and that was part of the
plot of the story, was you know, the communities accepting
you and and and having to gain their trust, and
the faux pause, and you know, the mistakes that I
had made in terms of ingratiating myselves, especially among the
Heltzok in Balabella, which was which I sort of made
(17:23):
part of the hurdles and the challenges in the in
the you know, in the quest theme of the story,
I would say, yea, I.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Would imagine getting in would be the very very difficult,
slow process because any sort of small rural community like that,
that would be the case. But when you add the
native element, the First Nations people who I mean, I
live in America, of course, and god knows, our government
screwed him over really bad. I'm assuming Canada did the
same thing to their native population. Generally speaking, I don't
(17:50):
know the history up there necessarily, but I imagine as
much a matter. Yeah, just complicate things, right, Yeah, So
you felt you were pretty successful with getting in at
least with a small number of people, who, of course,
once you know one or two people, they start talking
to their friends. Oh he's cool. You can talk to him.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, that's yeah, that's that's exactly what happened. I was
really lucky in that I had, you know, social media
in a sense, save the day. Had I gone there
decades earlier, it would have been more of a just
showing up on the front door. But I just networked
a bit. And because I had, you know, I guess
when you work as a journalist and as a as
a documentarian or what you you kind of learned to
(18:31):
introduce yourself to people and everything. So I basically got
in with one of the characters in the book. Her
name is Alvina, an older I guess, matriarch in the
community who's well respected. She had a bed and breakfast.
So I basically stayed with her during my time in
Bella Bella, and it was in a sce. She almost
she pretty much adopted me. I was almost like like
(18:52):
a family member, and so she put in a lot
of good words for me. And as soon as as
soon as people knew that I was staying with her,
it earned me a little bit of respect because you know,
generally people who go up there will stay, you know,
in the more to you know, I guess, like the
lodge or the more tourist they accommodations that they were
a bit shocked that I actually stayed in the community,
(19:13):
and that had a knock on benefit as well, in
that she connected me with a whole bunch of people
who had reports. And so basically what happened was and
this is this goes to answer your earlier question about
the takeaways and the surprises. Was that And I don't
know if this is some kind of a serendipitous thing
(19:34):
that happens in small towns or if it's a West
Coast thing, because I mean, I'm an eastern Er basically,
but it was just incredible. And I wrote about it
in the book that the minute you start to kind
of investigate something, or you go you speak to somebody
about a report, or you follow something up, and then
it just one thing leads to the other, to the next,
to the other, and you're basically connecting all these dots,
(19:55):
and there's this kind of almost synchronicity, serendipity that happens
where you just sort of you're on this kind of
stream that kind of takes you from one report or
siding or place or venue to the next, and then
which spanned the different towns. It didn't just happen within
Bella Bella. It just like I would I would meet somebody,
So for instance, I'd be in balabell and somebody whould
(20:17):
talk about some person in Bellakula who had a story
or whatever, and then I would just like meet them
by accident on the ferry or it. Just the entire
trip was that, and I devoted a little section to
explain that. But it's so hard to put into writing
that kind of sort of stream of consciousness happening that
(20:37):
is life. And so I ended up with so much
more material that I was than I was even able
to write in the book, and left me with with
with I mean, I really had to kind of sift
and pick and choose all the different things that would
go in because you couldn't really write forever.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Well, when you're flowing with life, you know, life encourages
you along the way. I just to me, I've always
taken that as, yeah, I must be on the right
track because weird things are happening exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, we very much felt that way.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Now, I'm something that you mentioned a little while ago.
I'm so glad you did. You mentioned that the the
lack of homogeneous perspective on sasquatches, you know, like that,
like people view them in various ways, and imagine, you know,
some are probably a little bit more culturally invested in it,
or perhaps a cultural perspective on the animals. Some are
just like, oh, that's the thing that here, that lives here.
(21:27):
We don't eat them, so we're not going to worry
about them. That sort of stuff. And imagine a few
people have troublesome sasquatches. Everyone's more as scares them or
something like that. I'm glad you mentioned that because I've
heard people say blanket statements that I find to be
ridiculous and stereotypical, like I believe what natives believe. It's like, well,
I mean, you know you can't do that. That that's
that's a weird. That's a weird thing to say. I
(21:51):
It's like saying I believe what construction You know, workers
say you believe that, Well, how do you know what
they believe?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
You talk to?
Speaker 3 (21:57):
You know, natives are as folks. You talk to ten
of a marity fifteen perspectives on it. There're just folks.
And I'm glad that you mentioned that because there is
no in my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong. There is
no quote unquote Native perspective on it because it comes
down to individuals. I mean, there's cultural perspectives, but did
you run into anybody? And I have, which is why
I'm bringing this up. I've run into some trouble with
(22:20):
Native elders who are actively discouraging me not to be
interested in sasquatches for the good of sasquatches. Did you
run into anything like that?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I was a little bit. I was also a little
bit shocked about how open people were talking about it.
And I'm not just saying this because it's you guys
and it's this show, but I think the Finding Bigfoot
series did a lot to remove some of the taboos,
if not many of them, And so a lot of
people said that they'd watched the show and everything, So
(22:51):
I think in that sense there was a lot of openness.
I think where there was a little bit of caution,
and it wasn't just from elders. It was from some
of the younger people too. But among the younger people
who are slated to become elders, I would say that
the more the more culturally engaged younger people in the
community was that you know, we don't really kind of
(23:13):
go looking for them, you know what I mean, we
don't like chase them, we don't hunt them, we don't
make calls, we don't do the wood Knox or whatever.
It was sort of more they were kind of like saying,
you know, it's really cool that you're here to ask
us about this, and it's really you know, and we're
happy to kind of share and everything and to tell
you our beliefs and our experiences. But I think it
was it was sort of more the there was sort
(23:35):
of this idea that going in pursuit of them in
terms of actual field pursuit kind of thing, and I
guess they were thinking in terms of the whole kind
of stereotypical the Camo thing and like out on expedition
was a little bit sort of disrespectful. And they said
that for us, and I'm quoting actually directly here somebody
(23:55):
he said, for us, they come to you, they find you,
and if it happens to you than than than good
or depending on the community. Ill, there are different views
on that as well, but we generally don't kind of
really go in pursuit of it. And maybe that kind
of also goes back to what we're saying before about
how normal it is, and maybe they don't really have
(24:15):
they don't really have a need to in a sense
because not just because it's in their culture and because
they live with it. But I think, I think this
now kind of gets into a bit of the philosophical
But I my sense later after thinking about it, was
maybe they don't pursue it in the same way that
some of us on the outside do because they live
in the general atmosphere of I don't know what to
(24:38):
call it, like a super charged mystical that that kind
of that kind of magic and that energy that we
associate with sasquatch interpenetrates the ecosystem there. So in a sense,
it's it's it's kind of always there. You kind of
always feel it there, and that that's sort of the
understanding that I took from from it after leaving, was
(25:00):
that it's actually everywhere you look. The word that you
guys use, the term squatchy, right, It's a part of
their everyday life there, And so yeah, I don't know,
I guess, I guess. I guess in a way, in
addition to their sacredness around the subject, it's just always
there for them, and so they don't really have a
need to sort of pursue it as much. I suppose,
(25:20):
I don't know. That's just a kind of a guess
on my part.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Oh yeah, I totally get it. I totally get it.
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and
Bogo will be right back after these messages. So you
briefly mentioned almost like a teaser there, there's there's so
much stuff that didn't even make the book. Now that
(25:45):
the book is out, do you regret Are there any
thing specific stories that you regret not putting in or
perhaps you would want to put in another volume if
you ever pinned one of those?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well, I mean I put in the stories that I
that were the most dramatic, I would say, for sure,
because I had to make a cut. But I guess
it's I mean, it has occurred to me to to
do something with all of the little bits and pieces.
I think a lot of I think a lot of
the material were we're sort of shorter encounters, more more
brief type of of engagements with the creatures. Then then
(26:18):
then the longer So no, I mean, I in a way,
in a way, part of The difficulty in with writing
a book is that part of it is the writing,
but then you spend a lot of time editing and
cutting stuff out, and so in a sense, no, I mean,
I made some hard decisions about material to leave out,
but I think I left just enough of the more
(26:40):
dramatic stuff in that I thought would be interesting to readers,
and so the rest is the rest, I guess will
just sort of remain in my mind. I don't. I don't.
I'm not sure whether there there would be kind of
an occasion to write something else about it.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Didn't you have your the rock throwing incident right after
you went to publication, like a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, So after I signed off on the final edit,
so we basically had kind of we've done the back
and forth with the with the editor, the publisher. So
there was a publisher in New York called Grove Atlantic.
They picked the book up, and so they were fairly
sort of conservative about the whole take. I think I
think they were content with with the fact that I
(27:26):
that I wasn't really pushing the Bigfoot hypothesis on the
reader kind of thing. And so when we'd finished editing,
I was here in British Columbia. I had gone on
a on a camping trip with my girlfriend and a
buddy of mine to a place called Cape Scott Provincial Park,
(27:49):
which is on the very northwest tip of Vancouver Island.
It is it's essentially the draw of of the park,
as is camp sites on the beach, basically on the Pacific.
But so what happened was on the way back to
the car too, and this is a very very very remote,
remote backcountry site. We had stopped for the night in
(28:12):
a pretty much an empty small campground, away from away
from the from the coast, from the ocean, and and
so yes, at about ten pm, my buddy went to bed,
he went, he went into his tent which is in
the trees, and we were, my girlfriend and I were out
on the edge of a lake. We had a little
fire going and we were we were basically about to
(28:35):
sort of come in and sort of call it, call
it quits for the night. And suddenly, I mean I
didn't see, we didn't see anything, but we heard the
splash in the water right next to us. We were
like four or five feet away from from from the
edge of the water, and it was like this splash,
and we just kind of both sort of just stood
up and we thought that there was an animal swimming
(28:57):
or something like that in the water. But then there
was another splash and they were they were they were cerplunks,
So it was like plunch plunch, like at several second
intervals and like like quite loud, and you could almost
sort of hear stuff was falling from the sky basically,
and we weren't. We weren't below a cliff. We were like,
(29:17):
there was nothing, there was nothing that could have suggested
any rocks coming down a hillside or mountain. But and
we just sort of both looked at each other and
there was almost kind of moment. It's not not telepathy,
but we both kind of knew we had this moment
of unbelievable fear because we both knew that there was
large objects falling into the water next to us. It
(29:39):
was it was pitch black and and that and that
whatever was throwing them, there was something in the bushes
there like the whole time, because we had been we'd
been sitting out by the by the lakeside since dinner,
all of us, and so we ran back to the
tent and I mean, I was like I was completely
freaked out, and I'm like, you can't understand, you don't
understand this is happening. This is exactly what happens to everybody.
(30:01):
There's a sasquatcher, and I, you know, I kind of
reverted to this, like like all of the experiences, all
of the books, all of the stories, and we were
we were, we were in and we were that ecosystem
up there is essentially like the Great Bare Rainforce. It's
it's the exact same thing. And when we came into
the camp, we all kind of realized that, like there
was no sounds, there was no birds, there was no
(30:24):
squirrels or chipmunks. It was just completely dead quiet, and
everybody sort of remarked that, like there was something wrong
with the place. And I kind of made a bit
of a joke. I'm like, this is a bit like
some of the areas further up north in the Grape Bear,
and you know, we kind of made it. We called
it sasquatch, like we kind of made a joke. But
but by the time we ran back into the tent,
(30:45):
I was like completely I was completely freaked out. And
we were debriefing each other for like half an hour
and then and then at the half about about at
the half hour mark, we heard this massive commotion back
from where we came from at the lake. It almost
sounded like like noises at a construction site, like it
like it sounded like this banging, and it didn't. I'd
(31:08):
never heard a wood knock before, but it sounded almost
more like boulders being picked up and thrown against other boulders.
It sounded just it sounded like a construction site kind
of thing. And and it lasted for a few seconds,
and then I kind of was like, there's a I mean,
I didn't know any other way to explain it, and
I'm like, for sure, like there's something here, Like what
(31:29):
other explanation could there be? So basically I was up
the whole night. She fell asleep. She's like, ah, if
it was going to do something, it had come come,
did something to us a long time ago, and she
knocked out, and I was up till the morning, and
then this at first light, we packed up and we
got out of there. So I don't know, I mean,
this could all be my own, all my biases kind
of at play, but that happened. And the PostScript to
(31:53):
this was I told the publisher about it. So the
book hadn't come out yet, and and so there was
some discussion among the publisher and they at first they
were like the American publisher said, no, we're gonna We're
going to keep it as is. And then the Canadian publisher,
there's another publisher called Graystone, they bought the rights of
the book. They said, why don't you do a write
(32:14):
up for us about what happened and then we'll see
and then when I do, kind of as like a
like like one of the adenda to the book. But
then in the end they decided not to put it
in because I think they liked the idea of it
being ambiguous at the end.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
So but yeah, well, as far as ambiguity goes, it
doesn't sound like there's any ambiguity with you as far
as the reality these animals, right.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean, I'm generally of the perspective that there
is something to this phenomenon. I don't really kind of
when people ask me. I mean I talk to lots
of people who have no connection to the subject, and
when they ask me, I do tell them, yes, I do.
I do lean towards I am pretty much a proponent
that there is that there is a reality to this
(32:58):
kind of thing, and so so yeah, I mean, I guess,
I guess my sort of personal approach is I don't
really kind of try and convince anybody, And I think
that was part of the reason I wrote the book
in the way that I did. I kind of wanted
to do something that was different also from the point
of view of not kind of trying to convince anyone.
I just I sort of thought, well, if somebody is
(33:20):
able to sort of see the the reality in this,
then they will pursue it themselves kind of thing. So
I've yeah, I mean, I mean, I think the incident.
I think the incident at Cape Scott cemented things a
little bit more, even though I even though we didn't
quite see anything, I think I think that the noises
or the rocks falling or whatever, we're an indication enough.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Right now now if I'm if I'm remembering correctly, which
is always a big gamble with me. Well, you're a listener,
you know, my memory is kind of fuzzy. It seems
to me that you saw some doubt Uspha Prince. But
when you went up to this area, you went to
an area where footprints had been recorded, right, and and
uh they were smaller footprints, right, that's right. What are
(34:06):
your thoughts on the little people?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Then?
Speaker 3 (34:08):
The stick Indians like the because I know I never
even heard of those things when I first got into Bigfoot,
and I kind of stumbled upon this other cultural phenomenon,
I think in a lot of ways, of the little people,
What were your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
In all of the communities that I visited, they had
spoken about a smaller a smaller type of sasquatchuh child
size basically, and in Bella Bella it was particularly prevalent.
In in Bella Coola they had an actual name for it.
They called it the Books. And so I think some
(34:45):
earlier writers had confused the books with the larger sasquatch
type creature, where whereas in in in in Uh in
the New Hawk community they called that the syninic. And
so yeah, I don't know, in same same in Weak
can know in rivers Inlet as well up and Clem too.
So I'm not sure. I mean, I think I was
(35:06):
just I was wondering the whole time weather Perhaps maybe
they had confused the juveniles for a separate being. So
I don't know. I'm I'm a little bit unsure as
to whether whether the smaller creature is an actual juvenile,
that it's confused for something else, and they claim that
it is something in their culture. So I don't know,
(35:28):
I kind of I've just sort of left it at that.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
I think, yeah, yeah, well, if their child's size, I
think you're thought about them being juvenile sasquatches would be
spot on. But did you run across stories of like,
what do they call them? Maybe sick Indians? I know
they're called that in some areas where there's like people
like little people wearing like native garb, like one and
a half two feet tall or something like that.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
No, no, nothing, No, nothing like that at all.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Oh that's good because those I hope those don't exist.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, it was. I would I would say,
I would say the the ideas were fairly we're fairly
you know, conservative, and and and of the common variety
like none, I mean, dog men, mothmen and all of
that sort of newer stuff didn't didn't really exist up
in I mean, I know it was, it was, it
(36:17):
was a number of years ago, but they didn't really
seem to be kind of enamored by any of that
same with the UFOs.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, nor am I. I think I'm gonna stick with
what's really now as far as your trip goes, like
the one you based the book off of, how many
eyewitness reports would you guess you collected, like just put
a number on it, and it's close. That doesn't matter
to me.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
I would say probably three or four dozen or so. Yeah,
it's a bit strange, Like I figured, maybe perhaps rightly
that because it's such a remote area, it's so pristine.
I mean, I can't even begin to explain how really,
how how how wild the place is. I mean, it
(37:03):
probably is is it's it's equivalent to parts of Alaska
and everything. I mean, the automatic assumption was because of
the history and because of how wild it is, that
there would be so much But then at the same time,
it wasn't until later after I left that because the
area is so sparsely populated and because people travel in boats,
(37:24):
there isn't really a lot of road works up there.
I mean, there is, there is a main road coming
from the interior into Belluicula, but everyone else is kind
of and there are roads in the community, within the
communities themselves, but everybody uses boats and so the boats
are loud, they have engines, and and I think that
a lot of the sightings sort of tend to tend
(37:46):
to kind of happen when they're on land and in
outside of the community, which isn't often that much. So
I think I think in some kind of paradoxical way,
like there may have been less sighting and less reports
then you would get in a place like Ohio or
you hear about Massachusetts or Connecticut or any of these
(38:07):
places where people are more tightly packed in with them.
So and I've heard the stories. Some of the stories
were fifty years old, some had happened just the previous summer,
and so yeah, there were there were There were quite
a often just really kind of just things that were
in passing.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Did you find that the women, like the native women,
were a lot more afraid of them.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I would I would say there was an equal fear,
because again we've all heard this before about the stories,
the scare stories as growing up as kids. They were
I think they were all instilled with with a with
a with a caution or a fear of the animals.
So I would say they were all I would say,
male and female. They were quite fearful. I would say
(38:52):
I know of a few individuals and some of the
communities who are like pretty hardcore outdoors people and hunters,
and I think they're they're were incidents involving some of
these people where they had they knew that there was
one in the area and they just they took off.
So I think I think there is a I think
everybody's generally equally afraid.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and
Bobo will be right back after these messages.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Did you talk to even anyone that had any terrifying
encounters there, because it sounds like it was all kind
of benign stuff for the most besides rocks being thrown.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah, I know, so yeah, so, And I've I've got
some of those stories in the book. And I mean
there were there were a lot of there were a
lot of cabin attack type of sort of encounters and stories,
and so I've got some of those in the book
where they were just like bang on the cabins at
night and everything. And because the different nations have got
(39:51):
these these these back country cabins on their territory that
they can use when they're out, and they also they
also take the kids there on trips and they do
camping trips for the weekend. And so one of the
one of the big stories involved a woman in Ballabella
who took you know, Heltziic youth at risk Heltic youth
(40:13):
on these on these camping trips basically to kind of
help to you know, part of the idea is to you know,
reforming kind of people who are who are involved in
you know, in in who are doing things, young people
who are who are kind of maybe involved in in
in crime or whatever. Is to is to take them
out into nature and to teach them about their culture
(40:33):
and everything. So there was one story where several preteen
girls went with a couple of adults to one of
the cabins to look a really really active inlet. Look
at this this this crazy uh fjord like inlet about
an hour's boat ride from Ballabella. And as soon as
(40:54):
they arrived they saw one they saw a sasquatch standing
at the edge of the shore and it was they
described it as and it was like a group report.
Basically they'd all seen it like a kind of a
like like like you hear about these like really muscular
bigfoots that everybody keeps talking about. The really the the
(41:14):
cut ones, the musk. This was kind of like a
lanky Chewbacca type one. But and they they basically ran
into the cabin, and the creature eventually went away, but
then came back later that night and basically kind of
almost taunted them or terrified them the whole night by
you know, crawling under the cabin, which was on stilts,
(41:34):
and scratching and knocking, and the smell of the creature
kind of wafted up through the through the seed or
floorboards into the cabin and this this whole drama ensued basically,
and so and that was the next morning that you know,
one of one of one of the adults eventually went
outside and shot off. He fired his gun, and the
(41:56):
creature went away, and then they left at first light basically.
But you do get a handful of these really kind
of dramatic, lengthy kind of encounter stories, and they do
tend to involve those those backcountry cabins in the territories.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Basically, they love to like psychologically torture people. They're masters
at intimidation, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Well that's that's what it sounded like. And and and
there was another There was another story that I put
in the appendix of the book about about a young
guy nineteen years old who again he was he was
he was part of that restorative justice program with the Heltzik.
He had I guess he had done something wrong, and
(42:39):
part of the I guess his his penalty was to
spend time in isolation at one of the cabins. Right
so where they were, they would, you know, in a
humane kind of way, they would go check on him
and bring him food and stuff and everything. But I
think what ended up happening was whatever whatever creature was
in the area had become acclimatized to his presence and
(43:00):
and just started to bother him and bother him, so
that when the adult person came back to check on him,
he was he he was just like, get me the
hell out of here, get me out of here. There's
something here, there's something here. And then when the when,
the when the woman didn't believe him, thinking that he
wanted to kind of just an excuse to come back,
he went look and he pointed up at the at
the cabin and at the like ten or twelve foot
(43:21):
mark off the ground, there was a huge handprint on
the on the side on the side of the wall
kind of thing. So yeah, there's there's there's a lot
of drama. There's a lot of drama with some of
the reports. Some of them are really fleeting, like in
you know, the cross the road type thing, but then
you get these you get these longer ones that that
come out of the woodwork. And and essentially that's what
(43:43):
happened when I went on my first trip there to
do the magazine story. One of those big drama stories
had just unfolded at the youth at a at one
of the summer youth camps, and the whole community was buzzing.
And I think that's that was the story that had
pulled me in and had made me realize like, oh,
I really have to come back, and I have to
(44:05):
come back and and and write about this and and
investigate more for myself.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
So this youth camp story, how how long before you
arrive did it occur?
Speaker 2 (44:15):
It had happened I think several about a month or
four weeks or something, so it had just taken place,
and and you know, I was I just made you know,
I was there to write a travel piece. But then
I just figured I would just ask like, hey, like
anything happening from from the Sasquatch point of view, Like
(44:35):
I know this is Bellabella, Like in my mind, I'm
like I'm remembering John Green's books, and they all just
sort of stopped and looked at each other and were
like told me, like, yeah, like just something just happened.
And then there's a there's a really remote the whole
area is remote. I shouldn't even say, but there's like
there's an extra remote river system called the Quaya River,
which is on the mainland coast. Bellabella's on an island,
(44:58):
So just to these south east of Bellabela is this
very traditional sacred area called the Quay River Valley hasn't
been hasn't been commercially logged, and maybe is the most
intact river system maybe in potentially among them in BC.
And so they take their kids there every summer to
(45:19):
do to do ecology and cultural stuff, and there's been
activity there. At the time of my twenty twelve and
twenty thirteen visit, there had been a lot of activity
there for successive summers and including like including appearances of
the animals both in the youth camp which is down
(45:42):
by the river and even in the councilor's sort of
some of the other buildings further up, kind of on
the hill kind of thing. So that's one of the
stories that kind of brought me out there, was hearing
about that and going wow, and then hearing the same
thing and all the other communities.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Are you still in touch with any of the people
that you stayed with or visited with, or any of
the witnesses to this day and has the activity continued.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, So that's a very interesting question. So the short
answer is yes, in that I've been going back there
almost every year, because when I started writing the book,
I wanted to make sure that I not only just
went in twenty twelve for two weeks in twenty thirteen
for the summer, I wanted to really immerse myself in
(46:32):
the community and under just I really wanted to understand
and soak up the place. It's kind of a bit
like like actors getting into their role a little bit.
So I basically have gone back every year and become
friends with a lot of not just the eye some
of the eyewitnesses, but also other people in the community
who I became friends with, And I was even there
last I went back to Bella Bella last year in
(46:55):
September twenty twenty three, and I did. I did a
camping trip with a couple of friends from the community
there to a very very very very remote place that
very few people even in Bellabella get to go to.
And and yes, so when I was there last September,
there was a footprint report that went viral on the
(47:20):
Bella Bella Facebook social media kind of network or whatever.
And and even on previous trips when I went up there,
I'd heard stories from other people, including non and including
a non indigenous. I'd heard about a non indigenous couple
who had seen one running from the water on the
beach into into the forest just south of just south
(47:43):
of Bellabella. Basically, so, I mean, it does continue. What
I what what they do tell me though there is
that it sort of comes in waves. I don't know
what to make of that. There they said that there
are some some periods where it's really quiet and then
all of a sudden it gets busy again. And so
my twenty twelve trip happened on a busy period, which
(48:03):
is why I got all of the activity in all
of the communities. Perhaps there was a virality to the
stories that maybe it kind of maybe it caused some
people to conclude that they'd seen a sasquatch or heard
one in the other communities, when in fact they hadn't.
There's the whole psychology piece as well, obviously, But yes,
it still goes on up there, and I imagine if
(48:25):
I was to go back and spend any time again,
you'd hear about something for sure.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Now, having taken a few dozen reports, I think it's
safe to say, as you've mentioned, do you see any
trends or patterns in them? And things like, I don't know,
just shoot from the hipier time of day habitat, which
of course is skewed by the human presence of course,
you know, because they're only seeing where humans are.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
I know from listening to your podcast, you're really you're
I mean rightly, so you're very interested now and kind
of deducing from the stories, and I mean they tended
to be a lot of little things. I would say,
I'm little for me, but just things like the creatures
are the animals like squatting and kind of like hugging
a tree to kind of remain concealed whatever. There were
(49:15):
a lot of that sort of thing. There were a
lot of stories about them being agitated, pacing back and
forth and back and forth and back and forth and
back and forth like that kind of stuff, and just
sort of smaller behavioral things, and a lot of them
the cabin encounters tended to be very, like I said earlier,
kind of almost taunting, psychological like. In one case, the
(49:38):
guy described it as almost like the thing taking its
hand and kind of just with its fingernails brushing along
the side of the wood on the outside, kind of
almost like just dragging its nails like little things like that.
And yeah, I mean, those are the sorts of things
that I that I kind of heard time and again.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Well, those are the cool things that the subtle behaviors,
and and they're they're to me at least, because you know,
running across the road isn't that exciting to me? After
we got the reports. Honestly, it's the stuff like, oh,
how can the tree squatting down? That's cool stuff, that's rat.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
They do that horror it's like horror movie. They really
did things that you see in horror movies, like dragged
one fingernails on the side of a tent or a wall,
you know, tapping, you know, like little things that seemed
somewhat innocuous, but they're super creepy when they when they're
happening in the dark out the woods.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
Yeah, yeah, there there were, There were a lot of
there were. There were quite a number of stories around
the wintertime around clam digging and being out there at
the middle of the night for low tide, and about
about about the animals being really protective and really defensive
(50:49):
about their clam beaches and chasing people out and be
like the more aggressive stories of aggressive sasquatches revolved around
clam beaches and about protect their resources. That seemed to
be a very recur That was a recurring story among
a lot of the people there.
Speaker 4 (51:07):
Did you hear any bear sasquatch interaction stories?
Speaker 2 (51:11):
No, nothing like that. I mean, somebody had mentioned that
because it's grizzly, hardcore grizzly territory, the valleys or the
water sheds where there tended to be a lot of grizzly,
there tended to be not a lot of sasquatch and
vice versa. But obviously I can't I mean, I can't
make sense. I couldn't confirm. But that's what that's what
(51:32):
more than a few people told me, and I heard
that a lot in Bella.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
Coola that there's a mutual avoidance between those two species.
Mm hmm, Well, I don't don't suppose you would know
about their thoughts on a similar matter, the presence of
black bears and sasquatches.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
No, that yeah, that that didn't really that didn't come
up as as any kind of pattern. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
I guess if there's grizzlies in the neighborhood, that probably
eclipses the presence of black bears in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
You know, did you did you ask them about those
old John Green stories, like what was it Charlie, Charlie
Mack or Clayton Mac.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah. So I met Clayton Mac's son on the twenty
twelve trip, the magazine trip again again part of that
whole serendipitous thing. I was out kind of exploring with
one of the locals in the community and he was
in his truck. We just went up to him, and
then the guy that I was with told me, oh,
that's Clayton's son. So yeah, I knew. I've met a
(52:26):
lot of people who who were related to Clayton because
there's so much sort of interrelated family sort of links
between those communities, and and heard a lot of stories
about about Clayton and everything from people who I mean,
I even spent time with his Clayton has a nephew
who goes by the name of Little Obie in Bella
(52:48):
Coola and he pulled out his cast collection for me
and showed me all the casts that he had cast
it himself in Bella Coola. And when you're there, it's
like you you tap into it's like you top the vein.
It's like it's it's it's all there, and it's all
there available for you. So and in Clem too, I
did actually meet I guess he was an elder.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
He was.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
He'd met John Green and Bob Titmas believe it or not,
when when when Green and Titmus used to travel the
North Coast together. He remembered Titmas and told me about him.
This was again on the twenty twelve trip. So yeah,
a lot of a lot of that history is still
is still there circulating in the community.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
Well, you know, we can talk to you for hours
and hours and hours, but I would like to squeeze
another hour out of you if you wouldn't mind ad
over our members section, hear more about your trips and
your your insights and and of course Matt Prude is
chomping at the bit. He has a whole laundry list
of questions to ask you. So if you wouldn't mind
sticking around for a member section, we really really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Sounds good and of.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Course for people listening, if you're curious about the member section,
it's a five dollars a month thing. It's a Patreon deal.
There'll be a link in the show notes and basically
what you get you get an extra hour of Cliff
and Bobo and Matt Preuitt. It always joins us for
the conversation as well. We do Q and a's, we
do special member events sort of things. You know, like
you guys, there's a lot of cool things going on.
(54:09):
But also also besides just what you get on the
extra hour a week that you get to hear us,
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part of our Beyond Bigfoot and Beyond community.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
Yeah, I was gonna have a million questions for you too, John,
But I haven't actually read your Bookkeet. I'm embarrassed to say,
because I've heard nothing but outstanding reviews of it and
I got to read it now excellent.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
I'd be very happy to hear your take on it.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
Yeah, of course you can get it at pretty pretty
much everywhere, but also I want to point out you
can get at the NABC store as well, so we'll
put that link in the show notes as well.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Thanks so much, guys for having me on. It was
real pleasure.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
Thanks for coming on, and of course thank you also,
oddly enough for being a listener of the podcast. I
mean I say it all the time in the podcast,
I legitimately forget there's anybody listening. I'm just hanging out
with you know, Bobo and Matt and whoever our guests is.
Speaker 4 (55:09):
So okay, folks, That was John Zada. Thanks so much
for joining us, John, and we're going to join them
now in the Patreon sess. So, thank you all for listening,
and y'all keep it squatchy.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Bigfoot and Beyond.
If you liked what you heard, please rate and review
us on iTunes, subscribe to Bigfoot and Beyond wherever you
get your podcasts, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram
at Bigfoot and Beyond podcast. You can find us on
Twitter at Bigfoot and Beyond that's an N in the middle,
(55:46):
and tweet us your thoughts and questions with the hashtag
Bigfoot and Beyond.
Big Food and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo. These guys
are a fav It's so like say subscribe and read
it five.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Star and me.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Greatest con ques today and listening a watchy limb always
keep its watching.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
And now your host's Cliff Berrickman and James Bubo Fay. Okay,
let's jump into our guests, and we're very very pleased
to have on with us. John Zada. He's an author,
he's a photographer, he's a man of the world, a traveler,
intergalactic traveler. Perhaps I don't know. We'll get into that
in a minute. But he has written a fantastic book
that has come back to my attention called in the
(00:48):
Valleys of the Noble Beyond. Actually wrote it a number
of years ago, and I'll tell you, man, it is exquisite.
This is going to be a great episode because this
book is fantastic. I'm about halfway through reading it. I
kind of forgot about it and got back to it.
But he published his book back in twenty nineteen, and
let's let's bring John on and you can tell us
about it. So Bigfoot and Beyond audience, welcome John Zeta. John,
(01:10):
thank you so much for coming on Bigfoot and Beyond
with us, guys.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Good John, Hi guys, thanks for having me on. Happy
to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh it's great, It's great, And I was astonished to
find out you're actually listened to us.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I am a long standing original from day one fan
of the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yes, indeed, Oh my god, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
That's how a little shocking was. So, so let's bunch
you here. You're like, no way, I.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Mean, I only I only listened to three podcasts. One
is you guys, the other one is a podcast about
spies and espionage, and then the third one is about
writing and self publishing, and so it's you're You're the
three that I that I go to for podcast listening. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Well that's fantastic. Thank you very much for your kindness
and support. Appreciate it. Yeah, And of course the reason
we're having you on is, you know, is your book
in the Valley of the Well Beyond. Now, as I'm
reading this book and a begain, I'm a little over
halfway through at this moment. And again I apologize to
you before we started recording, because you actually gave me
a copy of this book a little while ago and
(02:12):
it just ended up in one of my two do piles,
and I never got to it until I realized, oh, shoot,
got to have it on pru It's ranting how great
this book is, and so I picked it up again,
and I'll say, man, it is a very well written book.
It is fantastic and one of the things I like
about it it kind of reminds me of doctor Bob
Piles book, right, because you're not I mean, you're a bigfooter,
(02:36):
certainly because you're doing this about Bigfoot, but you're not
like the standard Bigfoot, the standard squadh or that I
think we have today. You approach this almost more of
a naturalist sort of way. It reminds me of the
great writers of the nineteenth century, when before science was
really a thing and people call themselves naturalists, and it's
more almost about an exploration of the subject, the animals
(02:57):
and the locations, and it's just so beautifully written and
just so hats off to you or heads off to
you or whatever I was gonna say. So, yeah, so
tell us about how this book came about a boot boots.
You're a Canadian, right.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So yeah, you're gonna you're going to hear more than
your fair share of a boots. But it's a bit
of a lifelong sort of backstory that there's there's, there's
the stuff that happened before and then the more recent events.
But let me just say I started in this area,
or my interest began in my preteen years. I was
(03:35):
an avid reader of John Green's books, and he's if
for those who who are still at this point don't
know who John Green is, he was a journalist who
lived in Harrison, Hot Springs, British Columbia. He was the
mayor of the town for a bit and he wrote
for the newspaper there. He was the first, I mean
real kind of significant journalistic compiler of eyewitness reports, and
(03:59):
not just in the British Columbia area, but then he
was He basically wrote about North America in general, and
so I fell in love with his books, found them
at the library. I was an early reader, so the
adult level, I guess pros wasn't really a huge obstacle
for me, and that really kind of kicked it off.
And but what ended up happening was later on, as
(04:21):
I got into my twenties, after having sort of left
the subject a bit behind, I kind of got dragged
back into it, and there was sort of a series
of events that took place, and I kind of mentioned
them in the book as the backstory of this journey.
But essentially, I was at work one day. I had
this kind of joe job, and one of my friends
(04:43):
at the job came up to me and he said,
you know, one of our colleagues, her name was Calm.
She was like an executive assistant secretary, had come back
from a long weekend a few hours north of Toronto,
and she had claimed to have seen something crossing the
road at night. And my friend, who was at the
job at me knew that I'd had this sort of
passing interest, this old childhood interest in the Sasquatch. So
(05:06):
I went to Carmen and I'm like, you know, tell
me what has happened, right, And she didn't want to
talk to me. She didn't want to talk about it.
She was like, no, no, nothing. She denied that she
had told anyone anything. But as time passed, she did
eventually speak with me and essentially told me that her
and her boyfriend were driving up in the sort of
cottage country area in an area and you're Callingwood, Ontario,
(05:29):
just sort of north of the city, and she had
seen what she described as this tall, hairy, gigantic, monstrous
fur covered man crossing the road at the stop sign
when they stopped. And she knew nothing about sasquatch, knew
nothing about bigfoot. She grew up in this really kind
of sheltered Italian traditional family. This was before Google and
(05:52):
before like any of this stuff exploded on the Internet.
So I was kind of a bit shocked. And she
described the creature as shuffling cross the road like doing
taking these sort of like these very fluid movements. And
once I heard that, I knew that this was not
something that she imagined or made up, and that essentially
(06:12):
pulled me back into the subject. And then from there
I attended a Sasquatch symposium in Vancouver in nineteen ninety nine,
where I met a lot of these sort of big
original characters from the world of bigfooting, from Renee to Hinden,
to Grover Krantz to John Bindernagel, who I eventually became
(06:37):
kind of pals with. Basically because at the Sasquatch symposium,
I was doing documentary work at the time, was early
in the journalism career, and I decided, you know, I'd
like to really do like a documentary film about this
subject and about John. So him and I began a
kind of a friendship and he came to Ontario a
bunch of times to investigate Ontario Reports and I filmed
(06:59):
him and the documentary never got made. But that was
sort of the pore sort of middle phase of my interest.
And then now segueing into the book, I later you
went from from video and documentary and doing TV stuff
to becoming a writer, like an actual you know, like
a print and online writer. And the way things happened
(07:22):
with the book was I went on a press trip
in twenty twelve to an area of the north and
central coast of BC called the Great Bear Rainforest, and
it's essentially a coastal temperate rainforest region that is about
maybe the size of three or four Olympic National Parks,
(07:43):
really big trees, grizzly bears, whales, a lot of First
Nations communities in there. And I went out there to
essentially do an adventure piece for a magazine. And I mean,
in the back of my mind, I knew that I
was going to Bella Bella and Bella Coula and clem
To and all these places that John Green had mentioned
(08:04):
in his book and had visited on several occasions. But
what I didn't expect or realize when I got to
these communities and it was going to be a two
week trip, was as soon as I got there, the
towns were completely absorbed in a bunch of recent Sasquatch reports.
And it wasn't just I landed in Bellabella and that's
(08:27):
where the trip began, but it was happening in all
three communities. And to make a long story short, you know,
my interest and passion was reignited, and I didn't do
so much traveling or kind of investigating the adventure travel
aspects as I did. You know, I began investigating the
Sasquatch reports, and by the end of the two week trip,
(08:49):
I didn't want to leave, and I was like, oh man,
I got to come back. I got to come back
and write about this in a longer form, in a
longer format. And that's when I made the decision at
the end of the trip in twenty two that I
would come back and do an entire summer long trip
and write about it in a kind of a narrative,
nonfiction sort of way, with characters and dialogue and plot,
(09:12):
and that's the genre of the book that you refer to.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Basically, stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff
and Bobo will be right back after these messages. You know, Bobes,
squatching season is in full swing and I can't help
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Speaker 4 (11:08):
Are you at the ninety nine conference?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I was at the ninety nine conference?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Oh man, I was so bund to miss that. I
thought it was in the news, and I was like, God,
I could have went to that if I had known
about it.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
All sorts of Yeah. I mean, all the kind of
major characters were there. So I kind of feel a
little bit like I just sort of tapped into that
history part a little bit.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Oh that's so cool. You know, everybody on the on
the line right now is super interested in Bigfoot history,
and you know at events like this because it was
so quiet at the time, and now you know, you
you throw a rock and you're probably gonna take down
a couple of sasquatch conventions, you know. But at that
time they were very, very rare, and everybody who was
(11:48):
in the game at the time either was there or
wanted to be there. It's really really cool that you
had a chance to go do that before everything blossomed
into what it is now, if that's the right term.
So back to the book here a little bit. There
is a certain tinge I guess of travelogue in the
book as far as the writing flavor, But again, I
(12:10):
really do see it as more of a naturalist sort
of perspective on things, a holistic maybe not an outsider,
but a holistic I'll say outsider, but that's not quite
the word I'm looking for, and holistic outsiders perspective on this.
What are your big takeaways after spending a summer up
in that area where sasquatch sidings are probably pretty common,
(12:32):
I would imagine, just part of the environment, part of
the natural landscape there. What are your big takeaways and
what surprised you and what didn't surprise you about spending
time up there amongst the native communities in these places.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, and just before I answer, I mean, I think
that's a good point that you'd made earlier, that the
that the book is multi layered. I am and was
a travel writer prior to taking the book on, So
I did. I did really want to not only write
a book that would explore the Sasquatch phenomenon, but would
sort of look at the nature the First Nations culture,
(13:07):
the history of the area, the geography of the area,
and so I mean, in terms of things that surprised me,
one of the things that surprised me was I was
expecting the indigenous communities to be generally unanimous about their
take on the phenomenon, meaning that that almost everybody would
believe in them or think that they exist, or you know.
(13:30):
But in fact, there was a lot of there was
quite a lot of people who didn't actually, and I
wouldn't say that they're that they were the majority, but
I would say that I learned to not take it
for granted that the citizens of these communities all had
the same position. I mean, I think I think it's
like a lot of people, either indigenous or non indigenous
(13:51):
who spend a lot of time in the back country,
you know, and are really good at what they do
in terms of in terms of navigating the back country.
If if they haven't seen it one themselves, they think, well,
it couldn't possibly exist. So there were quite a bit
of people who did sort of tell me not, it's
all kind of a it's all kind of a story
or so that kind of caught me a bit off guard.
(14:14):
And also it was really a lot of flesh and
blood type perspectives up there as well, Whereas I also
kind of came in with the assumption that there'd be
a lot of the sort of the spiritual, the mystical,
the sort of the pseudo religious. I was actually quite
surprised by how many people were just pretty much yet it's,
(14:35):
you know, among the among those who did know about
the animal and did you know, support its existence, that
it was flesh and blood, and you don't really get
a lot of the a lot of the WU or
the UFO stuff mixing it up there. It's it's it's
pretty it's pretty sober, pretty sober minded takes, I would say.
And I think maybe that's just because a lot of
(14:55):
the people who were pro Bigfoot have seen that, and
they're like, it's definitely an animal.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Well, it might have something I'm just kind of hypothesizing here.
It might have something to do with just the necessary
practicality of living in those places, you know, like it's
they they are fishing, you know, for a lot of
their meals, or hunting, they're they're they're just living, you know,
They're doing what they need to do to live and
get by and and do what they do in their environment.
That's the people are. And I think I find people
(15:24):
like that are very much more prone to just accepting
that these are normal animals who are cool or weird
in various ways, but like just perfectly normal animals, as
opposed to the people who are attracted to the more
paranormal side of things, who are very often you know,
deeply religious, and then fit these animals into their scheme
of there or you know, or or a prone to
(15:47):
paranormal proclivities or horoscope driven or crystal crystal wearing folks
and all that sort of stuff, just like it's a
much more practical lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I think, No, absolutely absolutely, and I mean I would
even I would even say that it was shocking even
to the extent to which it was considered normal by
some people. It was it was almost like it some
people wouldn't bat an eyelash if someone reported a sighting
in in their presence or like if the subject came up.
It was almost like they were talking about like vegetables
(16:18):
in their garden kind of thing. It's it was, so
it was it was almost considered mundane in some cases.
So I was in some cases they were even laughing
at me a little bit that I was coming up here.
And you know, you know, there there were some there
were some difficult issues facing the communities revolving There was
there was a big fire that had burnt down one
of the band stores in Bella Bella, and they were
(16:41):
they were also doing battle with some big oil companies
that wanted to build pipelines up up the coast. And
people were actually taking me to task for like, well,
you know, we're into big Foot two, but why are
you here like writing about that. You can be writing
about like the politics or like, you know, the difficulties
that we're experiencing because the outside world doesn't know about us.
And so there was there was a bit of actually
a little bit of tension around that when I first
(17:03):
arrived in Bella Bella, and that was part of the
plot of the story, was you know, the communities accepting
you and and and having to gain their trust, and
the faux pause, and you know, the mistakes that I
had made in terms of ingratiating myselves, especially among the
Heltzok in Balabella, which was which I sort of made
(17:23):
part of the hurdles and the challenges in the in
the you know, in the quest theme of the story,
I would say, yea, I.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Would imagine getting in would be the very very difficult,
slow process because any sort of small rural community like that,
that would be the case. But when you add the
native element, the First Nations people who I mean, I
live in America, of course, and god knows, our government
screwed him over really bad. I'm assuming Canada did the
same thing to their native population. Generally speaking, I don't
(17:50):
know the history up there necessarily, but I imagine as
much a matter. Yeah, just complicate things, right, Yeah, So
you felt you were pretty successful with getting in at
least with a small number of people, who, of course,
once you know one or two people, they start talking
to their friends. Oh he's cool. You can talk to him.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, that's yeah, that's that's exactly what happened. I was
really lucky in that I had, you know, social media
in a sense, save the day. Had I gone there
decades earlier, it would have been more of a just
showing up on the front door. But I just networked
a bit. And because I had, you know, I guess
when you work as a journalist and as a as
a documentarian or what you you kind of learned to
(18:31):
introduce yourself to people and everything. So I basically got
in with one of the characters in the book. Her
name is Alvina, an older I guess, matriarch in the
community who's well respected. She had a bed and breakfast.
So I basically stayed with her during my time in
Bella Bella, and it was in a sce. She almost
she pretty much adopted me. I was almost like like
(18:52):
a family member, and so she put in a lot
of good words for me. And as soon as as
soon as people knew that I was staying with her,
it earned me a little bit of respect because you know,
generally people who go up there will stay, you know,
in the more to you know, I guess, like the
lodge or the more tourist they accommodations that they were
a bit shocked that I actually stayed in the community,
(19:13):
and that had a knock on benefit as well, in
that she connected me with a whole bunch of people
who had reports. And so basically what happened was and
this is this goes to answer your earlier question about
the takeaways and the surprises. Was that And I don't
know if this is some kind of a serendipitous thing
(19:34):
that happens in small towns or if it's a West
Coast thing, because I mean, I'm an eastern Er basically,
but it was just incredible. And I wrote about it
in the book that the minute you start to kind
of investigate something, or you go you speak to somebody
about a report, or you follow something up, and then
it just one thing leads to the other, to the next,
to the other, and you're basically connecting all these dots,
(19:55):
and there's this kind of almost synchronicity, serendipity that happens
where you just sort of you're on this kind of
stream that kind of takes you from one report or
siding or place or venue to the next, and then
which spanned the different towns. It didn't just happen within
Bella Bella. It just like I would I would meet somebody,
So for instance, I'd be in balabell and somebody whould
(20:17):
talk about some person in Bellakula who had a story
or whatever, and then I would just like meet them
by accident on the ferry or it. Just the entire
trip was that, and I devoted a little section to
explain that. But it's so hard to put into writing
that kind of sort of stream of consciousness happening that
(20:37):
is life. And so I ended up with so much
more material that I was than I was even able
to write in the book, and left me with with
with I mean, I really had to kind of sift
and pick and choose all the different things that would
go in because you couldn't really write forever.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Well, when you're flowing with life, you know, life encourages
you along the way. I just to me, I've always
taken that as, yeah, I must be on the right
track because weird things are happening exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, we very much felt that way.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Now, I'm something that you mentioned a little while ago.
I'm so glad you did. You mentioned that the the
lack of homogeneous perspective on sasquatches, you know, like that,
like people view them in various ways, and imagine, you know,
some are probably a little bit more culturally invested in it,
or perhaps a cultural perspective on the animals. Some are
just like, oh, that's the thing that here, that lives here.
(21:27):
We don't eat them, so we're not going to worry
about them. That sort of stuff. And imagine a few
people have troublesome sasquatches. Everyone's more as scares them or
something like that. I'm glad you mentioned that because I've
heard people say blanket statements that I find to be
ridiculous and stereotypical, like I believe what natives believe. It's like, well,
I mean, you know you can't do that. That that's
that's a weird. That's a weird thing to say. I
(21:51):
It's like saying I believe what construction You know, workers
say you believe that, Well, how do you know what
they believe?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
You talk to?
Speaker 3 (21:57):
You know, natives are as folks. You talk to ten
of a marity fifteen perspectives on it. There're just folks.
And I'm glad that you mentioned that because there is
no in my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong. There is
no quote unquote Native perspective on it because it comes
down to individuals. I mean, there's cultural perspectives, but did
you run into anybody? And I have, which is why
I'm bringing this up. I've run into some trouble with
(22:20):
Native elders who are actively discouraging me not to be
interested in sasquatches for the good of sasquatches. Did you
run into anything like that?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I was a little bit. I was also a little
bit shocked about how open people were talking about it.
And I'm not just saying this because it's you guys
and it's this show, but I think the Finding Bigfoot
series did a lot to remove some of the taboos,
if not many of them, And so a lot of
people said that they'd watched the show and everything, So
(22:51):
I think in that sense there was a lot of openness.
I think where there was a little bit of caution,
and it wasn't just from elders. It was from some
of the younger people too. But among the younger people
who are slated to become elders, I would say that
the more the more culturally engaged younger people in the
community was that you know, we don't really kind of
(23:13):
go looking for them, you know what I mean, we
don't like chase them, we don't hunt them, we don't
make calls, we don't do the wood Knox or whatever.
It was sort of more they were kind of like saying,
you know, it's really cool that you're here to ask
us about this, and it's really you know, and we're
happy to kind of share and everything and to tell
you our beliefs and our experiences. But I think it
was it was sort of more the there was sort
(23:35):
of this idea that going in pursuit of them in
terms of actual field pursuit kind of thing, and I
guess they were thinking in terms of the whole kind
of stereotypical the Camo thing and like out on expedition
was a little bit sort of disrespectful. And they said
that for us, and I'm quoting actually directly here somebody
(23:55):
he said, for us, they come to you, they find you,
and if it happens to you than than than good
or depending on the community. Ill, there are different views
on that as well, but we generally don't kind of
really go in pursuit of it. And maybe that kind
of also goes back to what we're saying before about
how normal it is, and maybe they don't really have
(24:15):
they don't really have a need to in a sense
because not just because it's in their culture and because
they live with it. But I think, I think this
now kind of gets into a bit of the philosophical
But I my sense later after thinking about it, was
maybe they don't pursue it in the same way that
some of us on the outside do because they live
in the general atmosphere of I don't know what to
(24:38):
call it, like a super charged mystical that that kind
of that kind of magic and that energy that we
associate with sasquatch interpenetrates the ecosystem there. So in a sense,
it's it's it's kind of always there. You kind of
always feel it there, and that that's sort of the
understanding that I took from from it after leaving, was
(25:00):
that it's actually everywhere you look. The word that you
guys use, the term squatchy, right, It's a part of
their everyday life there, And so yeah, I don't know,
I guess, I guess. I guess in a way, in
addition to their sacredness around the subject, it's just always
there for them, and so they don't really have a
need to sort of pursue it as much. I suppose,
(25:20):
I don't know. That's just a kind of a guess
on my part.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Oh yeah, I totally get it. I totally get it.
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and
Bogo will be right back after these messages. So you
briefly mentioned almost like a teaser there, there's there's so
much stuff that didn't even make the book. Now that
(25:45):
the book is out, do you regret Are there any
thing specific stories that you regret not putting in or
perhaps you would want to put in another volume if
you ever pinned one of those?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well, I mean I put in the stories that I
that were the most dramatic, I would say, for sure,
because I had to make a cut. But I guess
it's I mean, it has occurred to me to to
do something with all of the little bits and pieces.
I think a lot of I think a lot of
the material were we're sort of shorter encounters, more more
brief type of of engagements with the creatures. Then then
(26:18):
then the longer So no, I mean, I in a way,
in a way, part of The difficulty in with writing
a book is that part of it is the writing,
but then you spend a lot of time editing and
cutting stuff out, and so in a sense, no, I mean,
I made some hard decisions about material to leave out,
but I think I left just enough of the more
(26:40):
dramatic stuff in that I thought would be interesting to readers,
and so the rest is the rest, I guess will
just sort of remain in my mind. I don't. I don't.
I'm not sure whether there there would be kind of
an occasion to write something else about it.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Didn't you have your the rock throwing incident right after
you went to publication, like a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, So after I signed off on the final edit,
so we basically had kind of we've done the back
and forth with the with the editor, the publisher. So
there was a publisher in New York called Grove Atlantic.
They picked the book up, and so they were fairly
sort of conservative about the whole take. I think I
think they were content with with the fact that I
(27:26):
that I wasn't really pushing the Bigfoot hypothesis on the
reader kind of thing. And so when we'd finished editing,
I was here in British Columbia. I had gone on
a on a camping trip with my girlfriend and a
buddy of mine to a place called Cape Scott Provincial Park,
(27:49):
which is on the very northwest tip of Vancouver Island.
It is it's essentially the draw of of the park,
as is camp sites on the beach, basically on the Pacific.
But so what happened was on the way back to
the car too, and this is a very very very remote,
remote backcountry site. We had stopped for the night in
(28:12):
a pretty much an empty small campground, away from away
from the from the coast, from the ocean, and and
so yes, at about ten pm, my buddy went to bed,
he went, he went into his tent which is in
the trees, and we were, my girlfriend and I were out
on the edge of a lake. We had a little
fire going and we were we were basically about to
(28:35):
sort of come in and sort of call it, call
it quits for the night. And suddenly, I mean I
didn't see, we didn't see anything, but we heard the
splash in the water right next to us. We were
like four or five feet away from from from the
edge of the water, and it was like this splash,
and we just kind of both sort of just stood
up and we thought that there was an animal swimming
(28:57):
or something like that in the water. But then there
was another splash and they were they were they were cerplunks,
So it was like plunch plunch, like at several second
intervals and like like quite loud, and you could almost
sort of hear stuff was falling from the sky basically,
and we weren't. We weren't below a cliff. We were like,
(29:17):
there was nothing, there was nothing that could have suggested
any rocks coming down a hillside or mountain. But and
we just sort of both looked at each other and
there was almost kind of moment. It's not not telepathy,
but we both kind of knew we had this moment
of unbelievable fear because we both knew that there was
large objects falling into the water next to us. It
(29:39):
was it was pitch black and and that and that
whatever was throwing them, there was something in the bushes
there like the whole time, because we had been we'd
been sitting out by the by the lakeside since dinner,
all of us, and so we ran back to the
tent and I mean, I was like I was completely
freaked out, and I'm like, you can't understand, you don't
understand this is happening. This is exactly what happens to everybody.
(30:01):
There's a sasquatcher, and I, you know, I kind of
reverted to this, like like all of the experiences, all
of the books, all of the stories, and we were
we were, we were in and we were that ecosystem
up there is essentially like the Great Bare Rainforce. It's
it's the exact same thing. And when we came into
the camp, we all kind of realized that, like there
was no sounds, there was no birds, there was no
(30:24):
squirrels or chipmunks. It was just completely dead quiet, and
everybody sort of remarked that, like there was something wrong
with the place. And I kind of made a bit
of a joke. I'm like, this is a bit like
some of the areas further up north in the Grape Bear,
and you know, we kind of made it. We called
it sasquatch, like we kind of made a joke. But
but by the time we ran back into the tent,
(30:45):
I was like completely I was completely freaked out. And
we were debriefing each other for like half an hour
and then and then at the half about about at
the half hour mark, we heard this massive commotion back
from where we came from at the lake. It almost
sounded like like noises at a construction site, like it
like it sounded like this banging, and it didn't. I'd
(31:08):
never heard a wood knock before, but it sounded almost
more like boulders being picked up and thrown against other boulders.
It sounded just it sounded like a construction site kind
of thing. And and it lasted for a few seconds,
and then I kind of was like, there's a I mean,
I didn't know any other way to explain it, and
I'm like, for sure, like there's something here, Like what
(31:29):
other explanation could there be? So basically I was up
the whole night. She fell asleep. She's like, ah, if
it was going to do something, it had come come,
did something to us a long time ago, and she
knocked out, and I was up till the morning, and
then this at first light, we packed up and we
got out of there. So I don't know, I mean,
this could all be my own, all my biases kind
of at play, but that happened. And the PostScript to
(31:53):
this was I told the publisher about it. So the
book hadn't come out yet, and and so there was
some discussion among the publisher and they at first they
were like the American publisher said, no, we're gonna We're
going to keep it as is. And then the Canadian publisher,
there's another publisher called Graystone, they bought the rights of
the book. They said, why don't you do a write
(32:14):
up for us about what happened and then we'll see
and then when I do, kind of as like a
like like one of the adenda to the book. But
then in the end they decided not to put it
in because I think they liked the idea of it
being ambiguous at the end.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
So but yeah, well, as far as ambiguity goes, it
doesn't sound like there's any ambiguity with you as far
as the reality these animals, right.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean, I'm generally of the perspective that there
is something to this phenomenon. I don't really kind of
when people ask me. I mean I talk to lots
of people who have no connection to the subject, and
when they ask me, I do tell them, yes, I do.
I do lean towards I am pretty much a proponent
that there is that there is a reality to this
(32:58):
kind of thing, and so so yeah, I mean, I guess,
I guess my sort of personal approach is I don't
really kind of try and convince anybody, And I think
that was part of the reason I wrote the book
in the way that I did. I kind of wanted
to do something that was different also from the point
of view of not kind of trying to convince anyone.
I just I sort of thought, well, if somebody is
(33:20):
able to sort of see the the reality in this,
then they will pursue it themselves kind of thing. So
I've yeah, I mean, I mean, I think the incident.
I think the incident at Cape Scott cemented things a
little bit more, even though I even though we didn't
quite see anything, I think I think that the noises
or the rocks falling or whatever, we're an indication enough.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Right now now if I'm if I'm remembering correctly, which
is always a big gamble with me. Well, you're a listener,
you know, my memory is kind of fuzzy. It seems
to me that you saw some doubt Uspha Prince. But
when you went up to this area, you went to
an area where footprints had been recorded, right, and and
uh they were smaller footprints, right, that's right. What are
(34:06):
your thoughts on the little people?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Then?
Speaker 3 (34:08):
The stick Indians like the because I know I never
even heard of those things when I first got into Bigfoot,
and I kind of stumbled upon this other cultural phenomenon,
I think in a lot of ways, of the little people,
What were your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
In all of the communities that I visited, they had
spoken about a smaller a smaller type of sasquatchuh child
size basically, and in Bella Bella it was particularly prevalent.
In in Bella Coola they had an actual name for it.
They called it the Books. And so I think some
(34:45):
earlier writers had confused the books with the larger sasquatch
type creature, where whereas in in in in Uh in
the New Hawk community they called that the syninic. And
so yeah, I don't know, in same same in Weak
can know in rivers Inlet as well up and Clem too.
So I'm not sure. I mean, I think I was
(35:06):
just I was wondering the whole time weather Perhaps maybe
they had confused the juveniles for a separate being. So
I don't know. I'm I'm a little bit unsure as
to whether whether the smaller creature is an actual juvenile,
that it's confused for something else, and they claim that
it is something in their culture. So I don't know,
(35:28):
I kind of I've just sort of left it at that.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
I think, yeah, yeah, well, if their child's size, I
think you're thought about them being juvenile sasquatches would be
spot on. But did you run across stories of like,
what do they call them? Maybe sick Indians? I know
they're called that in some areas where there's like people
like little people wearing like native garb, like one and
a half two feet tall or something like that.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
No, no, nothing, No, nothing like that at all.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Oh that's good because those I hope those don't exist.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, it was. I would I would say,
I would say the the ideas were fairly we're fairly
you know, conservative, and and and of the common variety
like none, I mean, dog men, mothmen and all of
that sort of newer stuff didn't didn't really exist up
in I mean, I know it was, it was, it
(36:17):
was a number of years ago, but they didn't really
seem to be kind of enamored by any of that
same with the UFOs.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, nor am I. I think I'm gonna stick with
what's really now as far as your trip goes, like
the one you based the book off of, how many
eyewitness reports would you guess you collected, like just put
a number on it, and it's close. That doesn't matter
to me.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
I would say probably three or four dozen or so. Yeah,
it's a bit strange, Like I figured, maybe perhaps rightly
that because it's such a remote area, it's so pristine.
I mean, I can't even begin to explain how really,
how how how wild the place is. I mean, it
(37:03):
probably is is it's it's equivalent to parts of Alaska
and everything. I mean, the automatic assumption was because of
the history and because of how wild it is, that
there would be so much But then at the same time,
it wasn't until later after I left that because the
area is so sparsely populated and because people travel in boats,
(37:24):
there isn't really a lot of road works up there.
I mean, there is, there is a main road coming
from the interior into Belluicula, but everyone else is kind
of and there are roads in the community, within the
communities themselves, but everybody uses boats and so the boats
are loud, they have engines, and and I think that
a lot of the sightings sort of tend to tend
(37:46):
to kind of happen when they're on land and in
outside of the community, which isn't often that much. So
I think I think in some kind of paradoxical way,
like there may have been less sighting and less reports
then you would get in a place like Ohio or
you hear about Massachusetts or Connecticut or any of these
(38:07):
places where people are more tightly packed in with them.
So and I've heard the stories. Some of the stories
were fifty years old, some had happened just the previous summer,
and so yeah, there were there were There were quite
a often just really kind of just things that were
in passing.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Did you find that the women, like the native women,
were a lot more afraid of them.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I would I would say there was an equal fear,
because again we've all heard this before about the stories,
the scare stories as growing up as kids. They were
I think they were all instilled with with a with
a with a caution or a fear of the animals.
So I would say they were all I would say,
male and female. They were quite fearful. I would say
(38:52):
I know of a few individuals and some of the
communities who are like pretty hardcore outdoors people and hunters,
and I think they're they're were incidents involving some of
these people where they had they knew that there was
one in the area and they just they took off.
So I think I think there is a I think
everybody's generally equally afraid.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and
Bobo will be right back after these messages.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Did you talk to even anyone that had any terrifying
encounters there, because it sounds like it was all kind
of benign stuff for the most besides rocks being thrown.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah, I know, so yeah, so, And I've I've got
some of those stories in the book. And I mean
there were there were a lot of there were a
lot of cabin attack type of sort of encounters and stories,
and so I've got some of those in the book
where they were just like bang on the cabins at
night and everything. And because the different nations have got
(39:51):
these these these back country cabins on their territory that
they can use when they're out, and they also they
also take the kids there on trips and they do
camping trips for the weekend. And so one of the
one of the big stories involved a woman in Ballabella
who took you know, Heltziic youth at risk Heltic youth
(40:13):
on these on these camping trips basically to kind of
help to you know, part of the idea is to you know,
reforming kind of people who are who are involved in
you know, in in who are doing things, young people
who are who are kind of maybe involved in in
in crime or whatever. Is to is to take them
out into nature and to teach them about their culture
(40:33):
and everything. So there was one story where several preteen
girls went with a couple of adults to one of
the cabins to look a really really active inlet. Look
at this this this crazy uh fjord like inlet about
an hour's boat ride from Ballabella. And as soon as
(40:54):
they arrived they saw one they saw a sasquatch standing
at the edge of the shore and it was they
described it as and it was like a group report.
Basically they'd all seen it like a kind of a
like like like you hear about these like really muscular
bigfoots that everybody keeps talking about. The really the the
(41:14):
cut ones, the musk. This was kind of like a
lanky Chewbacca type one. But and they they basically ran
into the cabin, and the creature eventually went away, but
then came back later that night and basically kind of
almost taunted them or terrified them the whole night by
you know, crawling under the cabin, which was on stilts,
(41:34):
and scratching and knocking, and the smell of the creature
kind of wafted up through the through the seed or
floorboards into the cabin and this this whole drama ensued basically,
and so and that was the next morning that you know,
one of one of one of the adults eventually went
outside and shot off. He fired his gun, and the
(41:56):
creature went away, and then they left at first light basically.
But you do get a handful of these really kind
of dramatic, lengthy kind of encounter stories, and they do
tend to involve those those backcountry cabins in the territories.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Basically, they love to like psychologically torture people. They're masters
at intimidation, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Well that's that's what it sounded like. And and and
there was another There was another story that I put
in the appendix of the book about about a young
guy nineteen years old who again he was he was
he was part of that restorative justice program with the Heltzik.
He had I guess he had done something wrong, and
(42:39):
part of the I guess his his penalty was to
spend time in isolation at one of the cabins. Right
so where they were, they would, you know, in a
humane kind of way, they would go check on him
and bring him food and stuff and everything. But I
think what ended up happening was whatever whatever creature was
in the area had become acclimatized to his presence and
(43:00):
and just started to bother him and bother him, so
that when the adult person came back to check on him,
he was he he was just like, get me the
hell out of here, get me out of here. There's
something here, there's something here. And then when the when,
the when the woman didn't believe him, thinking that he
wanted to kind of just an excuse to come back,
he went look and he pointed up at the at
the cabin and at the like ten or twelve foot
(43:21):
mark off the ground, there was a huge handprint on
the on the side on the side of the wall
kind of thing. So yeah, there's there's there's a lot
of drama. There's a lot of drama with some of
the reports. Some of them are really fleeting, like in
you know, the cross the road type thing, but then
you get these you get these longer ones that that
come out of the woodwork. And and essentially that's what
(43:43):
happened when I went on my first trip there to
do the magazine story. One of those big drama stories
had just unfolded at the youth at a at one
of the summer youth camps, and the whole community was buzzing.
And I think that's that was the story that had
pulled me in and had made me realize like, oh,
I really have to come back, and I have to
(44:05):
come back and and and write about this and and
investigate more for myself.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
So this youth camp story, how how long before you
arrive did it occur?
Speaker 2 (44:15):
It had happened I think several about a month or
four weeks or something, so it had just taken place,
and and you know, I was I just made you know,
I was there to write a travel piece. But then
I just figured I would just ask like, hey, like
anything happening from from the Sasquatch point of view, Like
(44:35):
I know this is Bellabella, Like in my mind, I'm
like I'm remembering John Green's books, and they all just
sort of stopped and looked at each other and were
like told me, like, yeah, like just something just happened.
And then there's a there's a really remote the whole
area is remote. I shouldn't even say, but there's like
there's an extra remote river system called the Quaya River,
which is on the mainland coast. Bellabella's on an island,
(44:58):
So just to these south east of Bellabela is this
very traditional sacred area called the Quay River Valley hasn't
been hasn't been commercially logged, and maybe is the most
intact river system maybe in potentially among them in BC.
And so they take their kids there every summer to
(45:19):
do to do ecology and cultural stuff, and there's been
activity there. At the time of my twenty twelve and
twenty thirteen visit, there had been a lot of activity
there for successive summers and including like including appearances of
the animals both in the youth camp which is down
(45:42):
by the river and even in the councilor's sort of
some of the other buildings further up, kind of on
the hill kind of thing. So that's one of the
stories that kind of brought me out there, was hearing
about that and going wow, and then hearing the same
thing and all the other communities.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Are you still in touch with any of the people
that you stayed with or visited with, or any of
the witnesses to this day and has the activity continued.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, So that's a very interesting question. So the short
answer is yes, in that I've been going back there
almost every year, because when I started writing the book,
I wanted to make sure that I not only just
went in twenty twelve for two weeks in twenty thirteen
for the summer, I wanted to really immerse myself in
(46:32):
the community and under just I really wanted to understand
and soak up the place. It's kind of a bit
like like actors getting into their role a little bit.
So I basically have gone back every year and become
friends with a lot of not just the eye some
of the eyewitnesses, but also other people in the community
who I became friends with, And I was even there
last I went back to Bella Bella last year in
(46:55):
September twenty twenty three, and I did. I did a
camping trip with a couple of friends from the community
there to a very very very very remote place that
very few people even in Bellabella get to go to.
And and yes, so when I was there last September,
there was a footprint report that went viral on the
(47:20):
Bella Bella Facebook social media kind of network or whatever.
And and even on previous trips when I went up there,
I'd heard stories from other people, including non and including
a non indigenous. I'd heard about a non indigenous couple
who had seen one running from the water on the
beach into into the forest just south of just south
(47:43):
of Bellabella. Basically, so, I mean, it does continue. What
I what what they do tell me though there is
that it sort of comes in waves. I don't know
what to make of that. There they said that there
are some some periods where it's really quiet and then
all of a sudden it gets busy again. And so
my twenty twelve trip happened on a busy period, which
(48:03):
is why I got all of the activity in all
of the communities. Perhaps there was a virality to the
stories that maybe it kind of maybe it caused some
people to conclude that they'd seen a sasquatch or heard
one in the other communities, when in fact they hadn't.
There's the whole psychology piece as well, obviously, But yes,
it still goes on up there, and I imagine if
(48:25):
I was to go back and spend any time again,
you'd hear about something for sure.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Now, having taken a few dozen reports, I think it's
safe to say, as you've mentioned, do you see any
trends or patterns in them? And things like, I don't know,
just shoot from the hipier time of day habitat, which
of course is skewed by the human presence of course,
you know, because they're only seeing where humans are.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
I know from listening to your podcast, you're really you're
I mean rightly, so you're very interested now and kind
of deducing from the stories, and I mean they tended
to be a lot of little things. I would say,
I'm little for me, but just things like the creatures
are the animals like squatting and kind of like hugging
a tree to kind of remain concealed whatever. There were
(49:15):
a lot of that sort of thing. There were a
lot of stories about them being agitated, pacing back and
forth and back and forth and back and forth and
back and forth like that kind of stuff, and just
sort of smaller behavioral things, and a lot of them
the cabin encounters tended to be very, like I said earlier,
kind of almost taunting, psychological like. In one case, the
(49:38):
guy described it as almost like the thing taking its
hand and kind of just with its fingernails brushing along
the side of the wood on the outside, kind of
almost like just dragging its nails like little things like that.
And yeah, I mean, those are the sorts of things
that I that I kind of heard time and again.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Well, those are the cool things that the subtle behaviors,
and and they're they're to me at least, because you know,
running across the road isn't that exciting to me? After
we got the reports. Honestly, it's the stuff like, oh,
how can the tree squatting down? That's cool stuff, that's rat.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
They do that horror it's like horror movie. They really
did things that you see in horror movies, like dragged
one fingernails on the side of a tent or a wall,
you know, tapping, you know, like little things that seemed
somewhat innocuous, but they're super creepy when they when they're
happening in the dark out the woods.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
Yeah, yeah, there there were, There were a lot of
there were. There were quite a number of stories around
the wintertime around clam digging and being out there at
the middle of the night for low tide, and about
about about the animals being really protective and really defensive
(50:49):
about their clam beaches and chasing people out and be
like the more aggressive stories of aggressive sasquatches revolved around
clam beaches and about protect their resources. That seemed to
be a very recur That was a recurring story among
a lot of the people there.
Speaker 4 (51:07):
Did you hear any bear sasquatch interaction stories?
Speaker 2 (51:11):
No, nothing like that. I mean, somebody had mentioned that
because it's grizzly, hardcore grizzly territory, the valleys or the
water sheds where there tended to be a lot of grizzly,
there tended to be not a lot of sasquatch and
vice versa. But obviously I can't I mean, I can't
make sense. I couldn't confirm. But that's what that's what
(51:32):
more than a few people told me, and I heard
that a lot in Bella.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
Coola that there's a mutual avoidance between those two species.
Mm hmm, Well, I don't don't suppose you would know
about their thoughts on a similar matter, the presence of
black bears and sasquatches.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
No, that yeah, that that didn't really that didn't come
up as as any kind of pattern. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
I guess if there's grizzlies in the neighborhood, that probably
eclipses the presence of black bears in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
You know, did you did you ask them about those
old John Green stories, like what was it Charlie, Charlie
Mack or Clayton Mac.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah. So I met Clayton Mac's son on the twenty
twelve trip, the magazine trip again again part of that
whole serendipitous thing. I was out kind of exploring with
one of the locals in the community and he was
in his truck. We just went up to him, and
then the guy that I was with told me, oh,
that's Clayton's son. So yeah, I knew. I've met a
(52:26):
lot of people who who were related to Clayton because
there's so much sort of interrelated family sort of links
between those communities, and and heard a lot of stories
about about Clayton and everything from people who I mean,
I even spent time with his Clayton has a nephew
who goes by the name of Little Obie in Bella
(52:48):
Coola and he pulled out his cast collection for me
and showed me all the casts that he had cast
it himself in Bella Coola. And when you're there, it's
like you you tap into it's like you top the vein.
It's like it's it's it's all there, and it's all
there available for you. So and in Clem too, I
did actually meet I guess he was an elder.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
He was.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
He'd met John Green and Bob Titmas believe it or not,
when when when Green and Titmus used to travel the
North Coast together. He remembered Titmas and told me about him.
This was again on the twenty twelve trip. So yeah,
a lot of a lot of that history is still
is still there circulating in the community.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
Well, you know, we can talk to you for hours
and hours and hours, but I would like to squeeze
another hour out of you if you wouldn't mind ad
over our members section, hear more about your trips and
your your insights and and of course Matt Prude is
chomping at the bit. He has a whole laundry list
of questions to ask you. So if you wouldn't mind
sticking around for a member section, we really really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Sounds good and of.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Course for people listening, if you're curious about the member section,
it's a five dollars a month thing. It's a Patreon deal.
There'll be a link in the show notes and basically
what you get you get an extra hour of Cliff
and Bobo and Matt Preuitt. It always joins us for
the conversation as well. We do Q and a's, we
do special member events sort of things. You know, like
you guys, there's a lot of cool things going on.
(54:09):
But also also besides just what you get on the
extra hour a week that you get to hear us,
you also get this episode, the regular episode you are
listening to at this very moment, completely ad free. Now
that's cool. Five bucks a month seems worth it to me.
Why don't you join us by clicking that link below
and become a member of Bigfoot and Beyond and be
part of our Beyond Bigfoot and Beyond community.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
Yeah, I was gonna have a million questions for you too, John,
But I haven't actually read your Bookkeet. I'm embarrassed to say,
because I've heard nothing but outstanding reviews of it and
I got to read it now excellent.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
I'd be very happy to hear your take on it.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
Yeah, of course you can get it at pretty pretty
much everywhere, but also I want to point out you
can get at the NABC store as well, so we'll
put that link in the show notes as well.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Thanks so much, guys for having me on. It was
real pleasure.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
Thanks for coming on, and of course thank you also,
oddly enough for being a listener of the podcast. I
mean I say it all the time in the podcast,
I legitimately forget there's anybody listening. I'm just hanging out
with you know, Bobo and Matt and whoever our guests is.
Speaker 4 (55:09):
So okay, folks, That was John Zada. Thanks so much
for joining us, John, and we're going to join them
now in the Patreon sess. So, thank you all for listening,
and y'all keep it squatchy.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Bigfoot and Beyond.
If you liked what you heard, please rate and review
us on iTunes, subscribe to Bigfoot and Beyond wherever you
get your podcasts, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram
at Bigfoot and Beyond podcast. You can find us on
Twitter at Bigfoot and Beyond that's an N in the middle,
(55:46):
and tweet us your thoughts and questions with the hashtag
Bigfoot and Beyond.
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