THERE’S NOTHING LIKE a hard day’s writing to make me glad I’m not one of the country’s leading Bigfoot researchers.
I won’t bore you, dear reader(s), with the petty details of my ill-fated, under-funded, topless hunt for Bigfoot, the hairy hominid that has haunted this land since the beginning. That led to so much trouble last year. Or how I wished I hadn’t seen the massive track of the creature in the first place. I should have ignored it, but no. Word got out and a crack team of Bigfoot hunters took over the lodge.
They gathered around the bait that had drawn the creature in, my compost pit. The largest open-pit, co-generating, steam-powered compost pit in the valley, but that’s another column.
The crack team of experts measured, analyzed and collected physical samples of dung and hair, which they preserved in, of all things, alcohol.
As dusk descended in the deep dark woods, the scary sounds began. There was the chest beating, the inhumane shrieking and horrible eating noises coming, not from the surrounding wilderness, but from the Bigfoot researchers at the buffet back at the lodge.
The Bigfoot hunters were a bottomless pit for smoked salmon and home brew. Expenses soared out of control. I tried to cut costs. Accidents will happen, like when the plaster of Paris used to make impressions of the creature’s track got dumped into the pancake batter. Or when I siphoned off some of the preservatives in the dung samples to make punch. You should have heard the howls.
The terrifying screams of the Sasquatch seemed tame by comparison.
As the hunt for Bigfoot intensified and enlarged the study area, the reasons for researching the creature in the first place became increasingly disturbing. The leading researchers claimed that if enough DNA evidence could be collected to prove the existence of the creature, it could be protected by the highest aims of science.
However, given our track record of the eradication of endangered species of animals and displacement of indigenous populations of humans worldwide, the Sasquatch would be well-advised to remain undiscovered, undocumented and undomesticated for as long as possible. If it knew what was good for it.
If an individual sample Bigfoot was collected, a series of non-invasive physical and cognitive tests could be conducted to determine if this is a new species of ape or a subspecies of the steelhead fisherman.
If Bigfoot is an animal, it would be an endangered species. Which would open a floodgate of federal funds to manage, preserve and administer the study of this missing link in our evolutionary past. If Bigfoot is a human, they will need the same permits and licenses to be on public land as the rest of us.
Maybe the pressure got to me. I’ve always promised that, in my hunt for Bigfoot, I would never actually find one. It’s no coincidence that many creatures, from the 100-pound salmon to the Olympic Mountain moonshiner, have gone extinct shortly after they were discovered.
Some things are best left alone. Unfortunately, the creature(s) wouldn’t leave me alone.
The herb garden was trampled. The smokehouse was knocked off its foundation. Before I knew it, with the lack of sleep, greed and lust, I would have sold the shrunken head of the creature to the highest bidder.
I’ve done worse things for money. Are you still reading this?
So, it’s probably a good thing the hunt for Bigfoot fizzled the day after the wine cellar went dry.
The creature was gone.
She didn’t write. She didn’t call and I was left with the mess.
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Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.
He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.
