Last week Wendy bought some Cascadian Outfitters wine at the grocery store, and noticed once she got home that the label has a silhouette of a Sasquatch on it:
That got me thinking about writing a Bigfoot blog post. I first got seriously interested in Bigfoot after reading The Psychic Sasquatch, which I wrote about here. For my birthday this year, Wendy bought me the sequel, The Sasquatch People, which I enjoyed even more than the first book. After reading it, I created a Google News alert for any Bigfoot/Sasquatch related news. Here are some of the interesting things I've learned:
Bigfoot Museum
Last year Wendy and I stayed a couple of nights in Kearney, Nebraska to view the total solar eclipse. That part of Nebraska is known as the Tri-Cities area, which includes Kearney, Grand Island, and Hastings. Last month, a Bigfoot museum opened in Hastings. The lady who started the museum got the idea for it when she looked at her dining room table and realized she couldn't see it, because it was covered with Bigfoot artifacts! Had it been open last year, I'm sure I would have checked it out while we were there.
Bigfoot Festival
Speaking of places Wendy and I have been, a few years ago we went to Lake Lure, North Carolina for a wedding. About 45 minutes away is the town of Marion. Last month Marion hosted its first annual Bigfoot Festival, which drew thousands of people. The highlight of the event was a Bigfoot calling competition.
Wild Things Podcast
An NPR reporter was looking through archives of The Washington Post when she found an old article about a Bigfoot researcher with the same last name as her. She asked her family if he was related, and her grandfather said yes, it was his cousin, and he used to show up at family picnics and measure people's heads with calipers! The researcher died in 2002, so she never got to meet him. But she was so inspired that she started a podcast devoted to Bigfoot research, called Wild Things.
I have not listened to the podcast, but I did read some more interviews with the woman, whose name is Laura Krantz. In this short interview, she mentions that Bigfoot research falls into two camps: those who think it's just some kind of ape, and those who think it's paranormal. She said she didn't focus on the paranormal side very much in her podcast. She did make an interesting comment about the paranormal group, though:
And within that world, I would say that most of the people seem pretty down to Earth. They’re not crazies or spouting off really weird things. A lot of them have had an experience that really changes their perception of the natural world. They’re usually nature enthusiasts. They like being outside, and a number of them have backgrounds in biology or wildlife biology or work for different wildlife organizations and agencies. It’s not what I expected to find, which was kind of complete nutjobs and people with no social skills.
Italics are mine. Even though I've never seen a Sasquatch, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. Our perception of what makes up the natural world is far too narrow!
Alligators in Central Illinois
Finally, this article, titled The Gators of Lake Decatur, isn't actually about Bigfoot, but Google alerted me to it because it does quote an Illinois native who runs the International Cryptozoology Museum in Maine, which has exhibits on Bigfoot. The article talks about people who have illegally brought baby pet alligators from Florida to central Illinois. Once the alligators get too big, they just dump them in the nearest lake, where they eventually either freeze to death during winter or are captured by a wildlife agency. It's not unheard of, though, for alligators to survive this far north, particularly if there's a factory that dumps hot water discharge into the lake.
Thanks to the article, I now know that it's "illegal to own an alligator in Illinois unless you have a license, carry liability insurance and plan to use your alligator in a prescribed number of yearly education programs."
Now that is news you can use!