In the Valleys of the Noble Bey - John Zada Page 0,50
behind him. As the fog thins into sinewy streaks, I begin to see the ruins of the abandoned fishing port and cannery town of Namu in the distance. It’s also the location of a Heiltsuk village site that dates back at least eleven thousand years.
“So, you’re here to find out about the Sasquatch?” William says, redirecting my attention. “I hope you’re not here to make fun of us.”
“No, that’s not my intention. I’m trying to understand the whole thing better. And to come to terms with a childhood interest in it.”
“Our culture really reveres the Sasquatch because it’s a reminder that at one point in time, we were living in the same way that Sasquatches are living. It’s also a reminder of our connection to the land and everything that exists in our territory. It’s not something to be afraid of. It’s something that teaches you things.”
I ask him about the idea that seeing one might be a reflection of a personal crisis.
“This is more the case when someone sees a Bukwus—not a Sasquatch.”
“But I thought Bukwus was just another coastal indigenous name for Sasquatch.”
“Some nations on the coast call Sasquatch Bukwus. For us Heiltsuk, the Bukwus is the little woodsman. A small man, which is really a form of evil. If people are really struggling in life and are imbalanced, they tend to be the ones more likely to see a Bukwus. But for us, they’re two completely different things.”
Is this another reference to the smaller footprints I saw at Old Town? I mention them to William, and he tells me that if the tracks were in fact Bukwus prints, my seeing them may be indication of some inner turmoil in my own life. He looks at me with a grin while attaching another hook.
“Have you ever had any encounters with these animals?” I ask him.
“Oh yeah. One of them took place when I used to run the kids’ camp at Koeye. It was a really foggy night. We had a big camp that week, so our cabins were totally full. Two of the staff members slept outside under a big cedar shelter whose roof is ten feet off the ground. They were in a tent underneath it.
“That night the guys in the tent were woken up at around three a.m. by something moving outside. They thought it was a bear, so they climbed on top of the shelter. They couldn’t see it, but they could hear whatever it was moving beneath them. It was messing with the tent.
“Once it went away, they jumped down and ran into our cabin and told us what happened. Everyone was freaked out. But then we all calmed down and went back to sleep. About an hour later, one of the kids in our cabin, hearing a noise, woke us up, and we could hear it walking beside the cabin, dragging its hand along the outside walls. You could hear it stepping on twigs and branches. It would also tap its nails—or a stick—on the walls. It was right there—nothing but a two-by-six between us and the Sasquatch.”
“What about someone playing a practical joke?” I ask. “That sort of thing happens a lot at camp.”
“That’s what we thought at first: that it was someone fooling around. So we banged back against the wall telling him to fuck off. But it kept happening. Finally I said, ‘I’m going to go see what it is.’ So I picked up a big stick I had with me and went outside to the other side of the cabin. I flipped the outside light on. Through the fog and darkness I could see someone step behind one of the big trees near the cabin. All I heard after that was the crunch-crunch-crunch of footsteps running into the distance.
“In the morning we saw its tracks on the beach. It left footprints fourteen or fifteen inches long and had a deformation, like a big bunion, on its left foot.”
“Wow.”
“It was weird because during that one summer we were able to communicate with it,” he says. “Almost every night at around midnight the boys would go to a tree near the cabin and hit the trunk really hard with a stick. You’d listen and hear the same sound come back. Then we’d do it again: Whack! The next time the sound would return a little bit closer. That whole summer it was lingering around.”
“Skeptics would say you’re seeing and hearing what you want to see or hear.”