The Truth About Bigfoot
From canyon to cave, the Sasquatch legend persists. By: Roddy Scheer, Nick O’Connell, Tina Lassen and John Levesque with Sarai Dominguez, Cayla Lambier, Jennifer Lee and Anna Samuels SEATTLE MAGAZINE May 2011 Rumors have circulated for years that Washington’s Cascades are the native habitat of Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch). Some certainly emanate from events that occurred (or not) one evening in 1924 in a canyon—ever since known as Ape Canyon (elevation: 4,200 feet)—southeast of Mount St. Helens. A group of miners shot at a mysterious 7-foot-tall apelike creature that was milling around the makeshift cabin they had built in the canyon to assay a nearby claim. That night, as the miners tried to get some shut-eye, their cabin was reportedly pelted with rocks, logs and other forest debris by a band of at least three of the “Big Foot” ape creatures—the miners later measured footprints at up to 19 inches long. In the morning, the story goes, the miners cam