Canadian Cryptid Cops Part II

In 1977, a Greyhound bus driven by Pat Lindquist, coincidentally a reserve officer with the Vancouver Police Department, came to a screeching halt near Lake Erroch outside of Mission, B.C. when what appeared to be a sasquatch crossed the road in front of the vehicle. Lindquist leapt from the halted bus and went chasing after the alleged sasquatch. On the side of the road he found large footprints far bigger than those of a human, but lost the creature itself as it disappeared into the bush.

My old and dear friend, the late Rene Dahinden, was called in to look at the tracks and investigate the sighting. He arrived to find that the RCMP conducting an investigation of their own as Lindquist had reported the incident to the local detachment. Dahinden combed over the ‘crime scene’ and closely examined the tracks which were incredibly realistic. Rene opined that he thought that they were genuine tracks and that Lindquist must have seen a sasquatch.

The police were about to step up the investigation a notch when four young men from the Vancouver area suburbs stepped forward and confessed that they had hoaxed the whole affair and even produced the gorilla costume that one of them wore to play the role of sasquatch (Note to claimants who says they were the sasquatch in things like the Patterson film: No costume, no cigar). Rene readily admitted to me afterwards that he was completely fooled by the tracks the boys had manufactured and resolved that he would never let this happen again.

The RCMP decided not to lay charges against the four young men who were lucky they did not go to court for various offences such as wasting police resources and mischief. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Bob Eyford, who did some independent investigation, said he was convinced the pranksters were telling the truth.

John Kirk About John Kirk
One of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998). In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur. Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC. In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.

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