by Peter Speck So the sasquatch is in the news again. How interesting. There are few mysteries in the world these days, and to have one in our own back yard, so to speak, is delightful. The only difficulty that-I have with the idea of a sasquatch is that the whole thing is so improbable. Notice that I said improbable, not impossible. It’s biologically possible for a large primate to have evolved over the milleniums. Other animals of roughly Similar shape and size stil live in other parts of the world. The gorilla, for instance, frequents parts of the earth characterized by high altitude temperature extremes and forest, roughly — the same climactic charac- teristics of our part of the world. But it’s improbable that a creature of creatures’ as conspicuous as the sasquatch -could evade detection, slaughter or capture in our crowded world. There’s not much wilderness left. North America just isn’t the unex- plored GackKWOods it may have been at one time. It’s pretty busy ‘backwoods’ with roads crisscrossing sands of acres throughout the Pacific Northwest. Air- craft fill the skies, hunters flock to the forests and housing encroaches onto the rapidly vanishing game- lands. I can’t see how a creature as distinctive as the sasquatch could possibl avoid the hunters and hikers, the logging truck drivers, helicopter pilots, boy scouts, farmers, ranchers and all the in the logging other people who frequent the ‘wilderness’ areas. But if there is a sasquatch it is interesting to conjecture what sort of creature it might possibly be. Eyewitness’ re- the creature’ is roughly humanoid=that is, it has’ a head, arms, legs and a torso. .No report that I have’ seen makes any reference to its face or eyes. The sasquatch thou-- we is reported to be covered with fur of some type, which some eyewitnesses describe as iong and reddish-brown. HOAX ‘“‘FULL OF HOLES’? _ The most recent ‘sight- ing,’ near Mission, B.C. has been accepted by the RCMP as a hoax, engineered by four men .who allegedly staged the incident, in which a bus driver and his passengers saw a sasquatch run across. the highway in front of their bus. The bus driver, who was not a party tothe alleged hoax, says the being he saw weighed about four hundred pounds (which was_ con- firmed ee the tracks) and The hoaxers claim that the entire thing was set up by lam man, Don_ Ticehurst, says that he impersonated the sasquatch. His brother and a Port Moody.man, Rene. Quesnel, planted a fourth man, Gordon Jacobi, on’ the -bus, to draw attention to the ‘sasquatch.’ However, Province repor- ter, Don Hunter; says their bbe an Story is ‘“‘fuli of hoies.’’ “*How did they impersonate the ‘inhuman smell’ reported by the bus driver, and how did the five-foot, 11-inch ' Ticehurst impersonate a seven-foot sasquatch?”’ Tracking experts on the scene said that the prints, by test, were from a creature .that weighed four hundred “, pounds. How did the prank- ports and tracks suggest that | sters make those? But, truth is stranger than fiction. If there is a sasquatch or sasquatches it or they must lead a curious hunted life. I would imagine that the VERIFIED CIRCULATION 46,000 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 OFFICE/NEWS: (604) 980-0511 CLASSIFIED: 980-3464 CIRCULATION: 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Bob Graham. Editor-in-Chief Noel Wright/News Guillermo Lam/Photes Ells- worth Dickson/Production Marna Leiren/Advertis- ing Kristi Vidler/Classifled Berni. Hilliard/Circula- tion Yvonne Chapman/Administration Barbara Haywood/Accounts Sylvia Sorensen. North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent community newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111, Part 111, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday by the North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mall Registration Number 3885. ENTIRE CONTENTS COPYRIGHT © 1977 NORTH SHORE FREE PRESS LTD. All rights reserved. creature would have to be very alert and intelligent to escape detection for so long. I would also imagine that to support a four hundred pound weight the creature would require a fairly large food supply. I. think a humanoid creature of that weight wouid have difficulty in maintaining a carnivorous diet—it would take a lot of catching and _ killing to maintain that big a body, and game is not that reliably plentiful. No, I think that a_ sas- quatch would have to be a vegetarian, like the gorilla that he appears to resemble. Gorillas eat no meat, just the plants of the jungles high in the mountains where they ~ : live. Our sasquatch could possibly live on a diet- of camas bulbs, fireweed, ber- ries and other vegetation. It would have to be an efficient feeder, capable of travelling long distances at night to’ find the fuel to move it’s” giant body. AYRE ONLY ONE sasquaiches could there be? Not very many, I think. One, two—a dozen at the most. Once an animal species drops below a certain level it is’ difficult for the animals to control enough territory to enable them to mate and produce descendants. Maybe there’s only one. What kind of life could it lead? It rains a lot here, so one answer could be cold and wet, at least part of the time. Hunted, that’s probably another logical conjecture. With thousands of gun-toting hunters crisscrossing the land it would have to be a very dumb beast not to be ‘frightened. After all, huaters even shoot each other. A sasquatch would surebe a nice trophy to talk about on the Johnny Carson show. Bears, wolves, rabbits, birds. and all the other inhabitants of the woods have learned to fear man and the long stick that makes a ioud noise. Sasquatches would have to learn that lesson early. What else could a_ sas- quatch be expected to have? Very good hearing. Sasquat- ches must hate dogs and stay as far away from them as possible. Opposable thumbs and forefingers, for the creature walks upright, leav- ing the hands free to grasp things. Long warm hair to fight the chilling effects of rain and snow. Strong teeth to shred all kinds of food without preparation. Keen senses of sight, smell and hearing. And intelligence. As someone ruefully re- marked the other day, we'll probably only get to know that there really is a sasquatch if a hunter kills it and we lay it on a slab and measure it. With our luck it would be the last one in existence, and we would have done it again. Let’s form an association to defend the poor sas- quatch. How about the Sasquatch Defence League? Or the Sasquatch-Anti-Har- assment-Society? We could have our meetings in Sasquatchewan. very : i a 4 S Dianne Kennedy Pike Dianne Pike and Arleen Lorrance are the originators of The Love Principles and the leaders of The Love Project, a way of life ‘based on six simple. principles for transforming energies & channeling the Love Force in positive, practical ways. Dianne and Arleen, along with Hayden Stewart will be leading Wednesday’s meeting. topic of F discussion - Be the change you want to see happen. - Receive all. people exactly as they are. - Provide everyone with the opportunity to give. - Have abundant expectancy rather than specific expectations. - Create consciously the reality in which you want to live. - Perceive all problems a as opportunities | a collection will be taken sponsored by the North Shore Nows Se bo ee nS Cs = pe. a ay