Sasquatch, 1935
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 29th, 2009
Fresno Bee
Fresno, California
October 13, 1935
CANADA REPORTS RACE OF MONSTER MEN IN ROCKIES
VANCOUVER (B.C.), Oct. 12. – (U.P.) – Sasquatch men, remnants of a lost race of “wild men” who inhabited the rocky regions of British Columbia centuries ago, are reported roaming the province again.
After an absence of several months from the district of Harrison Mills, fifty miles east of Vancouver, the long, weird, wolf-like howls of the “wild men” are being heard again and two of the hairy monsters were reported seen in the Morris Valley on the Harrison River.
Residents of the district tell of seeing the two giants leaping and bounding out of the forest and striding across the duck-feeding ground, wallowing now and again in the bog and mire and long, waving swamp grasses.
Reported Agile As Goats
The strange men, it was reported, after emerging from the woods, came leaping down the jagged rocky hillside with the agility and lightness of mountain goats. Snatches of their weird language floated on the breeze across the lake to the pioneer settlement at the foot of the hills.
The giants walked with an easy gait across the swamp flats and at the Morris Creek, in the shadow of Little Mystery Mountain, straddled a floating log which they propelled with their long, hairy hands and huge feet across the sluggish glacial stream to the opposite side. There they abandoned the log and climbed hand over hand up the almost perpendicular cliff at a point known as Gibraltar and disappeared into the wooded wilderness at the top of the ridge. They carried two large clubs and walked around a herd of cattle directly in their path.
Indian’s Story Retold
The return of the giants to the legendary stronghold of the Sasquatch monsters recalls the narrow escape of an Indian at the same spot last March. A huge rock narrowly missed his canoe while he was fishing and looking up he saw a huge and hairy monster stamping his feet and gesticulating wildly. The Indian escaped by cutting his fishing tackle and paddling away. The same Indian declares the Sasquatch twice have stolen salmon which he tied to a tree outside his house out of reach of dogs.
The latest appearance of the monsters was peaceful. They avoided the trails usually used by the people of the valley and molested neither cattle nor human beings.
People who have reported seeing the giants on their rare appearances described them as “ferocious looking wild men, nine feet tall and covered from head to toes with thick black hair.”
Thanks to Jerome Clark for this archival item.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
wow, I used to live not too far from there!!
I have some friends that just moved to Harrison. I am going to send them an url!
Great find.
Very interesting, Loren! Thanks for sharing this. The perspective of the time is intriguing.
“They carried two large clubs …”? Like Alley Oop. Nice touch.
A possible bum note: they “walked around a herd of cattle directly in their path.”
I’ve long been under the impression animals in general, but cattle in particular, are spooked by the presence of our hairy chums – in which case why’ve they had to walk round what would’ve normally been fleeing in all directions?
Maybe the ‘logs’ were really ‘axes’, in which case this was merely a record of a very early tour of ZZ Top before they hit the bigtime.
Interesting how in reports where they’re described as “hairy men” they’re reported as having a language and using tools, but now everyone is convinced they’re animals, and it’s almost never reported.
I suspect it is just a tall tale to interest people in buying a paper during the Depression.
OTOH, I wonder if critters close enough genetically to modern humans would have been wiped out or nearly so by the same plagues that hit the native Americans? There can be some disease transmission between the great apes and humans (even more between pigs and humans)
Thanks Loren
I think personally there are a-lot of us who would like to see some more of this archival stuff!
Please keep’em comming!
Sandspur Responds:
This really is archival data… I was born In February l935.
You’d think I would remember reading about this happening. (?)