As April 5th 2007 came and went I could not help but think back one year ago when others and myself were sure we were hot on the trail of a major breakthrough in this ongoing sasquatch mystery.

We were in an area known locally as the Chehalis Flats, which lies just south of the Chehalis First Nation reserve and where the Chehalis River flows into the Harrison River. This area is where the word “sasquatch” was first exposed to the non-native population of Canada and where that name was entrenched when referring to the creature in general. Nearly thirty years later, the name “bigfoot” was first used in northern California describing the same creature.

This area has a long and rich history of reports dating back before Europeans arrived. Reports from this area still continue today including sightings, footprint findings and strange unidentified animal vocalizations. It is one particular series of unexplained animal vocalizations that caused such a stir one year ago and the results of the follow up investigation that caused quite a controversy in the sasquatch community. Some in the sasquatch community still resist the investigation outcome.

This particular series of events really started February 1, 2005 when a retired elderly couple staying in the trailer park community, which lies at the southwest end of the flats, again was awakened at 2:00 a.m. by loud, strange animal vocalizations. The noises were scary to listen to according to the couple and the possibility that a sasquatch was responsible had occurred to them before. A year previously, they had contacted both the BFRO and other organizations that for one reason or another never made any attempt to do any follow up. The BFRO did put the couple’s report on their website as report 9438 as a Class B, and the BFRO also passed the information to John Green. John Green suggested to the couple that they should keep their Sony CCD-TRV128 Hi-8 camcorder with them and if they heard the sounds again they should turn on the camcorder and place it outside so at least the sounds would be recorded. This they did start to do.

As I recall, John Green also told me of the report. At the time, the report sounded similar to another series of sounds heard by several families about ten miles west down Highway 7 in the little community of Deroche. I did follow up on these sounds at the time and at 1:00 a.m. on June 30, 2004 I thought I heard them myself. After 27 years, this was the first time I thought I might have actually heard the cry of a sasquatch. The first thing that struck me was how similar this sound, which I heard only once at a distance and which did not repeat, was to the Klamath recordings of 1993 and the Puyallup recordings of 1970! Needless to say my interest was now way up. I made similar suggestions in Deroche about using a camcorder to record the sounds if witnesses heard them again.