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Bigfoot
More beast than man apelike creature that
allegedly have been sighted for centuries, and is still believed to inhabit
the forests of North America's Pacific Northwest. Its name derives from its
unusually large footprints.
In Canada this creature
is known as Sasquatch. Another names by which is known, depending on the North
American region, are Skunk Ape (Florida), Oh-mah (California),
Momo (Missouri),
Wookie (Louisiana), Grassman (Ohio), Tokι-Mussi
(Oregon), Woods Devil (New Hampshire), Windigo
(Quebec), Arulataq (Alaska), Nuk-luk,
Nakani (North West Territories), Wauk-Wauk, Saskehavis or simply Bushman.
Reports of a huge apelike creature in the United
States and the Canadian provinces are to be found in the journals of early
settlers, the oral traditions of native tribes, and accounts in regional
frontier newspapers. Regardless, wide public attention was not called to the
mysterious beast until the late 1950s when road-building crews in the unmapped
wilderness of the Bluff Creek area north of Eurka, California, perhaps
stimulated by speculation about the Yeti, began to
report a large number of sightings. Once stories of giant humanlike monsters
tossing around construction crews small machinery and oil drums began hitting
the wire services, hunters, hikers, and campers came forward with a seemingly
endless number of stories and tales about the shrill-squealing, abnormally big,
humanoid but hairy creatures rather like enormous apes. Photographs of tracks
began to appear, some of them clearly faked, but others more difficult to
explain.
One of the earliest
sightings by a white man took place in 1811, when a Canadian trader found
footprints measuring 14 by 8 inches (35.5 by 20.5 cm) in the snows of the
northern Rockies, near Jasper, Alberta. But the most
remarkable and most thoroughly documented account of these beasts from those
early days in Canada occurred in 1884 and was recorded in the Daily British
Colonist, July 4, 1884. In the immediate vicinity of Number 4 tunnel, 20 miles
from Yale, British Columbia, a group of railroad men captured a creature that
could truly be called half-man and half-beast. The men called him Jacko and
described him as looking much like a gorilla, standing about four feet, seven
inches and weighing 127 pounds. The only sound that issued from him was a kind
of half-bark and half-growl. Jacko was described as having long, black, strong
hair and resembling a human being with the exception that his entire body,
except his hands and feet, were covered with glossy hair about one inch long.
His forearm was much longer than a mans forearm, and he possessed extraordinary
strength. The man who became Jackos keeper, George Telbury of Yale, announced
his intention to take the man-beast to London, England, to exhibit him.
Unfortunately, all traces of Jacko vanished after the rash of news stories
recounting the details of his capture.
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