In the late 1960s, myself and a few other commercial fishermen and old
hand loggers went to visit Oscar Greenland (now deceased), a long-time
hand logger and permanent resident of Pitt Lake. Oscar seemed to enjoy
our visits as we always brought a bottle of his favorite gin and some
type of a treat for his faithful old dog. Sometime during the hours
long BS session, the subject of Sasquatch was injected into the noisy
conversation.
Oscar told us about a
time some years back when he was heading up the lake towards home at
first light on a beautiful summer morning. He went on to explain that
the lake was a flat as glass and there wasn't a breath of wind. As
they were heading from point to point he happened to glance towards
the shoreline and noticed a rhythmic splashing about 300 yards away.
Out of curiosity he
decided to head his old Easthope powered ex-gill-netter towards the
beach in case someone was in trouble. As he got closer he noticed a
downed alder or cottonwood tree laying in the water with what appeared
to be a huge, dark colored man-ape jumping up and down on it - looking
for all the world like it was simply playing and totally amused by the
splashes it was making in the water. Oscar went on to explain that
once the ape-like creature spotted him getting closer, it went up the
tree faster than any man could have possibly gone and quickly
disappeared into the bush.
Old Oscar then asked us
all if we thought there were any grizzly bears in the Pitt Lake
country. While none of us had ever seen or heard of a grizzly bear
down low in his general neck of the woods, we asked him why he
enquired. Oscar said that one day he was up behind his cabin cutting
shake blocks when his dog suddenly began to growl, bark and generally
go crazy.
Oscar said he stared in
the direction the dog's gaze was fixed upon and saw what he thought
was about an 8-foot tall grizzly standing on its hind legs partially
hidden behind some alders. Oscar went on to say that he'd heard plenty
of bears grunt and cougars scream in his days in the bush, but had
never heard such a tremendously loud roar come out of any animal he
knew of.
©
Ken Kristian
West Coast
Sasquatch Research
http://www.westcoast-sasquatch.com
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