3 minute read
qathet's no-nonsense Squatchers
Don’t believe in Sasquatch?
Then YOU explain these footprints spotted near Inland Lake in May, by a trio of life-long hunters.
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BY PIETA WOOLLEY
At a bear’s lumbering pace, we’re driving along a Crozier is at the wheel; his head hangs out the driver’s side, scanning for disturbances in the sand at the side of the road. Soon, he halts the car. Sure enough, there’s a print. What is it? “Black bear,” he says, pointing to the claw imprints above the wide pads. “But what’s this?”
Rick Crozier finds disturbances in the sand at the side of logging roads near Inland Lake.
Rick, a retired real estate agent from Alberta, first found prints he couldn’t explain when he was out shooting with friends this spring. Raised in rural Ontario, the life-long bow hunter can tell a deer print from an elk print, a grizzly from a black bear print, and a cougar print from a lynx with a glance.
With a lighter for scale, a print in situ showing clear toe prints. The markings are clearest after a good rain.
These prints couldn’t be explained. The huge daddy prints. The big momma prints. The scuffling child prints. Not bear, not human. No claws. On predictable trails from the forest across the road, up the ditches, into the clear cuts and to the forest beyond.
Rick’s plaster casts of a momma and a daddy print, both in excess of 14 inches long and six inches wide.
Rick’s question, “What’s this?” is a set of prints. They look like Sasquatch feet – wide in the ball, distinct toes, and heading from the road into the clear cut and forest beyond. Some are clearer than others, just like the bear and deer prints nearby.
The author’s foot next to a print (after the cast was taken). Hairy toes notwithstanding, not a Sasquatch foot.
A gift of cormorant feathers left in Rick Crozier’s yard in Cranberry.
Sasquatch sightings are not uncommon in the qathet region. Two years ago, artist Jacques Le Breton hoped to make a documentary about local encounters. He was drawn here by a famous Pacific Northwest story, which happened in Toba Inlet in 1924; a logger was kidnapped by a family of Sasquatches, and they kept him for a week until he escaped. Of course, without proof, believers were few.
Rick’s first footprint cast (the sixth “toe” is a stone). It was on display at Powell River Outdoors in May.
In 2018 and 2019, dozens of people contacted Jacques with their own stories of sightings, smellings and encounters, but none were willing to speak about them on camera, for fear that their peers would think
A broken tree trunk near a path frequented by these footprint-making beings.
they’re crazy (See the story starting on Page 6 of the January 2019 issue of PRL at prliving.ca). Similarly, Rick and his hunting friends Raymond Lust and Richard Langois have all had Sasquatch encounters throughout their lives. The retirees are shy about telling their stories, though, for exactly that reason: because too often people think they’re nuts, or just confused. At some point, hopefully, there will be enough evidence for everyone with a story to come out of the crypto-closet. That would be good for the humans with these secrets. But maybe not so good for Sasquatches.
“If you look for them you’ll never find them,” said Rick. Footprints, however are another story. After every rain in May, he went looking for them. “My tail has been wagging for a week!” | pieta@prliving.ca
SASQUATCH DAYS
When: Friday and Saturday June 4 & 5
What: Paint Sasquatch footprints at Creative Arts; eat a Sasquatch cookie or buy a Sasquatch t-shirt at Base Camp; see Sasquatch fur at Knitter’s Nest; and learn more about Rick Crozier’s Sasquatch endeavours.
Where: Townsite Market
Whether fact or myth, Sasquatch is a huge draw. Snag this sticker at the Tourism Powell River Visitors Centre on Joyce Ave.
