September 3, 2007

Willow Creek Bigfoot Days

‘Our hills are alive with it’ Bigfoot celebration brings out believers, skeptics

WILLOW CREEK — The Bigfoot capital of the world has been on Stephen Harvey’s radar for the last five to six years.

The Salt Lake City resident who works at a TV news station traveled 13 hours just to experience Bigfoot Days and capture believers and skeptics alike for a documentary about the hysteria surrounding the large, hairy, manlike creature that’s said to inhabit remote forests in the Pacific Northwest.

”Why do people come here; why do people like me come here?” Harvey asked. “What I’m trying to find is sort of humor based on Bigfoot.”

But Harvey doesn’t claim to be unbiased — he’s a Bigfoot believer. Well, kind of.

As an 11-year-old hiking through the woods in Pendleton, Ore., he thought he saw Bigfoot, or something, looking at him. “My imagination was blooming at the time,” Harvey said.

But ever since, he’s been fascinated with recounted stories of sightings and discovered tracks.

And he’s not the only one.

Hundreds of locals, tourists and firm believers poured into Willow Creek Saturday for the 47th annual Bigfoot Days Celebration. Though the life of the party didn’t show, he was certainly the topic of conversation.

”Our town believes in it — our hills are alive with it and our kids believe in it,” said Debbie Brock, a Trinity Valley Elementary School teacher who has lived in Willow Creek 31 years. “The people from the big cities are getting indoctrinated.”

Peggy McWilliams of the Willow Creek-China Flat Museum helped outsiders get acquainted with the local folklore, which she “absolutely” believes in. “I’ve heard so many stories, it’s feasible to me there’s many of them,” the 20-year Willow Creek resident said.

She’s not the only one who believes in more than one Bigfoot.

Mel Bilzing, who has lived in Willow Creek 25 years, said although he’s never seen one, “they’re out there.”

”I’ve never seen one per se, but I’ve seen a lot of things out of the ordinary,” he said, noting he has seen scuff marks, long stripes and “things that wouldn’t be made by other animals” in the woods.

”You can sense them — they’re a lot faster than we are,” he said. “But I guarantee you, they’re out there.”

And although believers were eager to share their convictions, there were a few skeptics.

”I don’t really believe in it,” said 11-year-old Ceylon Baginski. “I’ve never seen it or anything — I’ve heard of people seeing it, but no real proof.”

Neither has 77-year-old Margaret Wooden, who volunteers at the museum.

“I’m skeptical. Seeing is believing, I guess — you gotta prove it,” she said. “A lot of people do (believe), but I think there’s a lot of skeptics, too.”

But 83-year-old Al Hodgson, a.k.a. “Dr. Bigfoot,” isn’t one of them.

Though it took a while before he bought it, Hodgson is now known locally as the resident historian. He has poured plaster casts of the tracks thought to belong to Bigfoot, and was there in 1967 when Bigfoot hunter Roger Patterson rolled into town saying he’d just captured the clever animal on film — the controversial grainy footage showing a walking, hairy ape-like creature.

”The ears look like ours and the face looks like ours,” he said. “It’s so similar, it’s unbelievable.”

For those who’ve had Bigfoot encounters, the Willow Creek-China Flat Museum provides a “Bigfoot Memories” book for people to record and share their experience.

”We were driving to Oregon on Aug. 11…. We saw a hairy man on all fours,” read a passage written in August 2006. “We thought it was a bear, a moose or an elk. But then it stood up and it took only two steps to walk up to the brush and off the road. We were all shocked because it wasn’t a bear. We think it was Bigfoot.”

But the record book has its share of non-believers, too. As someone stated this August, “I have never seen him and I don’t think I will, because he is not real.”Karen Wilkinson
The Eureka Times-Standard

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptotourism, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Eyewitness Accounts, Museums, Pop Culture, Sasquatch