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Columnists

Sasquatch: the chase

Brandi Schier - Campus Editor

The legend of the Sasquatch is one which has intrigued many people for centuries. Stories stem from Aboriginal oral tradition and from accounts from the first pioneers in the west. It’s a story that refuses to fade away, even without undisputable evidence.

It’s twisted within the history of B.C. and has become undetachable from the province’s image, especially in the area around Harrison Hot Springs, where some of the first dedicated Sasquatch hunters began to codify their experiences.

A hotbed for Sasquatch activity, Bill Miller has taken up where others left off and has made the Sasquatch his life.

Relocated to Canada for parts of the year from Illinois, almost everyday he is in the wilderness of southern interior B.C. exploring, tracking or responding to possible sightings. He’s armed only with camera equipment and bear spray while he takes his six wheel drive Polaris into places few, if any, people have ever been before.

Soft-spoken, yet passionate, believing deeply in the animal’s existence, one gets the feeling he could speak for months on subject. His research spiders out to animal biology and he can cite supporting evidence from across the globe.

But this wasn’t how he thought his life would go. He had no way of knowing one night on a fishing boat in northern Minnesota would set him on a path that would lead him to where he is today.

“It all goes back to that night in Minnesota,” Miller said, before he ever had any thoughts of the creature. “This thing ran by us from left to right,” Miller explained. “All I can say is it was upright, big—bigger than I was, big enough you could hear those feet thumping the ground.”

The incident left Miller’s mind until he returned to the area almost two decades later, sparking the research which led him to Harrison, at first just for visits and later to live.

Ten years and over $100,000 later he is still out there. He doesn’t have any income coming out of his research, unlike other hunters who try and capitalize on the tourist draw of the myth.

“I don’t charge for anything related to the Bigfoot field,” he said, explaining he never has wanted to have anything he has found or learned to be considered commercialized. “It would seem like I had a motive to make it up. I just tell it the way it is.”

Although people may have the impression the myth has lured him away from a productive life, it’s just the opposite. He has fought and beat cancer twice. On his last chemotherapy treatment the chemo was sent into his dominant hand burning the inside and leaving it with little function and not a lot of employment options. Then hard times hit again with an accident, when he broke his femur in 20 places. The upside of this to him is the pain was too great for his regular pain medications, which were making him lethargic. So he quit taking them all together.

“After a while it [the pain] becomes part of you. I make it work, I hide it the best I can and rather than just sit around doing nothing,” Miller said. “I’ve got this interest that kinda found me. So I have discovered a way in which to utilize my time where at the end of the day, I’ve had a good day.”

“I make the best out of it, it’s the hand I was dealt. The only other alternative is to not do anything, just exist and wait and let your life go by and I’m trying very hard not to do that.”

Over the last 10 years he has found five good sets of footprints from deep in the bush. He claims to have seen the animal once near Harrison and once missed one by about 60 seconds.

Miller said he wishes every time he went out he found some evidence, but the reality is those occasions are few and far between. 2006 was the last time he had found anything he could classify as conclusive until a sighting last fall.

“I was getting very discouraged, even the reports were dying down. But then [in the fall] I saw some tracks again and someone else had seen the animal. I missed it by a day, but that’s OK. It doesn’t have to be me. It’s good, it renews my faith to stay at it.”

He realizes science will need a body to accept the animal’s existence but believes other people should look closer and have an open mind.

“I don’t blame people for being skeptical, I’m skeptical,” he said, adding the evidence of a siting has to add for up for him.

He believes the general public is ignorant of the evidence that is out there and said people dismiss the possibility without giving it any thought. Miller said if he sits down with anyone, even the most hard-nosed skeptic, and goes through all the evidence, he can leave them scratching their heads.

“We’ve got an animal here that is unclassified that people are reporting seeing that really exists out here. And all I want people to do is be educated about what I’ve seen and then make up their own minds.”

He hopes that if the animal can be caught and classified it would prompt large tracts of land to be protected which would in turn be beneficial for all species.

Miller realizes others before him have died broke and alone, with not a lot to show for their efforts. But he believes his goal is attainable and he will be able to move on once he has achieved it.

“So I’ve gone too far to turn back now, as they say,” he said. “I think it’s important, and I’m going to stay with it as long as I am able to, until I have achieved my goal. I want to get a good film of it.”

“I could use help sometimes, but I always think that victory has 1,000 fathers and defeat is an orphan—it’s an old saying,” he said, acknowledging the loneliness and frustration which comes with the job. “I know when that day comes and I’m successful, I’ll get plenty of pats on the back, but in the in-between time it’s hard to find people who will come out with you or help support what you do.”

But despite these hard times and the ridicule he and the other believers faced, Miller said it’s all worth it.

“Every turn of everyday I’m out there, I’m seeing something new. If nothing else, I’ve seen scenery that only God could paint. I’ve see streams and lakes so clean you can drink out of them. To me, that is beautiful, it’s unbelievable.

“I’m constantly learning and seeing things that never cease to amaze me. And for that, that’s a blessing in itself.

“It’s an adventure and I love it. When life stops becoming an adventure for me, then I’m just existing. And I don’t want to end my life thinking all I did was exist. And I’m doing what I love and what I’m meant to do in a place where I love to be. And it’s been beautiful for the most part.”

In an age where many people don’t feel satisfied with their jobs and their place in society, Miller provides a refreshing counterweight, showing its OK to go against the grain and do what makes you happy. Even if the majority of the population thinks you are chasing shadows.