Ep. 271 - John Zada

Big Food and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo. These guys are your favorites, so like say subscribe and raid it live Stock and me grates on us today listening watching Lim always keep it squatchy And now you're hosts Cliff Barrickman and James Boobo Fay Bobes. What's happening man, Not much, let's go on with you. Nothing nothing, just bigfoot stuff and feeling pretty good about the couple of things. Been been feeling a little bit more alive lately because of this

thing. Man did that one of our advertisers, Magic Mind, gave us some samples and stuff, and doing that for a few days in a row, and now feeling pretty good. What about you, mat Did you get your box? Yeah? I got. I guess I got mine before you did, because I I did it for a few weeks already. Yeah. Yeah, I've been doing it for a few weeks. Yeah. But I'm feeling better already, man, feeling better already. And I will say this, man, it's not a substitute for coffee. I'm still drinking my coffee

in the morning. But it's just a slight uplift, you know what. I like it bobs. I don't do it first thing in the morning. I do it in the afternoon for a lift mea. Yeah, I kind of a lift me up if I can't nap because I'm an old man, now I might nap, but if I can't nap, then I'm definitely doing one of those things. It is a little sharper, nothing crazy, nothing crazy, because you know that feeling when you get like too much caffeine Indian stuff. Oh I hate that. Yeah, I don't like that either,

But this is not like that. It's just a little bit of just It's like sharpening a picture that you didn't know was quite out of focus. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely noticed it. I mean I felt a little more energy, and I felt more a little focused and concentrating, and I noticed an improvement for sure. Dude. They worked on it for ten years doing research and development with medical researchers and advisory were doctors. It was toy

scientific. They went through hundreds of iterations to perfect the formula, and you can tell. I mean it's top quality. You know, I was a little concerned about when we first got these samples or whatever from Magic Mind is one of my most cherished times of day is in the morning, having coffee with Melissa, and I didn't want to get rid of that because I just really really enjoy that, you know. You know, someone asked what someone

asked Johnny Cash is a true story. Someone asked Johnny Cash what paradise is and said, coffee with her, now, you know, talking about June, his wife there. And I feel that same way about Melissa, and I didn't want anything to replace that time. But this is not that sort of product. This isn't some sort of caffeine energy drink sort of thing that that hypes you up and keeps you rolling and then crashes you and stuff.

This is something that's just a little bit kind of a boost. I like doing it in the afternoon actually for that very reason, just when things are getting a little sleepy, my old man Cliff is getting ready for a nap or something. Pop one of these things in this drink, a little thing. It doesn't taste that bad either. It's good for me, man. That's how I choose to use these. It makes you relax, like, it makes you feel more relaxed kind of, but also more alert and more

focused. Yeah, that's stuff supposedly like kind of keeps the coffee rolling all day too, which is kind of nice because I do love I do love me a caffeine buzz, you know. Hell yeah. Bigfoot Beyond listeners have a limited time offer that can be used right now to get up to forty eight percent off your first subscription or twenty percent off one time purchases with code Bigfoot LT twenty at checkout. That's b I g FOT LT two zero at checkout. Great man, good job. Yep, yeah, stove. Did

I tell you about Melissa casting a print? No? Oh yeah, So have some big news in the Barrackquan household. I took Melissa out and she cast a footprint. Oh yeah, congratulations. Yeah, that's the first time she put plaster in the ground on one of these things. She's seen footprints before, but she had never actually cast one. And I don't know if I told you or not. I can never remember when I talked to you guys, because this like I talk to you guys all the time. But

so, there's this location that we started working. It's a new Spots. It's the one that's two hours from the house. Were finding footprints on an old abandoned road. We were finding footprints above that old abandoned road in a swampy area, and above that swampy area there is a ridge. Well, I was digging into the maps and stuff, because you know, I love me some maps, and so I'd noticed that there was an abandoned road on the other side of that ridge, on the other side of the swamp,

on the other side of the ravine. Right, So I'm thinking, well, gosh, you know, if they're coming up out of there, crossing the road going to the swamp, maybe they're going on the other side of the ravine. They said, well, I got to go walk that abandoned road, because that is by far the most efficient way to find sasquatch footprints. Go to a decommissioned road and start walking it slowly, looking at everything in the ground. Right, So I go there. There's a couple of

weeks, like maybe two weeks ago, now maybe a little less. I went there with a couple other folks, and sure enough we found tracks on the abandoned road coming from the direction of the ridge. So my hypothesis that they were coming up out of the ravine, crossing the area going to the ridge, I have some data to suggest that might be accurate, we'll see. So anyway, I found two sets of tracks, and so one of them was pretty good actually, so I sent I scanned it and everything,

and didn't have time to cast it. It was getting late in the day, and I figured, let's go back and do it. So Melissa and I we went back there on the twenty third of June. And I know that because the twenty fourth was our seventh year anniversary. Great great event in our lives. Of course, Issulation's most important thing I've ever done is married that woman. But anyway, we went back the day before because yeah,

why not let's go to the woods together. And you know, she's not a big foot per se, but she is married to me, so she stuck with it and wants to participate a little bit. So we took her out and she's the one that cast it. Barely shows a toe has a really nice world to find a heel. But it was still just a first of all, a great trip to the woods with my wife, you know, and of course we're looking at sasquatch prints. How cool is that?

And then other stuff happened that I got to tell you about on an entirely different episode because it would take way too long. But I went to the Blues and had my mind blown. It was pretty amazing. But we'll catch up with that at some other point because right now we have a guest waiting on the line. We don't keep this guy waiting for too long, So let's go ahead and do that. Okay, let's jump into our guests, and we're very, very pleased to have on with us. John Zada.

He's an author, he's a photographer, he's a man of the world, a traveler, intergalactic traveler perhaps, I don't know. We'll get into that in a minute. But he has written a fantastic book that has come back to my attention called In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond. Actually I wrote it a number of years ago, and I'll tell you, man, it is exquisite. This is going to be a great episode because this book is fantastic. I'm about halfway through reading it. I kind of forgot about it

and got back to it. But he published his book back in twenty nineteen, and let's bring John on and you can tell us about it. So Bigfoot and Beyond audience, welcome John Zada. John, thank you so much for coming on. Bigfoot and Beyond with us. Guys. Good John, Hi guys, thanks for having me on. Happy to be here. Oh it's great, it's great, And I was astonished to find out you're actually listened to us. I am a long standing original from day one fan of

the show. Yes, indeed, Oh my god, what's wrong with you? That's a little shocking. Was so, so let's bunch you here. You're like, no way, I mean, I only I only listened to three podcasts. One is you guys, the other one is a podcast about spies and espionage, and then the third one is about writing and self publishing. And so it's uh, you're you're the three that I that I go to for podcast listening. Yeah. Well that's fantastic. Thank you very much

for your kindness and support. Appreciate it. Yeah, And of course the reason we're having you on is now is your book in the Valley of the

Noble Beyond. Now, as I'm reading this book, and again i'm a little over halfway through at this moment, and again I apologize to you before we started recording, because you actually gave me a copy of this book a little while ago and it just ended up in one of my two do piles, and I never got to it until I realized, oh, shoot, got to have it on prou it's ranting how great this book is, and so I picked it up, and I'll say, man, it is a

very well written book. It is fantastic. And one of the things I like about it it kind of reminds me of doctor Bob Pyle's book, right because you're not I mean you're you're a bigfooter, certainly because you're doing this about bigfoot, but you're not like the standard bigfoot, the standard squat or that I think we have today. You approach this almost more of a naturalist sort of way. It reminds me of the great writers of the nineteenth century,

when before science was really a thing and people call themselves naturalists. And it's more almost about an exploration of the subject, the animals and the locations, and it is just so beautifully written and just so hats off to you or heads off to you or whatever I was going to say. So, yeah, so tell us about how this book came about a boot? A boot. You're a Canadian, right, so you're going to hear more than your fair share of a boots. But it's a bit of a life long

sort of backstory. There's the stuff that happened before and then the more recent events. But let me just say I started in this area, or my interest began in my preteen years. I was an avid reader of John Green's books, and he's if for those who still at this point don't know who John Green is, he was a journalist who lived in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. He was the mayor of the town for a bit and he

wrote for the newspaper there. He was the first real, kind of significant journalistic compiler of eyewitnessed reports, and not just in the British Columbia area, but then he was He basically wrote about North America in general, and so I fell in love with his books, found them at the library. I was an early reader, so the adult level, I guess pros wasn't really a huge obstacle for me, and that really kind of kicked it off.

And but what ended up happening was later on, as I got into my twenties, after having sort of left the subject a bit behind, I kind of got dragged back into it and there was sort of a series of events that took place and I kind of mentioned them in the book as the backstory

of this journey. But essentially, I was at work one day. I had this kind of joe job, and one of my friends at the job came up to me and he said, you know, one of our colleagues, her name was carm She was like an executive assistant secretary, had come back from a long weekend a few hours north of Toronto, and she had claimed to have seen something crossing the road at night. And my friend, who was at the job at me knew that I'd had this sort of passing

interest, this old childhood interest in the Sasquatch. So I went to Carmen and I'm like, you know, tell me what has happened, right, And she didn't want to talk to me. She didn't want to talk about it. She was like, no, no, nothing. She denied that

she had told anyone anything. But as time passed, she did eventually speak me and essentially told me that her and her boyfriend were driving up in the sort of cottage country area in an area and you're calling Wood, Ontario, just sort of north of the city, and she had seen what she described as this tall, hairy, gigantic monstrous fur covered man crossing the road at the stop sign when they stopped. And she knew nothing about sasquatch, knew

nothing about bigfoot. She grew up in this really kind of sheltered Italian traditional family. This was before Google and before like any of this stuff exploded on the Internet, so I was kind of a bit shocked. And she described the creatures shuffling across the road like doing taking these sort of like these very fluid movements, and once I heard that, I knew that this was not something that she imagined or made up, and that essentially pulled me back into

the subject. And then from there I attended a Sasquatch symposium in Vancouver in nineteen ninety nine, where I met a lot of these sort of big original characters from the world of bigfooting, from Renee de Hinden to Grover Krantz to John Bindernagel, who I eventually became kind of pals with, basically because at

the Sasquatch symposium, I was doing documentary work at the time. It was early in the journalism career, and I decided, you know, I'd like to really do like a documentary film about this subject and about John so him and I began a kind of a friendship and he came to Ontario a bunch of times to investigate Ontario Reports and I filmed him and the documentary never got made, But that was sort of the horror sort of middle phase of my

interest. And then now segueing into the book, I later, you know, went from from video and documentary and doing TV stuff to becoming a writer, like an actual you know, like a print and online writer. And the way the way things happened with the book was I went on a press trip in twenty twelve to a area of the north and central coast of BC

called the Great Bear Rainforest. And it's essentially a coastal temperate rainforest region that is about maybe the size of three or four Olympic National Parks, really big trees, grizzly bears, whales, a lot of First Nations communities in there. And I went out there to essentially do an adventure piece for a magazine.

And I mean, in the back of my mind, I knew that I was going to Bella Bella and Bella Coola and Clemto and all these places that John Green had mentioned in his book and had visited on several occasions. But what I didn't expect or realize when I got to these communities and it was going to be a two week trip, was as soon as I got there, the towns were completely absorbed in a bunch of recent Sasquatch reports. And it wasn't just I landed in Bellabella and that's where the trip began,

but it was happening in all three communities. And to make a long story short, you know, my interest and passion was reignited, and I didn't do so much traveling or kind of investigating the adventure travel aspects as I did. You know, I began investigating the Sasquatch reports, and by the end of the two week trip, I didn't want to leave, and I was like, oh man, I got to come back. I got to come back and write about this in a longer form, in a longer format.

And that's when I made the decision at the end of the trip in twenty twelve that I would come back and do an entire summer long trip and write about it in a kind of a narrative nonfiction sort of way, with characters and dialogue and plot. And that's the genre of the book that you refer to. Basically, stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo right back after these messages. Are you at the ninety nine conference? I was at the ninety nine conference. Yeah, oh man, I was so

bund to miss that. I thought it was in the news and I was like, God, I could have went to that if I had known about it. All sorts of yeah. I mean, all the kind of major characters were there, So I kind of feel a little bit like I just sort of tapped into that history part a little bit. Oh that's so cool.

You know, everybody on the line right now is super interested in Bigfoot history, and you know, at events like this because it was so quiet at the time and now, you know, you you throw a rock and you're probably gonna take down a couple of Sasquatch conventions, you know, but at that time they were very, very rare, and everybody who was in the game at the time either was there or wanted to be there. It's really really cool that you had a chance to go do that before everything blossomed

into what it is now, if that's the right term. So back to the book here a little bit there is a certain tinge I guess of travelogue in the book as far as the writing flavor. But again, I really do see it as more of a naturalist sort of perspective on things, a holistic maybe not an outsider, but a holistic I'll say outsider, but that's not quite the word I'm looking for, and holistic outsiders perspective on this.

What are your big takeaways after spending a summer up in that area where sasquatch sidings are probably pretty common, I would imagine, just part of the environment, part of the natural landscape there. What are your big takeaways and what surprised you and what didn't surprise you about spending time up there amongst the native communities in these places. Yeah, and just before I answer, I mean, I think that's a good point that you'd made earlier, that the book

is multi layered. I am and was a travel writer prior to taking the book on. So I did. I did really want to not only write a book that would explore the Sasquatch phenomenon, but would sort of look at the nature, the First Nations, culture, the history of the area, the geography of the area. And so I mean in terms of things that

surprised me. One of the things that surprised me was I was expecting the indigenous communities to be generally unanimous about their take on the phenomenon, meaning that that almost everybody would believe in them or think that they exist or you know. But in fact, there was a lot of there was quite a lot of people who didn't actually, and I wouldn't say that they're that they were the majority, but I would say that I learned to not take it for

granted that the citizens of these communities all had the same position. I mean, I think I think it's like a lot of people, either indigenous or non indigenous, who spend a lot of time in the back country, you know, and are really good at what they do in terms of in terms of navigating the back country, if if they haven't seen it one themselves,

they think, well, it couldn't possibly exist. So there were quite a bit of people who did sort of tell me not, it's all kind of a it's all kind of a story, or so that kind of caught me a bit off guard. And also it was really a lot of flesh and blood type perspectives up there as well. Whereas I also kind of came in with the assumption that there'd be a lot of the sort of the spiritual,

the mystical, the sort of the pseudo religious. I was actually quite surprised by how many people were just pretty much yet it's, you know, among the among those who did know about the animal and did you know, support its existence, that it was flesh and blood, and you don't really get a lot of the a lot of the WU or the UFO stuff mixing it up there. It's it's it's pretty it's pretty sober, pretty sober minded takes,

I would say. And I think maybe that's just because a lot of the people who were pro bigfoot have seen them and and they're like, it's definitely an animal. Well, it might have something to I'm just kind of hypothesizing here. It might have something to do with just the necessary practicality of living in those places. You know, like it's they they are fishing, you know, for a lot of their meals or hunting, they're they're they're just living, you know, They're doing what they need to do to live

and get by and and do what they do in their environment. That's the

people are. And I think I find people like that are very much more prone to just accepting that these are normal animals who are cool or weird in various ways, but like just perfectly normal animals, as opposed to the people who are attracted to the more paranormal side of things, who are very often you know, deeply religious, and then fit these animals into their scheme of there or you know, or or a prone to paranormal proclivities, or horoscope

driven or crystal crystal wearing folks and all that sort of stuff, just like it's a much more practical lifestyle. I think, No, absolutely, absolutely, and I mean I would even I would even say that it was shocking, even to the extent to which it was considered normal by some people. It was. It was almost like it some people wouldn't bat an eyelash if someone reported a sighting in in their presence or like if the subject came up.

It was almost like they were talking about like vegetables in their garden kind of thing. It's it was so it was it was almost considered mundane in

some cases. So I was. In some cases they were even laughing at me a little bit that I was coming up here and you know, you know, there there were some there were some difficult issues facing the communities revolving there was there was a big fire that had burnt down one of the band stores in Bella Bella, and they were they were also doing battle with some

big oil companies that wanted to build pipelines up up the coast. And people were actually taking me to task for like, well, you know, we're into big Foot two, but why are you here like writing about that. You can be writing about like the politics, or like, you know,

the difficulties that we're experiencing because the outside world doesn't know about us. And so there was there was a bit of ten actually a little bit of tension around that when I first arrived in Bella Bella, and that was part of the plot of the story, was you know, the communities accepting you and and and having to gain their trust and the faux pause, and you know, the mistakes that I had made in terms of ingratiating myselves, especially among

the Heltzok in Ballabella, which was which I sort of made part of the hurdles and the challenges in the in the you know, in the quest theme of the story, I would say, yea, I would imagine getting in would be a very very difficult, slow process because any sort of small rural community like that, that would be the case. But when you add the native element, the First Nations people who I mean, I live in America, of course, and god knows, our government screwed them over a really

bad I'm assuming Canada did the same thing to their native population. Generally speaking, I don't know the history up there necessarily, but I imagine as much a matter. Yeah, just complicate things, right, Yeah, so you felt you were pretty successful with getting in at least with a small number of people, who, of course, once you know one or two people, they start talking to their friends. Oh he's cool, you can talk to

him. Yeah, that's yeah, that's that's exactly what happened. I was really lucky in that I had, you know, social media in a sense saved the day. Had I gone there decades earlier, it would have been more of a just showing up on the front door. But I just networked a bit. And because I had, you know, I guess when you work as a journalist and as a as a documentarian or what you you kind of learned to introduce yourself to people and everything. So I basically got in

with one of the characters in the book. Her name is Alvinah an older I guess, matriarch in the community who's well respected. She had a bed and breakfast. So I basically stayed with her during my time in Bella Bella, and it was in a syce. She almost she pretty much adopted me. I was almost like like a family member, and so she put in

a lot of good words for me. And as soon as as soon as people knew that I was staying with her, it earned me a little bit of her respect, because you know, generally people who go up there will stay you know, in the more to you know, I guess like the lodge or the more tourist they accommodations. That they were a bit shocked that I actually stayed in the community, and that had a knock on benefit as well in that she connected me with a whole bunch of people who had reports.

And so basically what happened was and this is this goes to answer your

your earlier question about the takeaways and the surprises. Was that and I don't know if this is some kind of a serendipitous thing that happens in small towns or if it's a West Coast thing because I mean I'm an eastern Er basically, but it was just incredible, and I wrote about it in the book that the minute you start to kind of investigate something, or you go you speak to somebody about a report, or you follow something up, and then

it just one thing leads to the other, to the next to the other, and you're basically connecting all these dots. And there's this kind of almost synchronicity serendipity that happens where where you just sort of you're on this kind of stream that kind of takes you from one report or siding or place or venue to the next, and then which spanned the different towns. It didn't just

happen within Bella Bella. It just like I would I would meet somebody, for instance, I'd be in balabell and somebody who talk about some person in Bellakula who had a story or whatever, and then I would just like meet

them by accident on the ferry or it. Just the entire trip was that, and I devoted a little section to explain that, but it's so hard to to put into writing that kind of sort of stream of consciousness happening that is life, and so I ended up with so much more material that I was than I was even able to write in the book and left me with with with I mean, I really had to kind of sift and pick and choose all the different things that would go in because you couldn't really write forever.

Well, when you're flowing with life, you know, life encourages you along the way. I just to me, I've always taken that as a yeah, I must on the right track, because weird things are happening. Exactly. Yeah, we very much felt that way. Now, I'm something

that you mentioned a little while ago. I'm so glad you did. You mentioned that the lack of homogeneous perspective on sasquatches, you know, like that like people view them in various ways, and imagine, you know, some are probably a little bit more culturally invested in it, or perhaps a cultural perspective on the animals. Some are just like, oh, that's the thing that here that lives here. We don't eat them, so we're not going to worry about them. That sort of stuff. And imagine a few people

have troublesome sasquatches. Everyone's wanted as scares them or something like that. I'm glad you mentioned that because I've heard people say blanket statements that I find to be ridiculous and stereotypical, like I believe what natives believe. It's like, well, I mean, you know, you can't do that. That's that's a weird that's a weird thing to say. I It's like saying I believe what construction. You know, workers say you believe that, Well, how

do you know what they believe? You talk to you know, natives are as folks. You talk to ten of amity at fifteen per perspectives on it. There're just folks. And I'm glad that you mentioned that because there is no in my opinion and maybe I'm wrong, there is no quote unquote Native perspective on it because it comes down to individuals. I mean, there's cultural perspectives. But did you run into anybody? And I have, which is

why I'm bringing this up. I've run into some trouble with Native elders who are actively discouraging me not to be interested in sasquatches for the good of sasquatches. Did you run into anything like that? I was a little bit I was also a little bit shocked about how open people were talking about it.

And I'm not just saying this because it's you guys and it's this show, but I think the Finding Bigfoot series did a lot to remove some of the taboos, if not many of them, and so a lot of people said that they'd watched the show and everything. So I think in that sense there was a lot of openness. I think where there was a little bit of caution, and it wasn't just from elders. It was from some of the younger people too, but among the younger people who are slated to become elders.

I would say that the more the more culturally engaged younger people in the community was that you know, we don't really kind of go looking for them, you know what I mean, We don't like chase them, we don't hunt them, we don't make calls, we don't do the wood Knox or whatever. It was sort of more they were kind of like saying, you know, it's really cool that you're here to ask us about this, and it's really you know, and we're happy to kind of share and everything and

to tell you our beliefs and our experiences. But I think it was it was sort of more the there was sort of this idea that going in pursuit of them in terms of actual field pursuit kind of thing, and I guess they were thinking in terms of the whole kind of stereotypical the Camo thing and like out on expedition was a little bit sort of disrespectful, and they said that for us, and I'm quoting actually directly here somebody he said, for us, they come to you, they find you, and if it happens

to you then than than good or depending on the community. Ill there are different views on that as well, but we generally don't kind of really go in pursuit of it. And maybe that kind of also goes back to what we were saying before about how normal it is, and maybe they don't really have they don't really have a need to in a sense because not just because

it's in their culture and because they live with it. But I think I think this now kind of gets into a bit of the philosophical But I my sense later after thinking about it, was maybe they don't pursue it in the same way that some of us on the outside do because they live in the general atmosphere of I don't know what to call it like a super charged mystical that kind of that kind of magic and that energy that we associate with sasquatch

interpenetrates the ecosystem there. So in a sense, it's it's it's kind of always there. You kind of always feel it there, and that that's sort of the understanding that I took from from it after leaving, was that it's actually everywhere you look. The word that you guys use, the term squatchy, right, It's a part of their everyday life there. And so yeah,

I don't know, I guess, I guess. I guess in a way, in addition to their sacredness around the subject, it's just always there for them, and so they don't really have a need to sort of pursue it as much. I suppose. I don't know. That's just the kind of a guess on my part. Oh yeah, I totally get it. I totally get it. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo will be right back after these messages. So you briefly mentioned almost like

a teaser there. There's there's so much stuff that did even make the book. Now that the book is out, do you regret are there any thing specific stories that you regret not putting in or perhaps you would want to put in another volume if you ever pinned one of those. Well, I mean I put in the stories that I that were the most dramatic, I would

say, for sure, because I had to make a cut. But I guess it's I mean, it has occurred to me to to do something with all of the little bits and pieces I think a lot of I think a lot of the material were we're sort of shorter encounters, more more brief type

of of engagements with the creatures, then then then the longer. So no, I mean I in a way, in a way, part of the difficulty in with writing a book is that part of it is the writing, but then you spend a lot of time editing and cutting stuff out, and so in a sense, no, I mean I made some hard decisions about material to leave out, but I think I left just enough of the more dramatic stuff in that I thought would be interesting to readers, and so the

rest is the rest, I guess will just sort of remain in my mind. I don't, I don't. I'm not sure whether there there would be kind of an occasion to write something else about it. Didn't you have your the rock throwing incident right after you went to publication like a couple of weeks later. Yeah, So after I signed off on the final edit, so we basically had kind of we've done the back and forth with the with the editor, the publisher. So there was a publisher in New York called Grove

Atlantic. They picked the book up, and so they were fairly sort of conservative about the whole take. I think I think they were content with with the fact that I that I wasn't really pushing the bigfoot hypothesis on the reader kind of thing. And so when we'd finished editing, I was here in British Columbia. I had gone on a on a camping trip with my girlfriend and a buddy of mine to a place called Cape Scott Provincial Park, which

is on the very northwest tip of Vancouver Island. It is it's essentially the draw of of the park, as is camp sites on the beach, basically on the Pacific. But so what happened was on the way back to the car too, and this is a very very very remote, remote backcountry site. We had stopped for the night in a pretty much an empty, small campground, away from away from the from the coast, from the ocean, and and so yes, at about ten pm, my buddy went to bed.

He went he went into his tent which is in the trees. And we were, my girlfriend and I were out on the edge of a lake. We had a little fire going and we were we were basically about to sort of come in and sort of call it, call it quits for the night. And suddenly, I mean I didn't see, we didn't see anything,

but we heard the splash in the water right next to us. We were like four or five feet away from from from the edge of the water, and it was like this splash, and we just kind of both sort of just stood up and we thought that there was an animal swimming or something

like that in the water. But then there was another splash and they were they they were cerplunks, So it was like plunch plunch, like at several second intervals, and like like quite loud, and you could almost sort of hear stuff was falling from the sky basically, and we weren't, we weren't

below a cliff. We were like there was nothing, there was nothing that could have suggested any rocks coming down a hillside or mountain, but and we just sort of both looked at each other and there was almost kind of moment.

It's not not telepathy, but we both kind of knew we had this moment of unbelievable fear because we both knew that there there was large objects falling into the water next to us. It was it was pitch black, and and that and that whatever was throwing them, there was something in the bushes there like the whole time, because we had been we'd been sitting out by the by the lakeside since dinner, all of us, and so we ran back to the tent and I mean, I was like, I was completely

freaked out, and I'm like, you don't understand, you don't understand this is happening. This is exactly what happens everybody there's a sasquatcher, and I, you know, I kind of reverted to this like like all of the experiences, all of the books, all of the stories, and we were we were, we were in and we were that ecosystem up there is essentially

like the Great Bare Rainforce. It's it's the exact same thing. And when we came into the camp, we all kind of realized that like there was no sounds, there was no birds, there was no squirrels or chipmunks. It was just completely dead quiet. And everybody sort of remarked that, like there was something wrong with the place. And I kind of made a bit of a joke. I'm like, this is a bit like some of the areas further up north in the Grape Bear. And you know, we kind

of made it. We called it sasquatch, like we kind of made a joke. But but by the time we ran back into the tent, I was like completely I was completely freaked out. And we were debriefing each other for like half an hour and then and then at the half about about at the half hour mark, we heard this massive commotion back from where we came from at the lake. It almost sounded like like noises at a construction site,

like it like it sounded like this banging, and it didn't. I'd never heard a wood knock before, but it sounded almost more like boulders being picked up and thrown against other boulders. It sounded just it sounded like a construction side kind of thing. And and and it lasted for a few seconds, and then I kind of was like, there's a I mean, I didn't know any other way to explain it. And I'm like, for sure, like there's something here, Like what other explanation could there be? So

basically I was up the whole night. She fell asleep. She's like, ah, if it was going to do something, it had come come, did something to us a long time ago. And she knocked out, and I was up till the morning, and then this at first light, we packed up and we got out of there. So I don't know, I mean, this could all be my own, all my biases kind of at play. But that happened. And the PostScript to this was I told the

publisher about it. So the book hadn't come out yet, and and so there was some discuss among the publisher and they at first they were like the American publisher said, no, we're going to we're going to keep it as is. And then the Canadian publisher, there's another publisher called Graystone, they

bought the rights of the book. They said, why don't you do a write up for us about what happened and then we'll see and then when I do kind of as like a like like one of the adenda to the book, but then in the end they decided not to put it in because I

think they like the idea of it being ambiguous at the end. So but yeah, well, as far as ambiguity goes, it doesn't sound like there's any ambiguity with you as far as the reality these animals, right, Yeah, I mean, I'm generally of the perspective that there is something to this phenomenon. I don't really kind of when people ask me. I mean, I talk to lots of people who have no connection to the subject, and when they ask me, I do tell them, yes, I do.

I do lean towards I am pretty much a proponent that there is that there is a reality to this kind of thing. And so so yeah, I mean, I guess I guess my sort of personal approach is I don't really kind of try and convince anybody. And I think that was part of the reason I wrote the book in the way that I did. I kind of wanted to do something that was different also from the point of view of not

kind of trying to convince anyone. I just I sort of thought, well, if somebody is able to sort of see the the reality in this, then they will pursue it themselves kind of thing. So I've yeah, I mean, I mean, I think the incident. I think the incident at Cape Scott cemented things a little bit more, even though I even though we didn't quite see anything, I think I think that the noises or the rocks falling or whatever, we're an indication enough right now now if I'm if I'm

remembering correctly, which is always a big gamble with me. Well, you're a listener, you know, my memory is kind of fuzzy. It seems to me that you saw some doubt you saw footprints, but when you went up to this area, you went to an area where footrints had been accorded, right, and and uh they were smaller footprints, right, that's right.

What are your thoughts on the little people than the stick Indians like the because I know I never even heard of those things when I first got into Bigfoot, and I kind of stumbled upon this other cultural phenomenon, I think in a lot of ways, of the little people. What were your thoughts on that? In all of the communities that I visited, they had spoken about a smaller a smaller type of sasquatch uh child size basically, and in

Bella Bella. It was particularly prevalent in in Bella Coola. They had an actual name for it. They called it the Books, And so I think some earlier writers had confused the books with the larger sasquatch type creature, where whereas in in in in Uh in the New Hawk community, they called that the syninic and so yeah, I don't know. Same same in we Cano in rivers Inlet as well up and Clem too. So I'm not sure. I mean, I think I was just I was wondering the whole time weather

perhaps maybe they had confused the juveniles for a separate being. So I don't know. I'm I'm a little bit unsure as to whether whether the smaller creature is an actual juvenile, that it's confused for something else and they claim that it is something in their culture. So I don't know. I kind of I've just sort of left it at that. I think, yeah, yeah, well, if their child's size, I think you're thought about them being juvenile sasquatches would be spot on. But did you run across stories of like

what do they call them? Maybe sick Indians? I know they're called that in some areas where there's like people like little people wearing like native garb, like one and a half two feet tall or something like that. No, no, nothing, no, nothing like that at all. Oh that's good because those I hope those don't exist. Yeah, yeah, no it was.

I would I would say, I would say the the ideas were fairly we're fairly you know, conservative, and and and of the common variety like none I mean, dog men, mothman and all of that sort of newer stuff didn't didn't really exist up in I mean I know it was, it was, it was a number of years ago, but they didn't really seem to be kind of enamored by any of that. Same with the UFOs, Yeah, nor am I I think I'm gonna stick with what's really now.

As far as your your trip goes, like the one you based the book off of, how many eyewitness reports would you guess you collected? Just put a number on it, and it's close, doesn't matter to me. I would say probably three or four dozen or so. Yeah, it's a bit strange, Like I figured, maybe perhaps rightly that because it's such a remote area, it's so pristine. I mean, I can't even begin to explain how really, how how how wild the place is. I mean, it

probably is is it's it's equivalent to parts of Alaska and everything. I mean, the automatic assumption was because of the history and because of how wild it is, that there would be so much. But then at the same time, it wasn't until later after I left that because the area is so sparsely populated and because people travel in boats, there isn't really a lot of road

works up there. I mean, there is, there is a main road coming from the interior into Belluicula, but everyone else is kind of and there are roads in the community, within the communities themselves, but everybody uses boats, and so the boats are loud, they have engines, and and I think that a lot of the sidings sort of tend to tend to kind of happen when they're on land and in outside of the community, which isn't often

that much. So I think I think in some kind of paradoxical way, like there may have been less sidings and reports then you would get in a place like Ohio, or you hear about Massachusetts or Connecticut or any of these places where people are more tightly packed in with them. So and I've heard

the stories. Some of the stories were fifty years old, some had happened just the previous summer, and so yeah, there were there were, There were quite a often just really kind of just things that were in passing. Did you find that women, like the Native women were a lot more afraid of them? I would I would say there was an equal fear, because again we've all heard this before about the stories, the scare stories as growing up as kids. They were I think they were all instilled with with a

with a with a caution or a fear of the animals. So I would say they were all I would say, male and female, they were quite fearful. I would say I know of a few individuals and some of the communities who are like pretty hardcore outdoors people and hunters, and I think there were incidents involving some of these people where they had they knew that there was one in the area and they just they took off. So I think I

think there is a I think everybody's generally equally afraid. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo will be right back after these messages. Did you talk to even anyone that had any terrifying encounters with them, because it sounds like it was all kind of benign stuff for the most besides rocks being thrown. Yeah, I know, so yeah so, and I've I've

got some of those stories in the book. And I mean there were there were a lot of there were a lot of cabin attack type of sort of encounters and stories, and so I've got some of those in the book where they were just like bang on the cabins at night and everything. And because the different nations have got these these these back country cabins on their territory that they can use when they're out, and they also they also take the kids

there on trips and they do camping trips for the weekend. And so one of the one of the big stories involved a woman in Ballabela who took you know, Heltzic youth at risk Heltic youth on these on these camping trips basically to kind of help to you know, part of the idea is you know, reforming kind of people who are who are involved in you know, in in who are doing things, young people who are who are kind of maybe involved in in in crime or whatever is to is to take them out into

nature and to teach them about their culture and everything. So there was one story where several preteen girls went with a couple of adults to one of the cabins to look a really really active inlet. Look at this this this crazy uh fjord like inlet about an hour's boat ride from Ballabella. And as soon as they arrived they saw one. They saw a sasquatch standing at the edge of the ashore. And it was they described it as and it was like

a group report. Basically they'd all seen it like a kind of a like like like you hear about these like really muscular bigfoots that everybody keeps talking about, the really the the cut ones, the musk. This was kind of

like a lanky Chewbacca type one. But and they they basically ran into the cabin and the creature eventually went away, but then came back later that night and basically kind of almost taunted them or terrified them the whole night by you know, crawling under the cabin which was on stilts, and scratching and knocking, and the smell of the creature kind of wafted it up through the through the seed or floorboards into the cabin, and this this whole drama ensued basically,

and so and that was the next morning that you know, one of one of one of the adults eventually went outside and shot off. He fired his gun and the creature went away, and then they left at first light basically. But you do get a handful of these really kind of dramatic, lengthy kind of encounter stories, and they do tend to involve those those backcountry cabins in the territories. Basically, they love to like psychologically torture people.

They're masters at intimidation, that's for sure. That's that's what it sounded like. And and and there was another there was another story that I put in the appendix of the book about about a young guy nineteen years old who again he was he was he was part of that restorative justice program with the Heltzik.

He had I guess he had done something wrong, and part of the I guess his his penalty was to spend time in isolation at one of the cabins, right so where they were, they would, you know, in a humane kind of way, they would go check on him and bring him

food and stuff and everything. But I think what ended up happening was whatever whatever creature was in the area had become acclimatized to his pri and just started to bother him and bother him, so that when the adult person came back to check on him, he was he he was just like, getting me the hell out of here, Get me out of here. There's something here,

there's something here. And then when the when, the when the woman didn't believe him, thinking that he wanted to kind of just an excuse to come back, he went look and he pointed up at the at the cabin and at the like ten or twelve foot mark off the ground. There was a huge handprint on the on the side on the side of the wall kind of thing. So, yeah, there's there is there's a lot of drama.

There's a lot of drama with some of the reports. Some of them are really fleeting, like in you know, the cross the road type thing, but then you get these you get these longer ones that that come out of the woodwork, and and essentially that's what happened. When I went on my first trip there to do the magazine story. One of those big drama stories had just unfolded at the youth at a at one of the summer youth

camps, and the whole community was buzzing. And I think that's that was the story that had pulled me in and had made me realize like, oh, I really have to come back, and I have to come back and and write about this and and investigate more for myself. So this youth camp story, how how long before you arrive did it occur? It had happened I think several about a month or four weeks or something, so it had just taken place, and and you know, I was I just made you

know, I was there to write a travel piece. But then I just figured I would just ask, like, hey, like anything happening from from the Sasquatch point of view? Like I know this is Bellabella. Like in my mind, I'm like I'm remembering John Green's books, and they all just sort of stopped and looked at each other and were like told me, like,

yeah, like just something just happened. And then there's a there's a really remote the whole area is remote, shouldn't even say, but there's like there's an extra remote river system called the Quaya River, which is on the

mainland coast. Bellabella's on an Island. So just to the south east of Bellabela is this very traditional sacred area called the Quay River Valley, hasn't been law hasn't been commercially logged, and maybe is the most intact river system maybe in potentially among them in BC. And so they take their kids there every summer to do to do ecology and cultural stuff, and there's been activity there.

At the time of my twenty twelve and twenty thirteen visit, there had been a lot of activity there for successive summers and including like including appearances of the animals, both in the youth camp which is down by the river and even in the Councilor's sort of some of the other buildings further up kind of on the hill kind of thing. So that's one of the stories that kind of brought me out there, was hearing about that and going wow, and

then hearing the same thing in all the other community. Are you still in touch with any of the people that you've stayed with or visited with, or any of the witnesses to this day and has the activity continued. Yeah,

So that's a very interesting question. So the short answer is yes, in that I've been going back there almost every year, because when I started writing the book, I wanted to make sure that I not only just went in twenty twelve for two weeks in twenty thirteen for the summer, I wanted to really immerse myself in the community and under just I really wanted to understand and soak up the place. It's kind of a bit like like actors getting into

their role a little bit. So I basically have gone back every year and have become friends with a lot of not just the eye some of the eyewitnesses, but also other people in the community who I became friends with. And I was even there last. I went back to Bella Bella last year in September twenty twenty three, and I did a ca camping trip with a couple of friends from the community there to a very very very very remote place that

very few people even in Bellabella get to go to. And and yes, so when I was there last September, there was a footprint report that went viral on the Bella Bella Facebook social media kind of network or whatever. And and even on previous trips when I went up there, I'd heard stories from other people, including non and including a non Indigenous I'd heard about a non indigenous couple who had seen one running from the water on the beach into into

the forest just south of just south of Bellabella. Basically, so, I mean it does continue. What I what what they do tell me though there is that it sort of comes in waves. I don't know what to make of that. There. They said that there are some some periods where it's really quiet, and then all of a sudden it gets busy again, and so my twenty twelve trip happened on a busy period, which is why I

got all of the activity in all of the communities. Perhaps there was a virality to the stories that maybe it kind of maybe it caused some people to conclude that they'd seen a sasquatch or heard one in the other communities, when in fact they hadn't. There's the whole psychology piece as well, obviously. But yes, it still goes on up there, and I imagine if I was to go back and spend any time again, you'd hear about something for

sure. Now, having taken a few dozen reports, I think it's safe to say, as you mentioned, do you see any trends or patterns in them? And things like I don't know, just shoot from the hip her time of day habitat, which of course is skewed by the human presence of course, you know, because they're only seeing where humans are. I know, from listening to your podcast, you're really you're I mean rightly, so you're very interested now and kind of deducing from the stories, and I mean,

they tended to be a lot of little things. I would say, I'm little for me, but just things like the creatures are the animals like squatting and kind of like hugging a tree to kind of remain concealed whatever. There were a lot of that sort of thing. There were a lot of stories about them being agitated, pacing back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth like that kind of stuff, and just

sort of smaller behavioral things, and a lot of them. The cabin encounters tended to be very, like I said earlier, kind of almost taunting,

psychological like. In one case, the guy described it as almost like the thing taking its hand and kind of just with its fingernails brushing along the side of the wood on the outside, kind of almost like just dragging its nails like things, little things like that and yeah, I mean those were the sorts of things that I that I kind of heard time and again, well, those are the cool things that the subtle behaviors and and they're they're to

me at least, because you know, running across the road isn't that exciting to me after we got the reports. Honestly, it's the stuff like, oh, how can the tree squatting down? That's cool stuff, that's rat

they do that horror It's like horror movie. They really needed things that you see in horror movies, like dragged one fingernails on the side of a tent or a wall, you know, tapping, you know, like little things that seemed somewhat innocuous, but they're super creepy when they when they're happening in the dark out the woods. Yeah, yeah, there there were. There

were a lot of there were. There were quite a number of stories around the wintertime around clam digging and being out there at the middle of the night for low tide, and about about about the animals being really protective and really defensive about their clam beaches and chasing people out and be like the more aggressive stories of aggressive sasquatches revolved around clam beaches and about protecting their resources. That seemed to be a very recur That was a recurring story among a lot of

the people there. Did you hear any bear sasquatch interaction stories? No, nothing like that. I mean, somebody had mentioned that because it's grizzly, hardcore grizzly territory, the valleys or the water sheds where there tended to be a lot of grizzly, there tended to be not a lot of sasquatch and vice versa. But obviously I can't I mean, I can't make sense. I couldn't confirm. But that's what. That's what more than a few people told me, and I heard that a lot in Bella Coola, that there's

a mutual avoidance between those two species. Mm hmm, Well, I don't don't suppose you would know about their thoughts on a similar matter, the presence of black bears and sasquatches. No, that yeah, that that didn't really that didn't come up as as any kind of pattern. Yeah, I guess if there's grizzlies in the neighborhood, that probably eclipses the presence of black bears in a lot of ways. You know, did you did you ask them about any of those old John Green stories, like what was it Charlie,

Charlie Mack or Clayton Mac. Yeah. So I met Clayton Mac's son on the twenty twelve trip, the magazine trip again again part of that whole serendipitous thing. I was out kind of exploring with one of the locals in the community and he was in his truck. We just went up to him and then somebody, the guy that I was with, told me, oh,

that's Clayton's son. So yeah, I knew. I've met a lot of people who who were related to Clayton because there's so much sort of interrelated family sort of links between those communities, and and heard a lot of stories about about Clayton and everything from people who I mean, I even spent time with his Clayton has a nephew who goes by the name of Little Obie in Bella Coola, and he pulled out his cast collection for me and showed me all

the casts that he had casted himself in Bella Coola. And when you're there, it's like you you tap into it's like you hap the vein, It's like it's it's it's all there, and it's all there available for you. So and in Clem Too, I did actually meet I guess he was an elder. He was. He'd met John Green and Bob Titmas believe it or not, when when when Green and Titmus used to travel the North Coast together, he remembered Titmas and told me about him. This was again on the

twenty twelve trip. So yeah, a lot of a lot of that history is still is still there circulating in the community. Well, you know, we can talk to you for hours and hours and hours, but I would like to squeeze another hour out of you if you wouldn't mind ad over our members section, hear more about your trips and your your insights and and of course Matt Prude is chomping at the bid. He has a whole laundry list of questions to ask you. So if you wouldn't mind sticking around for our

member section, we really really appreciate it. Sounds good and of course for people listening, if you're curious about the member section, it's a five dollars a month thing. It's a Patreon deal. There will be a link in the show notes and basically, what you get you get an extra hour of Cliff and Bobo and Matt prove it it always joins us for the conversation as well. We do Q and a's, we do special member events sort of things, you know, like you guys, there's a lot of cool things

going on. But also also besides just what you get on the extra hour a week that you get to hear us, you also get this episode, the regular episode you are listening to at this very moment, completely ad free. Now that's cool. Five bucks a month seems worth it to me. Why don't you join us by clicking that link below and become a member of

Bigfoot and Beyond and be part of our Beyond Bigfoot and Beyond community. Yeah, I was gonna have a million questions for you to you, John, but I haven't actually read your Bookkeet, I'm embarrassed to say, because I've heard nothing but outstanding reviews of it and I got to read it now excellent. I'd be very happy to hear your take on it. Yeah, of course you can get it a pretty pretty much everywhere. But also I want to point out you can get at the NABC store as well, So we'll

put that link in the show notes as well. Thanks so much, guys for having me on. It was real pleasure. Thanks for coming on, and of course thank you also, oddly enough, for being a listener of the podcast. I mean, I say it all the time in the podcast, I legitimately forget there's anybody listening. I'm just hanging out with you know, Bobo and Matt and whoever our guests is. So okay, folks, that was John Zada. Thanks so much for joining us, John, and

we're going to join them now in the Patreon sess. So, thank you all for listening, and y'all keep it squatchy. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Bigfoot and Beyond. If you liked what you heard, please rate and review us on iTunes, subscribe to Bigfoot and Beyond wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Bigfoot and Beyond podcast.

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