North Bend… Part IV

I started getting a bad feeling about all of this…Mike Martin – Greg Martin? Were they related? No. But while we were in Joe’s home he got a phone call from Jim French, the other person who he found the tracks with. Joe was reminded about a Bigfoot sighting a week ago during his conversation on the phone and after getting off it told us about it. Apparently the janitor at Echo Glenn Children’s Home said that he saw one the same day the tracks were discovered… That is just a few miles away and seemed to fit until he said the man’s name… Greg Martin…

I was thinking about all this as we tore down the NOD that Peter had brought with him. It looks like a very big lens that you can attach a camera to. It was a 1st gen Starlight scope… but it went by a different name back then… Night Observation Device. It had a huge objective element and the whole thing must have weighed a ton. Quite immovable when on the tripod, which was about the only way to use it effectively. We had tried to take pictures through it the night before.

With camp finally broke, we all jumped into Dave’s Rambler. It had three on the column and we had parked it on a slight rise above the main dirt road. It wouldn’t start. Dave pumped the gas and pulled and pushed the choke. He finally gave up.

The kid on the bike, Ronny Whittler (age 16), was standing outside on my side of the car. I noticed he had picked up a stick and was shaving it to make it sharp at one end with an Oldtimer pocketknife.

Dave released the brake and put it in first then pushed in the clutch. We began to roll and after about 20 feet he popped the clutch. It started with fits and jerks. Peter, sitting in the front seat, almost bounced his head onto the front dash. Then in that deadpan British accent he turned towards Dave and said ‘Nice car’.

We drove up the hill, under the power lines, came to a flat spot and stopped. Everyone got out except Dave who turned the vehicle around and parked it facing back down hill for our return trip. Peter chuckled a bit and turned to start searching for tracks. There was a crackling and low hum coming from the lines over our heads.

We didn’t have to go too far to find tracks. They seemed to be everywhere. Like there had been a Bigfoot dance a few nights ago here. Each of us went our own way following our own line of tracks, crisscrossing back and forth on others. Some tracks stepped on others… maybe this was a test.

We counted only about 20 or 30 of the tracks clear enough to determine that they were tracks. There were also coyote and elk tracks around… then Peter found some odd things. He called out to us.

Dave and I were following a track way with Dave trying to duplicate a step between two tracks we found in sequence. He didn’t seem to be having too much of a problem doing so when Peter called for us to join him. When we got there he held up a stick with a crushed field mouse draped over it. He had found it squashed in some grass near one of the tracks. Was this an important clue…? Big feet to stomp around for dinner on? Was the mouse stepped on but then able to crawl away when Bigfoot couldn’t find the small morsal?

There seemed to be two different sized feet here… big and REALLY BIG! We took quite a few pictures of them. Feel privileged to be some of the first to have seen them… or not.

Then Peter showed us a 6-foot tall Doug Fir that at first glance looked like it had been ripped out of the ground with tremendous strength near one of the trackway lines of travel and thrown a few feet away. No other tracks were near it but on closer examination we found a shovel or spade mark in the side of the hole the tree came from.

In Peter’s mind – case closed. This was a hoax. Too many coincidences. Too many human tool markings and unrealistic tracks. We have been on a fool’s errand. Four days wasted. Well I guess it helped with this blog.

Rick Noll About Rick Noll
Rick Noll has been actively searching for the Sasquatch since 1969 and continues his pursuit with extended field trips into the Pacific Northwest's most remote regions. Rick has worked with Peter Byrne, René Dahinden, Grover Krantz, John Green, Jeff Meldrum and the BFRO during all this. He helped with many documentaries on the subject including Animal X: The Skookum Expedition and Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.

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