conversation with their “Nan” while not so surreptitiously raiding her fridge. Friends, neighbors, and extended family make similarly unpredictable cameos, often just as Alvina is putting the finishing touches on some home cooking. Many come bearing gifts of seafood: jars of salmon, steamed crab, halibut, seaweed, or herring roe prepared with butter and garlic. Alvina giddily stashes the treasures deep in her fridge, only to share them with me later, selflessly, along with a glass of wine, on her hummingbird-graced balcony.
My host’s generosity is not limited to the kitchen. Having an interest in my researches, she takes an active role in facilitating them, by finding stories and easing access into the community. Alvina shakes down every person who drops into her place for a Sasquatch story or for tips on whom else I might speak to. After a while, I can barely keep up with the leads. I accumulate my own dossier of reports and quickly become familiar with many of the names and places in the territory. In my mental map, and later on Google Earth, I plug tacks into every creek valley, secluded cove, clam beach, and old village site tied to the creatures. Sasquatches, if they exist, seem to be omnipresent on the coast. No island or islet is too remote. No valley is free of their potential presence.
One night, during a backyard barbecue at the house, Alvina appears behind me and grabs my arm. “I want you to meet someone,” she says, leading me to a bonfire around which several people are seated on lawn chairs. She introduces me to her former son-in-law.
“Tell him your Stryker Island story, Larry,” Alvina says, before smiling at me and disappearing into the dark.
The tall, heavyset man in his late fifties is reluctant to speak at first but then tells me that he and his father had encountered an albino Sasquatch on the island. It happened, he said, while the two men were clam digging.
“Suddenly, Dad came running to me, all hysterical, saying a white Sasquatch had come after him,” Larry says. “He said it was trying to protect its clams.” Larry goes silent, reliving the memory.
“Then what happened?” I prompt him.
“The thing chased us outta there is what,” he says. “My dad was really affected by it. He got really freaked out after. So I performed a smoke ceremony to cleanse him.”
“Did he recover?”
“He was, well, different after.”
I notice a man beside us listening intently to the conversation, his stern, heavily contoured face reflecting the dim orange light coming from the embers of the fire. He is staring at me, and I turn my gaze to meet his.
“You say you’re some kinda writer?” he interjects.
“I am.”
“You’re on an Indian reservation and this is the kind of thing you want to write about?” His tone is hostile.
“It’s for a book project. I’m collecting stories—”
“Look around you!” he says, cutting me off. “We’re hurting here! There aren’t any jobs. Groceries are expensive. Do you know how much it costs to buy a bottle of ketchup? Ten bucks! And that was back when we had ketchup! Our goddamn band store just burned down and no government is lifting a finger to help us. The next-nearest supermarket is a hundred miles away!”
Everyone around the fire is listening now. The truth of what he’s saying dawns on me, and I suddenly feel embarrassed and a bit ashamed.
“You come from the big city, and all you can do is ask about Sasquatches!” he says. “Sasquatch this, and Bigfoot that! I have news for you: there is no Sasquatch! It doesn’t exist! Why don’t you do everyone a favor and write about what life is like around here—and how tough things are?”
He stands up, flicks his beer bottle into the fire, and walks away.
Prior to my trip, people acquainted with the coast told me that I’d face an adjustment period. That things work differently here. That the pace and tempo of coastal life are radically at odds with those of the city. I find that to be true. Life in Bella Bella is less structured around clock time. Outside of official business, there is less emphasis on setting up and holding to firm appointments. Plans with others have an almost hypothetical quality to them, until they actually happen. When I complain to Alvina and others that some scheduled meetings don’t come to pass, they all tell me to forgo plans and just go look for people, show up unannounced. More often than not, they add, I’ll