Bigfoot in B.C.? Canadian writer shares Sasquatch stories

The possible existence of Sasquatch in B.C. Author John Zada explores the possibility of the existence of Sasquatch in B.C.

When John Zada embarked on a two-week assignment to write a travel article about the Great Bear Rainforest, he never expected his trip would reveal so many reports of the mysterious sasquatch.

However Zada appeared to stumble upon person after person who had stories of the sasquatch and ended up with a collection of anecdotes.

"I knew at the back of my mind that there was this long history of reports there but when I got there the timing was such that there had been a whole bunch of reports of the creatures," Zada told CTV Morning Live Tuesday.

"By the end of this two-week period I had all of this information and anecdotal research then I just decided to do a book afterwards."

Zada's book, In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond: In Search of the Sasquatch, which was released last month, shares stories of some of these reports from scientists, Indigenous community members and nature tour guides.

The local author said he's always been interested in the sasquatch.

"I grew up at a time when sasquatch was quite prevalent in the media and pop culture, 70s and early 80s and I read a lot of sasquatch books as a young boy going to the public library," he said.

"I found that as I went into adulthood as the topic sort of waned a little bit, I still kept meeting people who had stories or who had experiences so that kept my interest going into adulthood."

While Zada was completing his research, many of the reports he got had a lot in common.

"Reports there are fairly consistent with reports across the Pacific Northwest or even North America, just this sort of large, muscular hair-covered half-man, half-ape-type creature that they come in contact with on their fishing trips or hunting or even on the edges of their villages," he said.

"They are sometimes reported to come into town and bang on buildings or to vocalize or rock throw. Sometimes fishermen get accosted by them."

Even there, Zada said there were some skeptics in the area – just as there are in more urban places.

"Not everybody up there believes in them obviously but there is a higher frequency of reports and because the creatures do exist in their stories and in their culture there's more of an openness to the phenomenon," he said.

"I think those who are proponents of the sasquatch would say in order to really appreciate the topic or in order to have any kind of understanding about the possibility of their existence you have to go out to these places. You have to be in the context, you have to be on the land and to hear the stories from the people that actually kind of know what you're doing with."

On Tuesday at 7 p.m., Zada will read excerpts from his new book at Massy Books in Vancouver.