Squatch Watch

The deep, extensive forests of the Olympic Peninsula hide secrets. As the ancient coelacanth, a fish found in fisherman’s nets off of the coast of South Africa in 1938, or the chance discovery of the brilliantly bioluminescent megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) hooked upon a US Navy’s ships anchor in 1976, document --- the natural world still holds mysteries.

Before actual specimens of these species were found stories abounded about their existence, but proof was necessary to take these animals from the realm of cryptid to the empirical world. Cryptozoology is a term coined in the 1950s by Bernard Heuvelman, a French-Belgian biologist, used to describe the discipline responsible for documenting cryptids or “animals of unexplained form or size, or unexpected occurrence in time or space.”

The search for these cryptids or “hidden animals” has included research in to the Loch Ness Monster (Nessie) of Scotland, the Abominable Snowman or Yeti of the Himalayas, and the Lake Champlain monster (or Champ). More locally there are reports of sea serpents (often known as the Cadborosaurus) in the waters of the Salish Sea and Puget Sound and the Ogopogo lake monster of British Columbia’s Lake Okanagan. Another famous cryptid found across North America is the Bigfoot, or more locally, the Sasquatch.

"About one-third of all claims of Bigfoot sightings are located in the Pacific Northwest."

Washington State has the highest instance of direct sightings in the United States of creatures meeting the description of Sasquatch or "Bigfoot." Recorded by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), Pierce County takes the lead with total number of listings, with Snohomish and Skamania following close behind. After a series of sightings and findings of foot prints and other evidence, Skamania famously passed a law in 1969 that forbade the “willfull and wanton slaying” of a Sasquatch. Such action would be considered a felony and punishable by a hefty fine of $10,000 and jail time. This punishment has since been reduced to $500 and only six months in jail, but the endurance of this legislation demonstrates that the Sasquatch is still considered real enough to protect.

"The endurance of this legislation demonstrates that the Sasquatch is still considered real enough to protect."

Stop by Bear in a Box in Allyn WA for some amazing squatch art.

Sasquatch has been described as a large, hairy, up-right walking, hominid-like creature, often accompanied by a strong stench. The Sasquatch is often identified by strange “eerie” calls such as whoops and screams. Additionally, it is famous for its large footprints. Usually, these encounters are reported as non-aggressive but they often induce incredible fear and a feeling of unease in the witness and there are reports of Sasquatches breaking large branches and throwing rocks.

Indigenous people throughout the Pacific Northwest describe in their oral history and legends various versions of a Sasquatch-like-creature that is often characterized as a malevolent trickster responsible for stealing children and women.

The Kwakwaakaa’wakw of Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, tell stories of Dsonoqua—or the Wild Woman of the Woods—who makes the noise of the wind “ooh-ing” through the trees and lures away children. These stories may or may not be cultural traditions documenting the Sasquatch.

Many a campfire is made spookier by tales of the supernatural Sasquatch. Stemming from this, there is a new kind of tourism on the rise—cryptotourism. Professionally led expeditions are orchestrated by organizations such as the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) and the Olympic Project to systematically search for evidence of the Sasquatch in areas of high reports. Usually, participants on these expeditions are taught in the field how to take accurate casts of footprints, make sound recordings, conduct surveys, as well as how to collect uncontaminated samples of hair and feces.

On the Lookout for Sasquatch

According to David George Gordon, author of The Sasquatch Seeker’s Field Manual (2015), mainstream researchers do not have access to the grants or time needed to properly assess the Sasquatch question, so like the Christmas Bird Count miraculously organized by Cornell every winter, volunteer, amateur scientists, or ‘citizen scientists,’ are the only hope to document evidence of the Sasquatch.

Training citizen scientists through organized expeditions is one way to further research and cover more ground. Additionally, these organizations file reports of Sasquatch sightings, lending us a powerful tool to create your own self-guided, cryptotour of the Olympic Peninsula.

Make sure you pack a good camera in the hopes you spot some unusual wildlife. As well, bring a friend or two as the more witnesses the more credible your evidence will be. Below are two top areas to look for Sasquatch activity in around Hood Canal from the BFRO’s list of Bigfoot reports.

Local Sightings & Reports

Jarell Cove State Park and Harstine Island area

• Report of an actual sighting in 2005

• Recent increase reports of hearing the calls of Sasquatches

Big Creek Campground & Lake Cushman area

• Report from hikers on Big Creek Trail of hearing the calls, smelling the stench and seeing oddly broken branches in 2010

• Multiple reports of hearing calls of Sasquatches in the Lake Cushman area

• Two reports of actual sightings in the Lake Cushman area from 2006.

Union City: Hood Canal town steeped in history

Stella Wenstob, featured columnist

Descriptions of Union, WA usually run along the lines of "inspired by nature." The first time I encountered that aphorism I took it as artistic whimsy, but by the third website I read about Union, I became curious. Is only one person writing all of this advertising content?  Maybe. Or perhaps there is something more here. Perhaps there is something inspirational about Union’s situation near the bend of the Hood Canal with uninterrupted views of Mount Washington, Mount Constance and the iconic Brothers. 

Maybe there is a muse in this coastal, Mediterranean microclimate colored by the luscious, green foliage of salal bushes and the imposing Western Red Cedar and the bright red trunks of the Madrona trees.  Possibly more is fed than the stomach on Hood Canal seafood. At Union maybe the soul is fed too. When I started to examine the history of the extraordinary people that lived in this area, I began to see this inspired lifestyle stretching back countless generations. 

Union, circa 1910; Mason County Historical Society

The members of the Skokomish Tribe are descendants of the Twana people whose traditional territory covered an extensive area along the Hood Canal, inland to the peaks of the Olympic Mountains. The Skokomish River on the Eastern side of the Olympic Peninsula with its productive salmon run and valuable grasses for weaving baskets was especially important to the Skokomish. When their lands were limited to a small section of the Skokomish River by the Treaty of Point No Point in 1855 one elder from the area, S’Hau-at-Seha-uk, voiced his fear of losing his home and way of life, “I do not want to leave the mouth of the River. I do not want to leave my home; and my burying ground; I am afraid I shall die if I do.”  Despite losing traditional lands and the damaging effects of colonialism – the Skokomish are a thriving people. 

Skokomish Community Centre

Skokomish arts and culture are informed and shaped by nature. Bear grass basket making, though threatened by development of the traditional picking sites on the Skokomish river, is an intricate example of natural resources, ingenuity and art coming together along with cedar carvings, dugout canoes, drum songs and traditional dance.  To see a beautiful display of the technique and intricacy of the Skokomish basket makers or the ornate carvings drop in on the newly built Skokomish Community Centre (located just off of Highway 101).  

Opened in 2017 and located just outside of Union on the Skokomish Reserve, this intriguing hybrid building is a handsome example of Indigenous informed design – combining traditional plank, big-house style architecture with modern needs and conveniences—such as a gym, a meeting hall and a commercial kitchen.  With over 400 solar panels on its roof the Skokomish Community Centre also offers a marvelous example of environment informing design.  

The Ultimate Road Trip

If you continue traveling Highway 101 past the Skokomish Salmon Hatchery and take the turn on to Highway 106 you will find yourself on a winding highway following the Skokomish River as it meets up with Hood Canal. 

After about twelve minutes of mossy delta and interesting views of cottages clinging to the thin strip of land between the road and the gently eroding riverbank reminiscent of a scene from Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion you will head around the headland that opens up until the area we now recognize as Union.

Known as duxWhLu’qWat3d to the Twana people, then called Skokomish by early settlers, in 1889 it was renamed Union City by lumberman, developer and legislator John McReavy to celebrate Washington’s declaration of statehood.  

McCreavy was a boom and bust figure who had dreams of creating the “Venice of the Pacific” in Union.  His mansion built in 1890 on the bluff overlooking Union is the site of a loving restoration project and is purported to be the oldest pioneer house on Hood Canal–and of course hosts a few ghosts.  

As you continue on the East State Route 106 you will pass shops and a general store. 

Along the highway you will find the remnants of Olympus Manor, Washington’s first artist’s colony created in the 1920s by the charismatic artist and musician Orre Nobles and his family.  Influenced by an Asian -Art Deco aesthetic Olympus Manor was resplendent with a music room enclosed with rescued stain glass, a pipe organ and rich oriental rugs underfoot. The grounds were complete with a Torri gate that was crowned with a Native American dugout canoe.  

Orre Nobles sketches in studio - UW Libraries, Special Collections

Although destroyed in a fire in 1952 the glamorous stories of the artists, musicians, actors, and stars that came to partake in the Hood Canal’s delights at Olympus Manor are the stuff of legends.  

For a colorful and fascinating account of this early historical era of Union pick up a copy of Michael Fredson’s The Artist Colony on Hood Canal: Pixley, Orre Nobles & Waldo Chase (2011).

Another honorable mention found along this highway is the Robin Hood Village and Restaurant, built in 1934 by Don Beckman.  A set designer from Hollywood, Beckman is known for working on the set for the classic Robin Hood starring Errol Flyn. In fact, one of the Robin Hood Village's early visitors was Errol Flyn himself.  

The area has retained its reputation as an artsy community and guests of Robin Hood Village have the option of staying in the new cabins or historic cottages, one of which is rumored to be the cottage where Flynn stayed after he finished filming the classic tale and came to visit his old friend Beckham. The Restaurant and Pub carry on the arts tradition in Union with their year-round live entertainment feature local and visiting musicians. 

After the sharp bend in the highway you head a bit inland and encounter the refurbished Dalby Waterwheel.  Originally built in the 1920s, Edwin J. Dalby created the first source of hydroelectric power on the Hood Canal to provide electricity for his Seattle bride, Ethel. Ed Dalby was raised on the Canal and an adapt linguist speaking Skokomish and the Chinook Trade language.  While studying at the University of Washington he worked as a researcher for the photographer Edward S. Curtis on his controversial The North American Indian (1907-1930) which strove to document in twenty volume images of the purported vanishing culture of the Native Americans.  Now considered overtly racist in the project’s main philosophy that indigenous culture and identity was slated to be subsumed by Euro-American culture and many of the photographs Curtis produced are criticized for being too contrived, there is however an artistic, romantic quality to many of the pictures that transcends this. Dalby introduced Curtis to the Skokomish Tribe and, with the assistance of Skokomish brothers Frank and Henry Allen, persuaded local tribe members to pose in costumes, in imaginative scenes.

washingtonhistory.org

The misty shot of two women standing near a reed tent and beautiful cedar dugouts is iconic and quintessential. However, it is–like most romantic notions– highly contrived. Skokomish people in 1912 did not wear reed clothing or live in reed tents, being more accustomed at this time to western clothes and plank houses. 

Henry Allen continued to assist Curtis and Dalby accompanying them in their work as far as North Dakota.  Henry Allen’s voice was also recorded by Curtis on wax discs singing traditional songs. Curtis combined the recorded music of many different Native American voices and their photographs to create a musical slide show which he dubbed a “Picture Opera.” Curtis took his “Picture Opera” on tour across the country and played to a packed audience at Carnegie Hall in NY. 

Skokomish music continues to influence Carnegie worthy works. On May 24, 2019 Union’s Great Bend Chorale and Youth Chorale led by Matthew Blegen will be performing at Carnegie Hall as part of the Distinguished Concerts in New York series. They will be performing a commissioned piece by conductor John Muehleisen inspired by early Salish recordings. 

The hybrid work titled Borders begins with a Salish song of welcome, then Muehleisen weaves together European, African, Asian, and Latin American folk songs with his own settings of the poetry of Emma Lazarus, Brian Bilston, and Alberto Ríos in a powerful and moving musical journey that explores the historical roots of immigration and the modern relevance of America’s identity.  The work takes up the question: How are we to treat the stranger, the foreigner, the outsider, and the “Other” amongst us?  The local debut will be June 1  in Shelton and June 2 in Bremerton. 

Hosting a rich tradition spanning generations of first people and settlers, Union hosts fantastic views of the Olympics and Canal while embracing the arts and community. It is little wonder it was voted one of the 20 Prettiest Towns in USA by Forbes Traveller. Whether it is the people, the history, the music, the food or the natural beauty, Union has something inspiring for everyone.

Tracing the Fjord

Like a giant fish hook snaking around glacier capped peaks, lush rain soaked forests and spanned by a web of waterways and inlets, the Hood Canal is poised to catch your imagination and reel in memories for years to come.

The Hood Canal fjord formed during the Late Pleistocene era approximately 13,000 years ago when the Cordilleran Ice Sheet retreated. The ice sheet excavated the channels of Puget Sound, Lake Washington, Hood Canal, and other long, straight valleys in the Puget Sound area.

“Christened “Hood’s Channel” by Captain Vancouver when he traced the shores of the sixty mile fjord in May 1792, the Twana people have called this hook of saltwater “home” for countless generations before European arrival.”

A NASA MODIS satellite image showing the teal-colored Hood Canal as a 2017 plankton bloom covers the Canal a harmless but tropic aquamarine. (Photo: NASA/MODIS)

The curious question as to how did the massive glacier turn in it’s course to create the “hook” may be answered by examining a combination of forces including the formation of great glacial lakes and erosion. The broad valley of the Skokomish River joins the southern tip of the Canal from the west in much the same way as the arm “hook” joins from the East.  

As the Skokomish valley cut down through the valley it joined the glacier lake with the major fjord thereby creating the “L- shaped” channel. This troughing of the glacial till and erosion may account for the massive sills of glacial sediment that make up the sea floor in many areas of the Canal.

Christened “Hood’s Channel” by Captain Vancouver when he traced the shores of the sixty mile fjord in May 1792, the Twana people have called this hook of saltwater “home” for countless generations before European arrival.

Spending winters in villages near the mouths of the major rivers, the Twana people lived in cedar plank homes and enjoyed a rich culture and livelihood on the fjord. Salmon, clams, plants, and game provided year round generous bounty for their families. 

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The warmer months were marked with visits to neighboring settlements as well as further journeys to trade with people from as far away as what is now Alaska’s outer coast. 

In 1792, Vancouver ventured into Hood Canal in longboats. He left his ships, the Discovery and Chatham, in nearby Port Townsend. Vancouver and his crew journeyed as far as the mouth of the Skokomish River, where Menzies, his botanist, was amazed by the rich vegetation as well as the natural beauty of the area. He wrote in his journal, “here the arm was hemmed in by lofty Mountains on one side and low flat country of considerable extent on the other.”

After a few days of exploration and trade with the Twana people, Vancouver and his men retraced their path out of the Canal leaving behind a legacy of European names in their wake.

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Over two centuries later the Canal remains much the same. The settlements are replaced with small towns and knots of houses. Harvested hillsides have regrown new forests. The water route is replaced with a two lane highway that follows the shoreline.

“As Highway 101 meanders along the canal edge, we pass pockets of civilization and catch glimpses of the beauty through the trees.”

Hood Canal is renown as a diving mecca as its glacial fjord formation caused underwater biomes that appear no where else. Adventurers travel worldwide for the area’s spectacular hiking, boating, fishing, camping and relaxing opportunities.  Heralded for its rich timber history and aquaculture resources it is the place where many of us choose to raise our kids and build our livelihoods.