Sasquatch School Is Now in Session

Two days after I enrolled in “Sasquatch school,” my lessons began. The first lesson took me by surprise, but I was to learn that that’s a standard part of the curriculum. The timing and nature of their lessons is nearly always unpredictable. And they don’t miss a thing. More on that later.

At this point, you might be wondering how I enrolled in what I call Sasquatch school, and how any such thing could be real or even possible. I’ll back up a bit and explain how it all started.

Before moving to Alaska, I lived in Canada’s Yukon Territory for many years. In these two locations, I chose homes in very small towns where my four-legged and winged neighbors far outnumbered the two-leggeds. Also, I’m very much an outdoors person and am either hunting, fishing, cutting firewood, or foraging alone in remote areas nearly every day.

I’ve lived this way for the last 17 years. Though I’m originally from New York City, it’s fair to say I’m most at home in the woods, despite the grizzlies and other predators. And until several years ago, I’d have described myself as a Sasquatch believer though I’d not had contact with them, and they didn’t live anywhere near me. Turns out I was wrong on both accounts, but I didn’t figure that out until much later. Those will be posts for another time.

A friend of mine in Southern California is a borderline Bigfoot fanatic. She wasn’t convinced that I live in a Sasquatch-free region of Alaska. “They’re all over the place up there,” she told me.

But I’d never seen a single track, or heard one of their infamous screams, or smelled them. “They’re not here,” I told her. “I’d know it if they were.” Famous last words.

Though I’d told her that, maybe her interest in Sasquatch rubbed off on me. Or maybe a little birdie was whispering in my ear to look more into the subject. I wasn’t interested in hearing scary stories—I wanted to know more about them as a species. Specifically, are Sasquatch more like humans, or apes?

I began watching YouTube videos about them. One is a channel called Colorado Bigfoot. The content creator’s name is Marc Abell. Much of his channel is focused on locating and identifying Sasquatch “structures.” That’s a word you hear a lot in the Sasquatch community, and for good reason.

I’m still working on understanding the full significance of their structures, but Colorado Bigfoot’s videos were my first introduction to them. I remember my jaw dropping when I saw his images of these creations made from trees and branches in the form of teepees, Xs, and domes. The sizes and level of complexity vary, but they are clearly formed with intention, and not from wind or fallen limbs. But what astonished me was that they were exactly what I’d come across in my jaunts through the bush, less than an hour’s drive from my home. In the area I’d walked and hunted and collected firewood for the last seven years were structures that looked identical to those in Marc’s YouTube videos.

My God, I thought, I’m living in Sasquatch country. So much for the lack of footprints or howls that told me they weren’t in the area. Could they have been old structures, and the Sasquatch moved on long ago? Perhaps, but as time went on and I paid more attention, I came across freshly constructed structures. I never found footprints or heard Sasquatch whoops or screams.

A few days after I recognized the structures in Marc’s videos, I went back to the woods. It was Friday, October 11, 2019. I stood beneath one particular structure that had become my favorite, long before I knew who had constructed it. It overhung the trail like a wedding trellis. It was beautiful; the many inexplicably bent trees that arched toward a central point from several directions to form a natural canopy. Whenever I had stood beneath it, I experienced an immediate calm. On this day, in full understanding of who had made it, I felt the same calm as in the past, but now it held more meaning. Before, I’d wondered if humans had made it, perhaps originally slinging a tarp over the top to form a shelter, but that explanation had never felt right to me. I had more answers now, but I also had more questions. What was it about the structure that produced the calm inside me?

If the Sasquatch could make something this wonderful and had never attacked or even scared me all the times I’d traipsed alone through these dense woods, then I was certain that they must be benevolent.

As I stood beneath the trellis structure with my newfound knowledge, I took a deep breath. Then, a little nervously, I announced in a loud voice, “I know you’re here!” I gazed into the forest but saw nothing that caught my eye, certainly no hairy beings peeking out from behind a tree. Absolute silence answered back to me. “I have an idea…” I told myself I shouldn’t feel silly talking loudly to an audience I couldn’t see. If I was wrong about all this and being foolish, then there would be no witnesses.

I continued, “I think we could learn from each other. Well,” I added sheepishly, “probably I’d learn a lot more from you.” Though I’d not heard any sounds, not even the break of a twig, I could feel them listening. “Anyway, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to learn whatever you’d be willing to teach me.”

Two days later, they gave me my first lesson.