(Historic) J.W. Burns
The name Sasquatch was coined in the 1920's by J. W. Burns, through ..what is believed to be.. a mis-pronunciation of an indian word, and for the most part is used primarily to describe our Canadian cryptid . Many indigenous peoples have varying terms for the wild ones and the forest fathers..but it was through J. W. Burns writings and articles about the creature that this particular name has become known world-wide.
The name Bigfoot first appeared in the October 5, 1958 copy of the Humboldt Times, as a headline to an article written by the paper's editor Andrew Genzoli on a local man named Jerry Crew who had shown up at the paper's office with a plaster cast of a footprint found in Bluff Creek Valley. British Columbian stories about encounters and footprints have been recorded by Indians and settlers alike going back over 100 years. But an oral history of Sasquatch encounters by BC indians goes back much further!
J.W. Burns spent many years as a teacher on the Chehalis Indian Reserve beside the Harrison River about 60 miles east of Vancouver, B.C. He wrote numerous articles and stories, which were published in the Vancouver newspapers of the day. He was keen to write about the encounters which local Indians were stated to have had with the hairy giants, including an article in a major national magazine in 1929. ( MacLean's Magazine, April 1 issue )
While those stories certainly did not convince non-Indian society that such creatures actually existed, they did make "Sasquatch" a household name! So much so, that they even named a local inn after the creature!
Introducing B.C.'s Hairy Giants J. W. Burns
A collection of strange tales about British Columbia's wild men as told by those who say they have seen them. Are the vast mountain solitudes of British Columbia, of which but very few have been so far, explored, populated by a hairy race of giants-men-not ape-like men? Reports from time to time, covering a period of many years, have come from the hinterlands of the province, that hairy giants had been occasionally seen by Indian and white trappers in the mountain vastnesses, far from the pathway of civilization. These reports, however, were always vague and indefinite; for the reason that no person could be found, or, at least, nobody came forward with the information that they had obtained a close-up view of these strange creatures.
Persistent rumors led the writer to make diligent inquiries among old Indians. The question relating to the subject was always, or nearly always, evaded with the trite excuse: "The white man don't believe, he make joke of the Indian." But after three years of plodding, I have come into possession of information more definite and authentic than has come to light at any previous time. Disregarding rumor and hearsay, I have prevailed upon men who claim they had actual contact with these hairy giants, to tell what they know about them. Their story is set down here in good faith. Peter Williams lives on the Chehalis Reserve. "I believe that he is a reliable as well as an intelligent Indian. He gave me the following thrilling account of his experience with these people."
Peter's Encounter with the Giant
One evening in the month of May twenty years ago," he said, "I was walking along the foot of the mountain about a mile from the Chehalis reserve. I thought I heard a noise something like a grunt nearby. Looking in the direction in which it came, I was startled to see what I took at first sight to be a huge bear crouched upon a boulder twenty or thirty feet away. I raised my rifle to shoot it, but, as I did, the creature stood up and let out a piercing yell. It was a man — a giant, no less than six and one-half feet in height, and covered with hair. He was in a rage and jumped from the boulder to the ground. I fled, but not before I felt his breath upon my cheek.
"I never ran so fast before or since — through brush and undergrowth toward the Statloo, or Chehalis River, where my dugout was moored. From time to time, I looked back over my shoulder. The giant was fast overtaking me a hundred feet separated us; another look and the distance measured less than fifty. — pushed my boat into the Chehalis and in a moment the dugout shot across the stream to the opposite bank. The swift river, however, did not in the least daunt the giant, for he began to wade it immediately.
"I arrived home almost worn out from running and I felt sick. Taking an anxious look around the house, I was relieved to find the wife and children inside. I bolted the door and barricaded it with everything at hand. Then with my rifle ready, I stood near the door and awaited his coming." ( Peter added that if he had not been so much excited he could easily have shot the giant when he began to wade the river. )
"After an anxious waiting of twenty minutes," resumed the Indian, "I heard a noise approaching like the trampling of a horse. I looked through a crack in the old wall. It was the giant. Darkness had not yet set in and I had a good look at him. Except that he was covered with hair and twice the bulk of the average man, there was nothing to distinguish him from the rest of us. He pushed against the wall of the old house with such force that it shook back and forth. The old cedar shook and timbers creaked and groaned so much under the strain that I was afraid it would fall down and kill us. I whispered to the old woman to take the children under the bed."
( Peter pointed out what remained of the old house in which he lived at the time, explaining that the giant treated it so roughly that it had to be abandoned the following winter.
"After prowling and grunting like an animal around the house," continued Peter, "he went away. We were glad, for the children and the wife were uncomfortable under the old bedstead. Next morning I found his tracks in the mud around the house, the biggest of either man or beast I had ever seen. The tracks measured twenty-two inches in length, but narrow in proportion to their length."
( The following winter while shooting wild duck on that part of the reserve Indians call the "prairie," which is on the north side of the Harrison River and about two miles from the Chehalis village. Peter once more came face to face with the same hairy giant. The Indian ran for dear life, followed by the wild man, but after pursuing him for three or four hundred yards the giant gave up the chase.
Old village Indians, who called upon Peter to hear of his second encounter, nodded their heads sagely, shrugged their shoulders, and for some reason not quite clear, seemed not to wish the story to gain further publicity. ) On the afternoon of the same day another Indian by the name of Paul was chased from the creek, where he was fishing for salmon, by the same individual. Paul was in a state of terror, for unlike Peter he had no gun. A short distance from his shack the giant suddenly quit and walked into the bush. Paul, exhausted from running, fell in the snow and had to be carried home by his mother and others of the family.
"The first and second time." went on Peter, "I was all alone when I met this strange mountain creature. Then, early in the spring of the following year, another man and myself were bear hunting near the place where I first met him. On this occasion we ran into two of these giants. They were sitting on the ground. At first we thought they were old tree stumps, but when we were within fifty feet or so, they suddenly stood up and we came to an immediate stop. Both were nude. We were close enough to know that they were man and woman. The woman was the smaller of the two, but neither of them as big or fierce-looking as the giant that chased me. We ran home, but they did not follow us."
The Indian house that was wrecked by Peter's giant. One morning, some few weeks after this, Peter and his wife were fishing in a canoe on the Harrison River, near Harrison Bay. Paddling round a neck of land they saw, on the beach within a hundred feet of them, the giant Peter had met the previous year.
"We stood for a long time looking at him." said the Indian, "but he took no notice of us — that was the last time," concluded Peter, "I saw him." Peter remarked that his father and numbers of old Indians knew that wild men lived in caves in the mountains — had often seen them. He wished to make it clear that these creatures were in no way related to the Indian. He believes there are a few of them living at present in the mountains near Agassiz.
Charley Victor's Story
Charley Victor belongs to the Skwah Reserve near Chilliwack. In his younger days he was known as one of the best hunters in the province and had many thrilling adventures in his time.
Did he know anything about the hairy ape-like men who were supposed to inhabit the distant mountains? Charley smiled, and answered that he had had a slight acquaintance with them. He had been in what he thought was one of their houses. "And that is not all," said he. "I met and spoke to one of their women, and I shot..." But let Charley tell the story himself.
"The strange people, of whom there are but few now — rarely seen and seldom met — " said the old hunter, "are known by the name of Sasquatch, or, 'the hairy mountain men'.
"The first time I came to know about these people," continued the old man, "I did not see anybody. Three young men and myself were picking salmon berries on a rocky mountain slope some five or six miles from the old town of Yale. In our search for berries we suddenly stumbled upon a large opening in the side of the mountain. This discovery greatly surprised all of us, for we knew every foot of the mountain, and never knew nor heard there was a cave in the vicinity.
"Outside the mouth of the cave there was an enormous boulder. We peered into the cavity but couldn't see anything.
"We gathered some pitch wood, lighted it and began to explore. But before we got very far from the entrance of the cave, we came upon a sort of stone house or enclosure: it was a crude affair. We couldn't make a thorough examination, for our pitch wood kept going out. We left, intending to return in a couple of days and go on exploring. Old Indians, to whom we told the story of our discovery, warned us not to venture near the cave again, as it was surely occupied by the Sasquatch. That was the first time I heard about the hairy men that inhabit the mountains. We, however, disregarded the advice of the old men and sneaked off to explore the cave, but to our great disappointment found the boulder rolled back into its mouth and fitting it so nicely that you might suppose it had been made for that purpose."
Charley intimated that he hoped to have enough money some day to buy sufficient dynamite to blow open the cave of the Sasquatch, and see how far it extends through the mountain.
The Indian then took up the thread of his story and told of his first meeting with one of these men. A number of other Indians and himself were bathing in a small lake near Yale. He was dressing, when suddenly out from behind a rock, only a few feet away, stepped a nude hairy man. "Oh! he was a big, big man!" continued the old hunter. "He looked at me for a moment, his eyes were so kind-looking that I was about to speak to him, when he turned about and walked into the forest."
At the same place two weeks later, Charley, together with several of his companions saw the giant, but this time he ran toward the mountain. This was twenty years after the discovery of the cave.
Charley Shoots a Sasquatch Boy
I don't know if I should tell you or not about the awful experience I had with these wicked people about fifteen years ago in the mountains near Hazie." The old man rubbed his knee, and said he disliked recalling that disagreeable meeting — it was a tragedy from which he had not yet fully recovered.
Old Charley, who says he talked to a Sasquatch (giant) woman and wounded one of their boys. "I was hunting in the mountains near Hatzie." he resumed. "I had my dog with me. I came out on a plateau where there were several big cedar trees. The dog stood before ons of the trees and began to growl and bark at it. On looking up to see what excited him, I noticed a large hole in the tree seven feet from the ground. The dog pawed and leaped upon the trunk, and looked at me to raise him up, which I did, and he went into the hole. The next moment a muffled cry came from the hole. I said to myself: 'The dog is tearing into a bear.' and with my rifle ready, I urged the dog to drive him out, and out came something I took for a bear. I shoot and it fell with a thud to the ground. 'Murder! Oh my!' I spoke to myself in surprise and alarm, for the thing I had shot looked to me like a white boy. He was nude. He was about twelve or fourteen years of age."
In his description of the boy, Charley said that his hair was black and woolly.
Wounded and bleeding, the poor fellow sprawled upon the ground, but when I drew close to examine the extent of his injury, he let out a wild yell, or rather a call as if he were appealing for help. From across the mountain a long way off rolled a booming voice. Near and more near came the voice and every now and again the boy would return an answer as if directing the owner of the voice. Less than a half-hour, out from the depths of the forest came the strangest and wildest creature one could possibly see.
"I raised my rifle, not to shoot, but in case I would have to defend myself. The hairy creature, for that was what it was, walked toward me without the slightest fear. The wild person was a woman. Her face was almost negro black and her long straight hair fell to her waist. In height she would be about six feet, but her chest and shoulders were well above the average in breadth."
Charley remarked that he had met several wild people in his time, but had never seen anyone half so savage in appearance as this woman. The old brave confessed he was really afraid of her.
"In my time," said the old man, "and this is no boast, I have in more than one emergency strangled bear with my hands, but I'm sure if that wild woman laid hands on me, she'd break every bone in my body.
"She cast a hasty glance at the boy. Her face took on a demoniacal expression when she saw he was bleeding. She turned upon me savagely, and in the Douglas tongue said: "You have shot my friend."
"I explained in the same language — for I'm part Douglas myself — that I had mistaken the boy for a bear and that I was sorry. She did not reply. but began a sort of wild frisk or dance around the boy, chanting in a loud voice for a minute or two, and, as if in answer to her, from the distant woods came the same sort of chanting troll. In her hand she carried something like a snake, about six feet in length, but thinking over the matter since, I believe it was the intestine of some animal. But whatever it was, she constantly struck the ground with it. She picked up the boy with one hairy hand, with as much ease as if he had been a wax doll."
At this point of the story, Charley began to make pictures in the sand with his maple stick, and paused or reflected so long that we thought he had come to the end of his narrative, when he suddenly looked up, and said with a grin: "Perhaps I better tell you the rest of it, although I know you'll not believe it. There was challenge of defiance in her black eyes and dark looks," went on Charley, "as she faced and spoke to me a second time and the dreadful words she used set me shaking." "You remember them?" I asked.
"Remember them," he repeated, "they still ring round my old ears like the echo of a thunder-storm. She pointed the snake-like thing at me and said: "Siwash, you'll never kill another bear." The old hunter's eyes moistened when he admitted that he had not shot a bear or anything else since that fatal day.
"Her words, expression, and the savage avenging glint in her dark, fiery eyes filled me with fear," confessed the Indian, "and I felt so exhausted from her unwavering gaze that I was no longer able to keep her covered with my rifle. I let it drop."
Charley has been paralyzed for the last eight years, and he is inclined to think that the words of the wild woman had something to do with it. The old man told how his "brave dog that never turned from any bear nor cougar," lay whimpering and shivering at his feet while the Sasquatch woman was speaking, "just," said Charley, "as if he understood the meaning of her words."
The old man said that she spoke the words "Yahoo, yahoo" frequently in a loud voice, and always received a similar reply from the mountain. The old hunter felt sure that the woman Indian looked somewhat like the wild man he had seen at Yale many years before, although the woman was the darker of the two. He did not think the boy belonged to the Sasquatch people, "because he was white and she called him her friend," reasoned Charley. "They must have stolen him or run across him in some other way," he added.
"Indians," said Charley, "have always known that wild men lived in the distant mountains, within sixty and one hundred miles east of Vancouver, and of course they may live in other places throughout the province, but I have never heard of it. It is my own opinion since I met that wild woman fifteen years ago that because she spoke the Douglas tongue these creatures must be related to the Indian.".
The Old Chief Broadcasts On May 23rd, 1938 a festival known as "Indian Sasquatch Days" was held at Harrison Hot Springs, B.C. Having obtained special permission from the Department of Indian Affairs at Ottawa, I took several hundred of my charges to the event. Unfortunately, in his opining speech over the radio, a very prominent official of the British Columbia Government made a bad slip, thus offending all the Indians present who understood English. After a few preliminary remarks, this personage went on: "Of course, the Sasquatch are merely legendary Indian monsters. No white man has ever seen one and they do not exist today in fact……"
Thereupon his voice was drowned by a great rustling of buckskin garments and the tinkling of ornamental bells as, in response to an indignant gesture from old Chief Flying Eagle, more than two thousand Red men rose to their feet in angry protest. Chief Flying Eagle then stalked across to the open space where the speaker stood, surrounded by important dignitaries and others. Absolutely ignoring the entire groups, Chief Flying Eagle turned to the microphone and thundered in excellent English:
"The white speaker is wrong! To all who now hear I say: Some white men have seen Sasquatch." Many Indians have seen them and spoken to them. Sasquatch still all around here. I have spoken!"
The chief then strode back to his place and signed to the other Indians to sit down leaving behind him the Government spokesman whose face was exceedingly red! I was one of the party gathered about the microphone and immediately said a few words over the loud speakers to appease the angry Indians. I corroborated Chief Flying Eagle's statement that white men have seen Sasquatch adding that, although in sadly reduced numbers, sasquatches are still believed to inhabit the vast mountain solitudes of unexplored British Columbia.
During the many years I have been delving into this fascinating subject of the hairy giants of British Columbia, I have come into possession of much well authenticated data. The oldest written record I have so far discovered is that of the late Alexander Caulfield Anderson. He was a noted explorer and pioneer adventurer and Caulfield, a suburb of West Vancouver, is named after him!
In the year 1846, then an inspector for the Hudson's Bay Company, Anderson was sent out by that company to establish a post in the then virgin wilderness in the vicinity of Harrison Lake. There was no doubt that he frequently encountered sasquatches because he mentions the wild giants of the mountains several times in his official reports. For the most part, he writes they were as wary as wild animals but on one occasion he and his party had to retire before a bombardment of rocks hurled by a number of sasquatch entrenched on a hillside.
Not until three years ago however, did I actually meet and talk with a white man who had seen a Sasquatch with his own eyes. That man was a young mining engineer named Roy King. At first Mr. King was reluctant to relate his experience, fearing ridicule, but after I had convinced him of my own firm belief that the hairy men still inhabit certain sections of British Columbia's wildest regions he told me the follow:
The White Man's Story
Some two weeks previously, entirely alone he had been prospecting in the mountains adjacent to Harrison Lake. He had established his solitary camp beside a likely looking creek that churned it's turbulent way through rocky walls several hundred feet in height.
One evening on his way back to camp after a day of prospecting he was walking along the top of one of the walls. As he came within view of his campsite, he looked down and was surprised to see something moving. Thinking that it was probably a thieving grizzly bear, King stopped and unslung both his rifle and binoculars. Focusing the powerful glasses he was startled by the image they brought clear and close to his eyes - a giant of a man entirely naked and excepting for a small space around the eyes, covered from head to foot with black fuzzy hair. The monster was interestedly examining the prospector's personal belongings.
The young man admitted that at first he thought he had been too long alone in the wilderness and that he was seeing things. Then it slowly dawned upon him that through the glasses he was actually getting a close-up of the supposedly mythical Sasquatch.
There upon he did the most sensible thing he could think of; stood perfectly still and quiet watching through his binoculars until a few minutes later, the giant strode off. Roy King then made his way slowly and cautiously down to his camp. He found that most of his possessions had been moved, but nothing had been taken away.
Mr. King's story bears out what the majority of the Indians maintain - that, the wild giants are neither belligerent nor thieves. On occasion, however they will purloin food when hungry.
Last fall, an Indian named Paul and his squaw were returning from a duck hunt carrying some half dozen waterfowl they had bagged. Suddenly a Sasquatch stepped quietly out of the thick bush on one side of the trail and stood directly in their path. Utterly terrified, Paul and his wife dropped the birds and took to their heels. Some time later, accompanied by other Indians, they cautiously returned to the spot. But the Sasquatch had gone - and so had the ducks!
Another Indian named Frank Dan, who asserts that he has seen the Sasquatch on many occasions, told me that one night peering half-hidden from a window, he watched a Sasquatch take two salmon from the branches of a small tree beside the house where he (Dan) had hung them to keep fresh until morning.
Again on a Sunday about a year ago, when most of the natives were at church, a Sasquatch entered the village and seeing that all was quiet and nobody apparently about, went into one of the houses. An Indian who had stopped at home saw the wild man come out burdened with loaves of bread and smoked salmon.
Perhaps the strangest and most terrifying experience any Indian has had with the Sasquatch is that related by an Indian woman named Serephine Long. Now very old, Serephine claims that many years ago when she was a young girl, she was kidnapped by a wild giant and lived in the haunts of the hairy monsters of the mountains for close on a year! She has told me the story many times, and I have set it down as nearly as possible in her own words.
What happened to Serephine Long.
Before doing so, however, I should explain that among the native of Canada - both Indians and Eskimos - there is a shortage of marriageable girls. Probably a similar condition exists among the Sasquatch, thus explaining the action of the wild giant in this case. I should also like to add that although her present day photograph hardly bears this out, the evidence of her contemporaries goes to show that in her girlhood, Serephine Long was considered one of the most comely girls in her tribe. Here is the story:
"I was walking toward home one day many years ago carrying a big bundle of cedar roots and thinking of the young brave Qualac (Thunderbolt), I was soon to marry. Suddenly, at a place where the bush grew close and thick beside the trail, a long arm shot out and a big hairy hand was pressed over my mouth. Then I was suddenly lifted up into the arms of a young Sasquatch. I was terrified, fought, and struggled with all my might. In those days, I was strong. But it was no good, the wild man was as powerful as a young bear. Holding me easily under one arm, with his other hand he smeared tree gum over my eyes, sticking them shut so that I could not see where he was taking me. He then lifted me to his shoulder and started to run.
He ran on and on for a long long time - up and down hills, through thick brush, across many streams never stopping to rest. Once he had to swim a river and then perhaps I could have gotten away, but I was so afraid of being drowned that I held on tightly with my arms about his neck. Although I was frightened I could not but admire his easy breathing, his great strength and speed of foot. After reaching the other side of the river, he began to climb and climb. Presently the air became very cold. I could not see but I guessed that we were close to the top of a mountain."
"At last the Sasquatch stopped hurrying, then he stooped over and moved slowly as if feeling his way along a tunnel. Presently he laid me down very gently and I heard people talking in a strange tongue I could not understand. The young giant next wiped the sticky tree gum from my eyelids and I was able to look around me. I sat up and saw that I was in a great big cave. The floor was covered with animal skins, soft to touch and better preserved that we preserve them. A small fire in the middle of the floor gave all the light there was. As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I saw that beside the young giant who had brought me to the cave there were two other wild people - a man and a woman. To me, a young girl, they seemed very very old, but they were active and friendly and later I learned that they were the parents of the young Sasquatch who had stolen me. When they all came over to look at me I cried and asked them to let me go. They just smiled and shook their heads. From then on I was kept a close prisoner; not once would they let me go out of the cave. Always one of them stayed with me when the other two were away."
"They fed me well on roots, fish and meat. After I had learned a few words of their tongue, which is not unlike the Douglas dialect, I asked the young giant how he caught and killed the deer, mountain goats and sheet that he often brought into the cave. He smiled, opening and closing his big hairy hands. I guessed that he just laid in wait and when an animal got close enough, - he leaped, caught it and choked it to death. He was certainly big enough, quick enough and strong enough to do so."
"When I had been in the cave for about a year I began to feel very sick and weak and could not eat much. I told his to the young Sasquatch and pleaded with him to take me back to my own people. At first he got very angry, as did his father and mother but I kept on pleading with them, telling them that I wished to see my own people again before I died. I really was ill and I suppose they could see that for themselves because one day after I cried for a long time, the young Sasquatch went outside and returned with leaf full of tree gum. With this he stuck down my eyelids as he had done before. Then he again lifted me to his big shoulder."
"The return journey was like a very bad dream for I was light headed and in much pain. When we re-crossed the wide river, I was almost swept away; I was too weak to cling to the young Sasquatch but he held me with one big hand and swam with the other. Close to my home, he put me down and gently removed the tree gum from my eyelids. When he saw that I could see again he shook his head sadly, pointed to my house and then turned back into the forest.
"My people were all wildly excited when I stumbled back into the house for they had long ago given me up as dead. But I was too sick and weak to talk. I just managed to crawl into bed and that night I gave birth to a child. The little one lived only a few hours, for which I have always been thankful. I hope that never again shall I see a Sasquatch."
That is Serephine Long's story, the only one on record of a Sasquatch ever abducting an Indian girl. I could relate more instances concerning the wild giants of British Columbia - seemingly well-attested cases that I have collected over a period of many years - but in this article the few I have recounted must suffice.
Is it possible that primitive hairy giants still inhabit the mountain solitudes of British Columbia? Scientists and others may scoff at the very idea, but many Indians are sincerely convinced that Sasquatch - or at least a few of them live to this day in the vast, unexplored interior. And like my Indians, I also believe.
© J.W. Burns, Indian Agent Chehalis Indian Reservation
