Abominable Snowman of CA – notes on footprint casts and field strategies

[Explorer]

I recently read Dustin Severs book The Abominable Snowman of California, and posted a short review in the link below.

 

https://bigfootforums.com/topic/79909-read-any-good-bigfoot-books-lately/?do=findComment&comment=1161047

 

It is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.

 

This post is on a couple of interesting observations that I learned from that book that could merit sharing here in BFF. 

One is about the first Bigfoot footprint cast and the other is on the research methodology that Peter Byrne’s used at Bluff Creek in 1960.

 

On the First Bigfoot Footprint Cast

It appears that the 1958 Jerry Crew foot cast was the first cast made of a supposed bigfoot/sasquatch in North America.  I was surprised that John Green and Rene Dahinden had not gotten any sasquatch track casts done in British Columbia, since they have been researching the Sasquatch claims over there since 1956 and the Harrison Springs area was known for sasquatch presence (or at least the town promoted that view).  No wonder they got excited about the Crew find and John Green drove to Bluff Creek CA right away.  But how come nobody in British Columbia was casting sasquatch tracks (real or fake?)

Also, it appears that nobody in Arkansas or in Florida was casting tracks of either Fouke Monster or Skunk Ape during the 1950’s.   If that is the case, then Jerry Crew gets the credit for being the first person in North America to cast a bigfoot/sasquatch track.  In the book, Severs shows a photo of Sanderson holding a plaster cast of a south Florida three-toed monster in 1948 (many years later determined to be a hoax).  But Sanderson never claimed it was made by an ape but instead by a giant penguin-like creature.  Nonetheless, that cast proves that there were people out there creating plaster casts of unknown footprints before 1958.

 

On Byrne’s Research Strategy

The other interesting bit of information that really impressed me was the way that Peter Byrne and his team conducted his field research around Bluff Creek in 1960 (as part of Slick’s Pacific Northwest Expedition).   The story comes from a team member named Steve Matthes, who had retired from the US Fish & Wildlife Department and became a professional cougar hunter.  Dustin Sever quotes from a book Matthes wrote in 1988 titled Brave and other Stories.

Matthes gives his opinion on Byrne’s research strategy at Bluff Creek as follows (Severs, page 300)

“Byrne was a good hunter and planned the hunt well”.  The theory was that Bigfoot, being a humanoid, would search for food along and in streams, as would man.   Peter and Bryan would start at one end of a stream and search it entire length while Jim and I would start at the head of another and check the sandbars for tracks”.  By the end of that summer, they had “combed each drainage of any area leading into the Klamath River.”

But despite such earnest efforts, they never came across a single track.

Matthes found this more than suspect.  “We thought it was damned strange that the only tracks to be found were right in plain sight,”, he wrote, “and never on places like sandbars where they should be if there were such an animal in that neck of the woods.”

 

I agree with Matthes and Severs that this was a red flag. 

Byrne’s idea of searching in the Bluff Creek watershed and all the drainages into the Klamath River makes perfect sense and it must have been a lot of work.  I never read Byrne’s books, so I do not know if he goes over his strategies and failures to get any tracks at Bluff Creek in 1960.  Nonetheless, if he did what Matthes claims, then he was a better researcher than Dahinden and Green who mainly looked at tracks that were already found by others.  This strategy appears very similar to what the Olympic Project has been doing, with a focus on watersheds and drainages.

[Huntster]

On 11/30/2023 at 8:24 PM, Explorer said:

……..But despite such earnest efforts, they never came across a single track.

Matthes found this more than suspect.  “We thought it was damned strange that the only tracks to be found were right in plain sight,”, he wrote, “and never on places like sandbars where they should be if there were such an animal in that neck of the woods.”…….. 

Yet in his book “The Search for Bigfoot” (1976) he claimed to randomly walk out into the woods and find a trackway that they followed for quite a ways (a mile of two) in snow, and even described a spot where the track maker walked the length of a fallen log, then jump to another fallen log in a way he thought impossible for a man without spiked boots.

[Explorer]

4 hours ago, Huntster said:

Yet in his book “The Search for Bigfoot” (1976) he claimed to randomly walk out into the woods and find a trackway that they followed for quite a ways (a mile of two) in snow, and even described a spot where the track maker walked the length of a fallen log, then jump to another fallen log in a way he thought impossible for a man without spiked boots.

 

@Huntster,  Both statements could be true.

 

My understanding is that Byrne started his PNW Research project in Bluff Creek area in Jan 1960 and that it lasted about 2 years and 9 months - until Tom Slick died in air crash (Oct. 6, 1962) and then the project funding ended.

Meanwhile, Steve Matthes only worked on the first season in 1960 and quit after that experience (claiming that all the tracks found there were hoaxes).

Your quote above indicates snow conditions, so maybe those were found after the 1960 summer season that Matthes worked or it could have been winter of 1961 or 1962 when Byrne was still researching the area with other remaining team members.

 

BTW, below is the last interview that Peter Byrne gave.  Very interesting to see him reflect on his many years of research and on what he still believes on.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Explorer

[Huntster]

47 minutes ago, Explorer said:

 

@Huntster,  Both statements could be true.

 

…….. maybe those were found after the 1960 summer season that Matthes worked or it could have been winter of 1961 or 1962 when Byrne was still researching the area with other remaining team members.………

I believe his track find was later, because it was in Washington, not the Bluff Creek area. 

[Redbone]

On 11/30/2023 at 11:24 PM, Explorer said:

On the First Bigfoot Footprint Cast

It appears that the 1958 Jerry Crew foot cast was the first cast made of a supposed bigfoot/sasquatch in North America.  I was surprised that John Green and Rene Dahinden had not gotten any sasquatch track casts done in British Columbia, since they have been researching the Sasquatch claims over there since 1956 and the Harrison Springs area was known for sasquatch presence (or at least the town promoted that view).  

See the 1941 Ruby Creek incident, John Green Report # 1000009 (BC is in North America)

"The Chapman home was on a small Indian reserve beside the Fraser River, only a few hundred yards from the mountain foot. A deputy sheriff, Joe Dunn from Bellingham, made a cast of a track. It was later lost but a tracing of it survives."

 

Also in the John Green database is a report from 1949 in Stevens County Washington. (John Green 1000686 - not posted on BFF)

"Ben Thompson said he saw a very large sasquatch at Leadpoint, watching it through a scope at 800 to 1000 yards, and tried to put his bear dogs on its trail, but they declined. It was heading West over the mountain towards Northport. Said tracks were of cripple-foot, but was very graceful. Said he had cast."

 

Bob Titmus cast a track in BC in 1961, but the cast was lost when his boat burned. (John Green 1000047 - not posted on BFF)

"Bob Titmus had anchored his boat in the shelter of an islet in Kitasu Bay during a storm and saw tracks on the beach. He had to strip and swim ashore to look at them. They started at the tideline and went into the brush, where he could not follow at the time. Later he was unable to find where the tracks re-entered the water, presumably over solid rock. The cast was destroyed the following year when his boat burned."

 

Besides those 3, there were a few more in the 50's

[Explorer]

34 minutes ago, Redbone said:

See the 1941 Ruby Creek incident, John Green Report # 1000009 (BC is in North America)

"The Chapman home was on a small Indian reserve beside the Fraser River, only a few hundred yards from the mountain foot. A deputy sheriff, Joe Dunn from Bellingham, made a cast of a track. It was later lost but a tracing of it survives."

 

Also in the John Green database is a report from 1949 in Stevens County Washington. (John Green 1000686 - not posted on BFF)

"Ben Thompson said he saw a very large sasquatch at Leadpoint, watching it through a scope at 800 to 1000 yards, and tried to put his bear dogs on its trail, but they declined. It was heading West over the mountain towards Northport. Said tracks were of cripple-foot, but was very graceful. Said he had cast."

 

 

@Redbone

 

Thanks for digging into this question and sharing your findings.

 

Severs does cover the Ruby Creek incident and gives credit to John Green for doing a very thorough re-investigation in the 50's.  However, as you stated above, John Green never found the cast of the track which apparently got lost. 

According to Severs, John did bring the Joe Dunn foot paper tracing to Bluff Creek and shared it with the researchers and journalists there.

I think Severs also covered the Leadpoint case, but again Green had no sasquatch cast from that case.

It does appear that the first sasquatch footprint cast that John Green and Dahinden saw was the Jerry Crew cast.

I presume that both of them learned how to create plaster casts and started casting after the 1958 Crew bigfoot cast made national news.

[Redbone]

I just (finally) posted the John Green report on the 1958 Jerry Crew track find in the John Green sightings section.

There is another duplicate report (#165) in the John Green database that lacks information, but it is for this same date and location. It's from the files of Betty Allen.

https://bigfootforums.com/topic/98975-california-del-norte-county-oct-1958-report-1000328/