[intriguing music]
[Kiana] Our team of researchers and explorers
are headed to Campbell River, British Columbia,
to meet with our friend and guide Thomas Sewid, our Bigfoot expert and experiencer,
We are going to delve into real-life Bigfoot encounters,
explore Vancouver Island's traces of Bigfoot
and try to discover if Bigfoot truly does exist,
[taking picture]
Hi, my name is Kiana and I am Bigfoot Girl,
I welcome you today on this journey to discover and experience Bigfoot,
We are going to meet up with podcaster James Tyson who is an experiencer of the supernatural,
We are going to learn a little bit about his journey and why he is here today,
Let's go,
[Kiana] James,
-It's a pleasure, -Oh! Wonderful to meet you too,
Nice to meet you, James, can you tell us a little bit about why you're here today?
Why do you wanna go and discover Bigfoot and go on the journey?
Well, it was offered to me to go along with a little group,
about six or seven of us, over to the-- what is it--
east side of Vancouver Island on the property of a fellow named Thomas Sewid,
who I've-- I have talked to numerous times as an experiencer,
I bumped into him down in Kennewick, Washington at a Bigfoot conference-
the International Bigfoot Conference down there,
and fascinated with the stories of he and his son being chased out of the property
by what he describes as sasquatch, the big hairy-- the big hairy critter,
-Yeah, -And it's gonna be
just fantastic to get up to this property
that not too many people are allowed into,
And it's not something you could just drive up and-- and pull over and walk into it,
It's gonna take a bit of a hike to get in there,
So I'm-- I'm looking forward to getting in and actually investigating this property,
And I'm fascinated with Bigfoot,
I have a podcast and in-- I think 2014 I was talking to a number of the psychics
that were on that TV series, "Psychic Detective" and "Psychic Investigator"
and we had strange ET contacts were coming through
and they were talking about Bigfoot and what is it and things like this,
And I was fascinated with that,
And the information I was getting not only from one person but another person,
and kind of-- it was just putting all that information together,
And I've had the opportunity to talk to people like Tom Gimlin of the Patterson-Gimlin film
from fifty years ago in northern California of the Bigfoot walking across the creek,
Oh, yeah,
And to look into that man's eyes, that gentleman as he
recounts that story of actually seeing Bigfoot
and it just was so passionate and his understanding of what he saw,
In hindsight, at the time I could imagine, you know, he's trying to keep the horses still
and-- and Patterson's doing the 8-millimeter photos of it and Thomas is wondering
what the heck's going on, but in hindsight and the understanding of what he had seen
and his lifetime now of talking to people who have experienced the same thing
and his passion about it,
Had also the opportunity to talk to a fellow named Lyle Blackburn
connected to the Boggy Creek Monster down in the southern U,S,
and his experiences going out and his passion
and interviewing people who've experienced these things, too,
And this all piques my interest in it,
And to be offered a chance to pop-- just hang around and pop over to Vancouver Island
with the rest of the crew, couldn't have asked for anything better,
Yeah,
Can you tell us a little bit about your background
and your experiences with the supernatural?
How does that all pertain to this scenario of going to see Bigfoot?
'Cause I know there's a lot of people who don't believe
and there's a lot of people that do,
And I don't know if any of your experiences of the previous with the supernatural
can at all interact with this,
-It meld together, -Yes, exactly,
Well, my experience is basically is ever since I was a little kid
-I've seen dead people, which can be awkward, -Oh,
And then I spent twenty-eight years as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
where I saw "dead people" and dead people,
So it was kind of a blend,
I saw most of the ghosts and spirits as maybe under the age of seventeen, eighteen,
I stopped seeing the full-on like someone who's standing there,
A couple of times as a policeman I saw it and I just kind of wrote that off,
And in 2012, I had an experience, actually a psychic-
I got an opportunity to go see a psychic who I never had any belief in,
I was very skeptical,
-Yeah, -I still am a bit of a skeptic but I'm a skeptic
that goes and tries to figure these things out,
And this psychic told me my mother was standing behind me over my shoulder
and she told me if my mother's name was Lexa, L-E-X-A,
Well, picked that out of a hat when she only knows me as James,
-You know, that's-- that's-- that's a bit of a fluke, -Yeah,
Then kind of told me about these things I saw when I was a kid
and she goes, "Oh yeah, those weren't really dead people,
Those were ghosts,"
And she knew what I had seen,
It was-- it was fascinating, absolutely fascinating,
Then she told me that I was something called an empath and I could read cards for people
and I just went, "Okay, whatever,"
And then she got me hooked up to a paranormal team
and I was having conversations like I'm having with you,,,
-Yeah, -,,,with disembodied people within two weeks,
And from there I got into-- I got asked to do a-- an internet radio show in 2014
and from that I developed another podcast and off I went,
I'm just asking so many questions,
And when it comes to Bigfoot,
I'm still-
you people are all having a lot of fun and so interested in this
and you're getting out doing it, I want to see if it's real too,
So to get this opportunity
to--to kind of quench that thirst for knowledge about this animal,
this critter, this being, you know, I couldn't turn it down,
I want to-- you know, do I want to believe? Of course, I do,
But what is it? And is it something that is in myth? Is it a-
is it moving through like a ghost or is it knocking down trees?
And this is the opportunity I am taking
to go out and got my little bag of-- of
-stuff to pour into a footprint if we ever do find one,,, -Yes, yes,
,,,and hopefully that--
-Which I'm hoping,,, -Yeah, hopefully it will-- it will come out,
-So,,, -Well, we're so happy to have you along with us
on this journey,
And I just can't wait to see what happens and if we're able to find Bigfoot,
if we're able to get some prints like you said, um, or even just anything
with them being in the presence of Bigfoot is gonna be interesting,
-Even just a smell, that would be great, -Even something,
Yeah, just a little something out of it, I'd be perfectly happy,
Excellent,
-Let's go and see what we can find, -Let's go,
What is Bigfoot? Sasquatch?
Since the middle of the 1800s, this being, this mysterious mythical beast,
is it a hoax?
Or is it real?
Over the next few minutes
we'll be interviewing people about their own experiences with this creature,
Is it an alien shapeshifter known as the Echo?
Is it actually the missing link?
Is it something that anyone can see?
Or is it something gifted to those who encounter it?
We don't know,
But the people that we are going to talk to surely believe in it,
They've all had their own personal experiences,
This is gonna be fascinating,
This animal has been around allegedly for over a hundred years,
Let's find out from these people what their experiences are,
Sure a lot of people have said they've seen it, but really?
Let's dig down a little bit deeper,
[Kiana] Our crew and I are here at the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal
and we are super excited to get onboard, get over to Campbell River and go see Bigfoot,
Now, Campbell River they say is known as a hub of Bigfoot, this is where Bigfoot really resides,
So I'm super excited to go back there and hopefully we'll be able to reencounter him today,
So let's go,
So we've been on the boat for about an hour right now,
We've been able to look over to the different islands and sort of see the different landscapes
of where Bigfoot could be residing,
I want to talk to you a little bit about my experience of Bigfoot,
Now, I was six years old at the time and my father and I,
we always used to go exploring into the woods, That was our thing,
Any place we could go, we would-- we would look at the trees
and the rocks and the grounds,
And one day, in Campbell River, and this is why Campbell River to me is so important,
we went there and we were searching through the woods and
out of the blue I see it--
you can't explain it, it's not an ape
and it's not a human, it's like a mixture of those two
but in such a large form and it doesn't look human,
And if I could tell you it's Bigfoot, it is,
And this is why this adventure is so important to me,
I want to be able to see it again, I want to find the prints,
I want to-- to delve in a little bit further and see people with the other experiences
and compare them to mine
and really get this Bigfoot into the universe of Bigfoot,
I want to be able to show a little bit more about it,
So we're gonna be meeting up with Thomas Sewid and he is a Bigfoot experiencer,
He has claimed there has been many spots within Campbell River
that have Bigfoot sightings,
Now I would really like to be able to see a print or two
and we'll just have to sort of explore, see what happens,
So I don't know what to expect,
I think that's the anticipation of this all which is the most exciting part,
However, just to be back into the area where I first experienced Bigfoot
is such a thrill and I'm really looking forward to talking with everybody
today when we get there,
So we're just starting the journey,
And I just can't wait to see what happens next,
[intriguing music]
We're heading out to Campbell River-- just outside Campbell River, British Columbia,
So on Vancouver Island we're gonna be meeting our friend
and guide Thomas Sewid, our Bigfoot expert and experiencer,
It's interesting we're gonna be heading to a camp that he has been chased out of
or had been chased out of in 2006
by what he believes is the Bigfoot or "Big Fella" as he calls them,
With me is Ashley, and Ashley is a member of the Canadian paranormal investigators
that I'm a member of, and worked with her for quite a while,
Vancouver Island, big chunk of land here on the Pacific Northwest,
second largest island in the Pacific Ocean after New Zealand,
which is kind of a uninhabited area,
Lots of cities, and that's where the main population is but so much-
so much land that only people may have trekked around in the last hundred years or so
other than the First Nations or the Canadian Indian population
that does occupy the majority of the north end of this island,
Typical rainy day here in the West Coast,
It's been nice, awfully sunny,
But of course you're gonna go out hunting the big guy,
he's gonna put up some blocks in your way and show us some rain,
Should be a lot of fun though,
[general chatter]
Oh, you're gonna have fun,
So we just met up with Thomas Sewid and he's gonna be taking us to the area of Campbell River
where he's had experience of Bigfoot,
I'm excited and I'm anxious,
and there's a bunch of emotions happening for me right now,
This is something that I've wanted to do for so long,
And now that we're finally in the area, it makes it so much more surreal,
So we'll hopefully find some proof,
And I'm really excited for the night, So let's see what happens,
I'm a member of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation from northeastern Vancouver Island
and the northern portions and northeast from Vancouver Island
is what they call the Broughton Archipelago,
my homeland, the Musgamagw tribe,
And in the late 1980s, I was sent out by my chief and council to be a watchman
and a guardian of our abandoned native village, known very famously as Mamalilacolla,
Village of the Last Potlatch, far from the truth
because if you go to the U'mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay,
you can un-- come to understand or speak to one of our people
like myself and others, you come to understand that we survived
the dark days of the banning of the potlatch from 1851 to 1961,
But our village all the same is abandoned with totem poles on the ground
and big house remains,
And it's out in the middle of Timbuk nowhere, I like to say,
and it's been abandoned for over twenty years in 1988 and it was overgrown with berry bushes
and brush and thorns and stinging nettles and of course the people, my ancestors,
some of my family even that lived there up until the mid 1900s,
their fruit trees went wild,
So this place is just filled with berries and during midsummer and late summer
into early fall, plums, cherries at one part of the year, apples and crab apples,
and it's a beautiful place,
And tourists will come from around the world to come walk through Mamalilacolla,
Village of the Last Potlatch,
And I was the watchman guardian there from the mid-- late 1980s right through until around 2013,
And I lived out there many years all by myself and I had a trailer, we'd put on the beach
twenty-six feet long with a little ten-by-ten foot addition,
And at nighttime when it got dark, I tried to go to sleep as fast as I could
because in late summer, early fall, you'd hear the hollering and the screaming
or you'd hear them harvesting the plums behind the trailer
at the abandoned homestead site that we're at,
And you knew they weren't bears or deer or other humans,
They were the big fellows, sasquatch, Bigfoot,
In my language of Kwak'wala, we refer to those creatures as Dzunukwa,
Sasquatch, the bush code is harvesting as much protein in the least amount of time
with the least expenditure of energy, period,
And once you equate tree structures, and glyphs
and tree knocks and all these other things,
it breaks the law of the bush
harvesting as much food and as little time with the least amount of energy expelled,
So in other words, a sasquatch
in a forest area, it's-- it's, you know, if there's not a lot of high concentration protein,
They don't have time to expend energy building these big huge sculptures as hippies
that smoke pot have time to do that in a forest,
Like when you look at pictures on the internet and people going to creeks
and build these beautiful balancing rock structures,
Why, humans got three squares a day and a credit rating and a credit card,
he can go through any drive-thru he wants and fill his belly,
he has time to go into a creek and build these structures,
Sasquatches don't,
Out here, it's all about survival,
[James] I mean, you need a lot of protein for something that big to run that machine,
I honestly think they need six thousand calories a day or more,
equivalent to what a grizzly bear needs,
And this stretch along here, there's just so many reports through the years that I have,
you know, heard second, third, fifth-hand even of people seeing things
on this highway day and night,
So, you know, like I say, it's very thick,
So, chances of seeing one with the leaves on the trees is pretty tough
'cause, you know, it's in the summer,
But wintertime, when leaves are all down, you can see a lot further,
You hear the odd report here and there in winter, but mainly in the springtime
and the summer, early summer is when you get a lot of sighting reports along here,
[Kiana] Along our path to discover Bigfoot, we met up with Steve and Tracy,
who gave us their insights on their experiences with Bigfoot,
[Tracy] It was kind of a date,
And he did all the driving up and we had the-- we had to get up there,
There were some snowmobilers who had stopped by,
Do you remember that part where--
[Steve] Yeah, it was third week in October, there was lots of snow,
And so we drove up to about kilometer twenty-six on the Fourth Road Highway,
We realized there was too much snow to get up there all the way to the-
to the springs themselves, so we stopped,
We were gonna turn around, we ran into these snowmobilers,
They had offered to piggyback us up on their machines but we would have to walk back,
We agreed, although we weren't really dressed for winter 'cause at the time we didn't realize
there was a bunch of snow up there because of course coming from the main-- lower mainland,
So we agreed anyway, so I wanted her to see this-
these hot springs and to-- to, you know, get into them and that,
So we went up there, they gave us ride up, we walked about close to a half a block in down
a trail to get to the Meager Creek Hot Springs,
We were in the springs, we're having lots of fun,
There was a cold river, the Meagher creek itself was running by,
so we could jump into this cold water when it got too hot,
So we must have spent about two hours there,
And then it was time to go back, We were kind of tired,
But we ended up climbing up the trail and we had to walk back,
it was about a half a mile to the car,
We started following because we were not dressed for-- for the winter,
so we started walking down back to the truck in-- on the due pass,,,
-[James] Yeah, -,,,so that we wouldn't sneak too far into the snow,
We got about a half way there,
Tracy was behind me,
And she says, "Well, I wonder-- what's that?" She points out, she sounded kind of-
kind of perturbed,
She goes, "What's that?" And I turned around and she pointed to this thing across-
across the river and across the-- the river and the rocks that up a little bit up-
up the mountain, about thirty, forty feet up the mountain,
She's pointing to this thing and there had been a fire there a couple years prior to that,
So it burned everything else, So it was only a couple of burnt-out trees
here and the odd one falling down, but it was pretty kind of barren,
A lot of little, sort of, rocks sliding, coming down,
So she's pointing this thing and I'm looking across, I'm going, "What is that?"
And she's still pointing at it and she goes, "What is that?" she says as well,
So I'm looking, I go, "Whoa, jeez, I can't-- what the-- you know, that's not a tree stump,
like, what is that?" I'm thinking,
-Your mind tells you it's something,,, -Something that it's not,
,,,it's a bush of a tree or something, but it's not,
And we're looking and looking and we see-- we could see this thing against the tree,
you could see-- I mean it was a fair distance away, you know, probably
half a block or something so we couldn't see the face itself or anything
but there was this thing standing, leaning against the tree,
You could see its two legs and it was kind of-- and it was motionless, it didn't move,
And that's what kind of threw me off,
So I was going-- threw her off too-- but she's going, "What is that? What is that?"
It can't be a tree because there's this creature,
we don't know what it is, this hairy creature, brown creature standing there,
And we're going jeez and we're staring at it,
We must have looked at it for at least a minute, minute and a little bit right,
like, we've been staring 'cause we're thinking, "God, it has to be a bush,"
I mean it has to be a tree or a bush,
But, you know, and then all of a sudden this wave of fear came through-- I don't know why,
this wave of fear came over and she says at the same-- right after that wave of fear comes,
she goes, "I wonder if that thing could get here in time,"
And that was it,
We started running down the track to our truck,
We had about a quarter mile to go and we were freaking out because we thought this thing
for-- even though it was a fair distance away, sort of,
it could probably catch us before we could get to the truck,
We-- for the-- ran for our lives almost, It was terrifying,
We ran, got in the truck, started the truck and boom, we were gone,
-And,,, -It was all crazy but,,,
-No matter what you say, it's-- -We saw it,
Yeah,
-You know, we didn't tell anybody really until now, -No,
-It's been largely just,,, -Maybe,,,
Put it-- put away for years,,,
--a family friend, you know, or a family member,
-Yeah, But,,, -One or two family members, Never talked about it,
-Really, because a ridiculed factor is so-- -They think you're crazy,
-People say you're nuts, -Yeah,
-But we saw it, -Yeah,
And that's that,
Basically we're just looking as we get into the kayak camp for any animals
as we see when we came around the corner, I saw the color of what I thought was elk,
and sure enough they're bedded down,
That's telling me that there's been no other vehicle activity down this road today,
You hear all the encounters, people come around a corner and see a sasquatch,
Well, me seeing bedded down elk tells me no other traffic, it tells me that the possibilities
of seeing one are gonna be pretty good if they're around here,
But we'll see, We'll just keep going,
Since 2000, the numbers of reports of sasquatches
has increased who knows how many fold,
And when I went to Central United States and saw on that Indian Reservation
all the sasquatches they have and I hear the stories from Washington State's native people
and non-native and British Columbia and Southeast Alaska
and Alberta and Northwest Territories in the Yukon, and the list goes on,
Well, the Indians are proliferating like bunnies, so are the Sasquatch Bigfoot,
So we are in the verge of conclusive proof of Sasquatch Bigfoot
and we have to be prepared for that,
But the main thing what I'm getting to is quit gifting to those creatures,
And when you do have your Dian Fossey Jane Goodall moment, make sure you have a face mask on,
make sure you've sanitized yourself because God forbid,
we don't want to give them our filthy rotten diseases that we have and see that race
exterminated because we didn't take precautions, so that we wouldn't contaminate them,
So, use your frontal lobe, show that as well he developed when you meet your Sasquatch Bigfoot
to have that close encounter of the hairy kind,
[birds chirping]
[Kiana] Our group decided to press on in order to catch up with the rest of the crew,
James and his crew were headed down the mountain,
We had quite the track to catch up,
[James] Careful there,
I got this,
You know what?
My left knee is probably swollen like a basketball right now because of an injury,
So that's gonna be fun,
[Kiana] Our group was still lost,
There were no signs of a mountain drop anywhere in sight,
We started back to square one and took a different route,
We were hoping to meet up with them sooner than this,
but sometimes this is what happens on adventures,
Well, we're here at Tom Sewid's special secret hideaway where he
actually got chased out of here by Bigfoot around 2006,
And it's quite a trek in off the highway through some dirt roads and
on the logging trails and we went by a lot of-- we saw a lot of great wildlife,
a lot of-- started off by seeing a giant squirrel, okay, that wasn't it,
but we did see some wonderful herds of elk,
I'm looking out right now at a beautiful scene of water
Coast Guard ships clearing the point around that side,
We're actually staying in a little hut here
and it's rustic, rustic is a good way of putting it,
There's a sea otter feeding area right behind me,
You can see a lot of sea urchins that we
found that had been brought in by the sea otters,
So wildlife abounds in this area,
In fact, I'm thinking-- I'm seeing a sea otter on the other side there but
it's- it's a beautiful calm place,
It was raining earlier in the day,
But tonight, tonight's when the fun begins,
So we're here at Thomas Sewid's camp,
It was definitely a long hike to get here,
We actually got lost for quite a while,
but we actually caught up with James and the rest of the crew, which is good,
James hurt himself hiking-- hiking to the location,
So, he's just resting in his hut right now,
I'm not sure if we're gonna be able to see him for the rest of the night,
They're gonna be starting a campfire shortly and so we're gonna feel the energy and-
and just get a sense of being in the-- in the presence of Bigfoot and his lands,
So it's definitely exciting,
I'm nervous, I'm anxious,
There's a bunch of emotions happening again and it's just-
Oh, I just can't wait to see what happens,
The huts are made of plywood and the beds are physically made of plywood,
so it's gonna be very interesting to see if we
actually get any sleep done tonight,
But I'm sure the energy is here and our excitement
is gonna keep us up to hopefully see Bigfoot,
[Kiana] Let's listen in to Thomas Sewid's real-life experience with Bigfoot
that happened here right at the camp, or secret hideaway as it is also known,
2006, I had a tour company with a twelve-passenger aluminum tour boat
and I had a camp that has five cabins,
I still actually have it, look better, made of red cedar,
that looked like they're made of long hoses, except they're small like a garden shed,
Just enough room for a queen-sized bed and a couple and their child to sleep in,
nice and warm,
And it's on Vancouver Island's eastern shore
on Orca Highway of Johnstone Strait, so you watch the orcas,
My sister wanted to see it and she's ten years younger than me and she's a concrete Indian,
She's growing up in the city world,
So I brought her out and I had young native worker from Campbell River
and I had a young Dutch fella who was my sea kayak guide,
And we're-
we're removing driftwood from the beach because the tides come in
and they're big tide, the logs got washed up onto my beach and you can't bring your kayak
on there and you can't walk on there safe because some of these logs
are two meters thick almost and there is
all this debris and I wanted to cut it up with a big chainsaw
and then push it out when high tide came that evening
and so we had a nice clear beach when my guest showed up in a few days,
So, two gas tanks and my power saw,
And you gotta remember this is the largest chainsaw they make
and I'm cutting away and run out of gas, fill it up, start cutting again,
And when I'm finished the two tanks with the gas and the job's done,
I'm all hot and sweaty and I said to one of the boys, "Grab me a pop,"
I grabbed a pop and I started taking a drink and I sat down on a folding chair
on the beach huffing and puffing and all of a sudden just heard trees shaking,
And I looked to my right and there's my cookhouse cabin and about fifteen feet up
there is a rock bluff and there's these two trees about that thick,
just shaken like when you see a spook movie
and you see those people shaking beyond normal,
That's what these trees reminded me of,
And all of a sudden this big boulder, like I'm talking big, like,
huge comes [imitating stomps] and you hear the roots ripping and trees breaking,
I looked at my dog and he's a golden lab cross bush dog and he's six years old,
so he's well trained, I could just, "Go spin bear," and he'll chase a black bear
and nip out its tail, so he spins the black bear so I can get out of there,
So, you know, you don't want to shoot every bear just because it's got attitude, you know,
You got to use your frontal lobe to show that the animal kingdom needs respect,
So, get your dog to spin the bear and walk away, call your dog, get in the boat, leave,
So anyway Land Claims was his name,
Wherever he lifted his leg to pee, we're gonna claim it back as Indians,
that's why I called him Land Claims,
But anyway, I go, "Landie, go check!" And he runs up that rock wall
that's, you know, got slope, so it's not straight up and down,
And he gets up and he looks behind the trees that are shaken
and he just goes ping and he springs and you see this blond blur come hit the ground
and he just [phews] go streaking past me,
And you know, I'm not worried about my dog, I'm like, "Okay, the dog left,
Okay, What's up?" And then being a bushman, you don't just look at where the noise is,
you got to be smart, you got to look left and right, your other points,
And as I looked to my right behind the cookhouse,
some twenty feet, I guess, behind the cookhouse in the wall of trees,
evergreens, there's this thing from this part up looking at me,
Shoulders are like that wide,
And I looked at it, and it looked at me, then it went-- and I could see the tendons
and wrinkles on its neck and its eyes
skin sharp and I was just like, "Jeez, that thing's big,"
And I'm like, "Hey, guys, where's my gun?" "Oh, it's out on the boat,"
They didn't know I was looking at it and they're still looking at the trees shaking,
And I looked at my sister, I'm like, "Get in the dinghy, we got to get to the boat,"
It's two of them now,
I'm seeing trees shake and a boulder just got rolled down the hill at me and not forty-five,
fifty feet over this way behind my cookhouse is another one standing there grimacing at me,
So I'm like, "Louise, get in the boat, We got to get out of here,"
And it's a duck punt little dinghy,
Now my twelve passenger tour boat sitting in the middle of this bale I got
with its bow pointing out because there's wind that evening
and I wanted it to ride at anchor,
but also got a starboard and a port line to beach and a stern line to beach
to keep it perfectly sitting, I don't want it to swing
and hit the beach because of the wind that evening,
Well, I look at my dog and he's over in my dinghy already in that cowered down big tough bush
dog Land Claims and here's my sister trying to be Jesus Christ walking across the water,
high tide, all the driftwoods float and she's like going like that
and I'm like, "Slow down, you're gonna break a leg,"
And she's trying to get to the dinghy and I'm like, "Where's my gun?" and "Out in the boat,"
I'm like, "Well, give me an ax or a machete,"
And I'm like, "You guys get in that dinghy and get out of here,"
'cause I had two dinghies, So they run over and they are
Jesus Christ, too, they're trying to walk on water
and they-- they get in their dinghy, I get in mine,
And my sister is just pulling that stern line and pulling the dinghy out to the main boat,
well it's rectangle shape, now she's almost flipping it because she's so freaked out
and I'm like, "Slow down, Louise", I said, "You're gonna flip us over,"
And we get maybe six feet from the boat, swim grid, and my dog just bails, jumps,
gets on the swim grid, he's half in the water, gets into the boat,
I climb on the boat and I'm like, "You guys cut the side lines and cut the anchor,
I'll start her up,"
And I went inside the boat, turned both keys from each motor, fired her up,
My sister's running in and she's like, "What's that? What are they?"
I said they are sasquatches, don't worry about it,"
And she's all freaked out,
I look out at the bottom of my boat and there's the Dutch fella and he's crying,
He's like all whimpering like a baby, he's fumbling and fumbling the lines and he's just freaked,
I'm like, "Oh for God's sakes you guys,"
So I grab my ,338 rifle and I walked on deck and I was just standing there
trying to make these guys be
reassured that, "Hey, we got a gun now," but also showing those big fellows that,
"Hey, this is my kayak camp, you know, you don't come down there
and scare us out of there and, you know, you got my workers and my sister scared beepless,"
And all of a sudden you hear that aaaarh,
My sister is, "Oh what's that?" And that's when I thought, "You sons of guns,"
and put one in the tube and lifted it up in the air and boom,
Another one, boom,
"You guys get out of here,
And you can have the camp tonight,
But I want it back tomorrow and you guys leave me alone,
It's my kayak camp, I'm staying here,"
So we left on the boat, but it was too windy to get down to Sayward
because when it's westerly wind in the summer with a big ebb tide like we had,
yeah, mountainous waves, dangerous,
So I went across to this place called Port Neville and we tied up to the dock there
and all four of us slept on the boat that night,
Next morning, no wind, we went to Sayward,
My sister hasn't been back to camp,
And the day after, I went into that camp and I lit her up like World War Three,
I went in with a bunch of buddies and a bunch of shotguns and rifles and we lit her up,
couple hundred shots were fired,
Okay, right here behind me is where that big boulder was and the rock bluff that
were about pushed down,
You can see these cedar trees here
and that's where that one was standing, what, twenty-five feet from me,
And back then, you gotta remember that was eleven years ago,
it was like a V and that's where that thing was standing
and the next day when we came down here,
we could see depressions in the moss where that thing was standing
and the feet were probably about that big,
And we guesstimated with tape measures
that that thing would have been standing seven foot four
in order for me to see from here to the top of its head,
So it was a big bugger,
And just above us here it goes straight up to about five-thousand feet,
That's Newcastle Ridge,
And that's where the famous
five plaster casts were cast that this hunter found and he cast them in mud that was dry
and Doctor John Bindernagel, he bought four of the five casts,
One of them was broken and lost,
But they're considered to be some of the top five casts
that were ever cast on Vancouver Island,
And I have a replica and it's eighteen-inches long,
So I kind of figure that possibly was the same bugger that rolled that big,
big rock down on me,
Here we go right here,
You can see the big rock bluff right at the base here, There is big boulder right here
and that was the one that was pushed down on us,
So we're hanging out cherries to entice the Bigfoot to come down,
James had his psychic friend told him to bring cherries,
So, hopefully this will be a yummy and welcome treat for our Bigfoot fella,
We're just hanging it above ground so, you know, bears or other, like, raccoons
and skunks don't come in and eat them,
Hopefully we will get the Bigfoot
and he'll come down and he'll be munching out on some cherries,
[Kiana] While Ashley set up the cherries to entice Bigfoot,
she also set up the night cameras to catch any movement
or presence of Bigfoot,
I reckon we put one of the cameras on the tree past there,
So if he's coming down through this brush, this opening part here,
which seems like the easiest way to come through if he's gonna probe us,
Thomas' words, not mine, then we're gonna be able to capture any activity,
So maybe I'll go put it up over there,
[Kiana] Back at the camp, the fire is getting started for the long night ahead of us,
I'll just pull from the bottom and bring up,
See, the cedar I cut, you always start it and you bring it from the bottom,
Now you can bring the stuff,
[Kiana] We sat around the fire
waiting for the sun to set to begin our quest through the night,
It's one of the most humbling experiences to ever have,
Scares the bejeezus out of you, I'll tell you that,
Like, man, you want to feel your heart pounding, you want to feel your legs shake
when you get close to Sasquatch Bigfoot, especially when you smell it,
it has that smell like a person you see on the street that lives there
and you know they haven't showered for weeks, if not months, and you get that
bad human odor, same smell but ten or twenty times worse,
Makes you want to gag,
And when you see them, it's just amazing,
It's-- I can only imagine what it'd be like to see the white killer whale
because I love orcas so much in Russia,
I could only imagine what it'd be like to be in Australia to see that white humpback whale
do a full-out breach and boom, like, thunder when it hits,
Maybe one day I'll get to experience that,
But right now I experienced something just as grand in the animal kingdom,
and that's seeking to try to get that up-close,
Never know, maybe I will get a Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey moment with Sasquatch Bigfoot
if I show them enough respect and that's what I'm after,
[wood cracking]
[Kiana] We were able to use the night vision cameras to try to detect traces of Bigfoot,
As the night progressed,
we thought we had seen Bigfoot but our eyes were playing tricks on us,
sometimes catching our friends,
So I just got woken up by what seemed to be knocking or rocks or something,
On the trees, And I'm not sure if that was just animals here
of if that was-- sounded like Bigfoot is here,
So far we-- that's what all we've heard,
Jason and Ashley actually heard earlier,
It's like a whooping sound, really, really loud, very distinct whooping,
But really disappointed that I didn't hear it,
But two of our crew have, so that was definitely interesting,
A little disappointed so far that I haven't heard more and I haven't seen more
but, you know, there's still more of the night to go, So,
keeping my hopes up high and hopefully we're gonna be able to at least see a little bit more,
We'll probably check out the night cameras,
make sure everything's still working properly and getting everything we can,
We have cherries set up for Bigfoot, so hopefully that's gonna lure them-
lure them to us as well, So, we will have to see,
[birds chirping]
[Kiana] In the morning we spoke with the crew to deliberate on our findings,
Describing, you know, our camp setting last night, you-- I would probably describe this as
a typical campsite that any group goes out to have,
You're sitting around the fire, enjoying the company of each other,
listening to some of the most amazing stories from Tom as he recounts his history,
And so the atmosphere was set,
We were really enjoying ourselves,
almost kind of forgetting really kind of what we're here to do,
We're here to-- to find an encounter, but we're just enjoying ourselves so much,
And I guess it was really late into the night once the, you know, the light and truly
we sort of got to the-- the darkest part of the night
we could begin to hear sounds in different places from around the camp,
We're in a little Horseshoe Bay, so there's only kind of three points,
you know, around us, We could begin to hear sound both from the-
from the-- the-- the left to the right and directly behind us,
whether it was knocks on wood,
A few of our crew who was with us had heard a howling sound
and, you know, at that point I would say the tone of the night changed a little bit
and you could tell there was just a feeling like what's- what's gonna happen next,
And as people sort of headed to their-- their cabins, it was with a little bit of,
I wouldn't say fear but
the mood was a little more somber as we headed into the cabins wondering what
potentially could-- could happen,
Well last night I didn't see the big guy at all,
Kept our eyes open, We set up some trail cams last night
and we're gonna be checking those later,
There were some sounds though, I headed up a bit early to
my cabin just up in here on the point and as I got above
where the main part of the beach was, I could hear knocking,
And I looked back towards the camp where a couple of the other guys were
and nobody was doing any knocking,
This was from a distance and it was just bunk, bunk, bunk,
bunk, bunk, and it was a rhythm,
It-- and faster than somebody would be chopping wood and a hollow sound at a distance,
So that's of interest,
We did put some sound devices out, some microphones in the area,
We'll see if we can pick that up,
But nobody came and chased us out of the camp,
But again, we're only here for one day, or one night,
Thomas comes up here and he's up here for a week or two and maybe get one instance of
something coming into his camp,
So we'll see,
We'll see, We're gonna come back someday and spend a little more time here
and see what's going on,
So this is the-- actually the very first footprint that was found earlier today by Ashley,
This print itself, again fourteen, fifteen inches,
and not overly wide, maybe six inches wide,
It's pushed down this part here, So I'm not including this part of the footprint,
The footprint really ends right about here, starts up at the toe,
Use my bush pointer,
Again, footprint starts or ends here
and this is the toe and this pile is what was pushed as it went up the hill,
Again, this is-- this isn't something I can leave,
I'm two hundred and thirty five pounds, I can't leave a footprint in this
standing on it,
So that's of interest because it does go down maybe an inch into the-
the pine-- in the soft pine,
Again we have Ashley, she's tracking it still up the ridge,
She's a good hundred meters away, hundred yards away right now,
So, this one's a bit of an angle but I'm gonna try to take a cast out of there
because you can see the toe marks up in here,
Again, first try at a cast in pine needles,
Basically all it could do is not set,
So we'll see how it goes, and hopefully we can get a good cast,
Hopefully Ashley comes up with another good footprint and we'll make a cast of that one,
So that's our next mini adventure up on the trail,
So here's where I believe the print ends and this lump here is what's been pushed
down from the weight of this whatever made this track,
The toe-- like a big toe mark here, and all these are the toes, comes down to the sides,
See the animals, the deer and the elk, smaller elk,
will not want to walk through here because it's too easy for a cougar to pounce,
-[Ashley] That's right, yeah, -So, and they can't see, they're here, the predators,
But for the bigger animals like your bears and your big elk and your Bigfoot,
this is what they're gonna use because like me, you know,
I knew that with this trench it's gonna lead up to that logging road
and there should be because you got water coming down,
-[Ashley] That's right, yeah, -It's gonna be cleared and, you know, as we can see,
something's been using this,
Up there is like where your creek does, you know, how your creek meets down over here,
-Yeah, -There is another creek up there,
And I saw what looked like a handprint,
To me it looked like a handprint because you can see where a thumb may have been
-and the four fingers, -Is it?
And so it could have been like putting leaning down to take a drink
-'cause there's like a little pool of water there, -Yeah,
-Able to be poured? -Pour,
Maybe, yeah, probably, yeah,
[Steve] Yeah, We should definitely take a look at that 'cause that's,,,
Like I say with here, you know, when you come here to this camp,
we're all just thinking to join up,
They're curious, They want to see what's up,
And this is their route they're gonna come through,
Well, I did hear something by the-- like, while we were at the fire, I did hear something,
something like tree-- like something breaking, like a log breaking
or something getting stepped on,
But I mean it could have just been,,,
-[Thomas] Branch falling, -Yeah,
And you know you have to remember with the higher tide last night too,
the wood- tunk, tunk, tunk,
And before dark, there was some driftwood floating in the bay,
So when they hit the beach, you know, and then we had cruise ships going by,,,
-Yeah, -It makes a hell of a clunking noise,
Well I heard something last night too and it sound-- okay, do you know, like, when you have
an empty bottle or empty jug and you blow into the-- like that it makes that hollow-
that's that kind of, that weird sound?
I heard that a bunch of times last night,
And I know Jason heard it as well,
Well, there's the reason why we came here,
Big potential for northeastern Vancouver Island,
Have you ever heard some-- a similar noise?
Yeah, you know, they chatter,
The best way is if you want to know what a sasquatch sounds like in this region
and when they're communicating back and forth talking,
watch The Gods Must Be Crazy,
and that little bushman, how bluh, bluh, he-- the way that he talks,,,
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, -His traditional language,
That's pretty much similar to what I've-- I hear out here when they're communicating
back and forth and close proximity, You hear that lip popping,
And then of course you got the whoops and what you heard
like blowing in a bottle, like-- Ooh, ooh, ohh,
-Yeah, it was like-- -You get the chimpanzee type--
-Like, you know, that hollow sound from like the-- -Yeah,
From like an empty jug,
-Yeah, that's what it sounded like to me, -Oh, yeah,
I heard heaps-- and then-
and then the big whoop that we heard, like, as we were setting up the trail cams,
-You guys did hear a whoop? -We did hear one, We heard a whoop,
like we were setting-- it was just that-- just as dusk was coming into play
and then we heard a whoop that came over there, And we just, like,
stopped and we, like, looked at each other and we're like, "Did you hear that?"
There's owls around too, you know, you always got to,,,
But I've heard an owl's before, I've heard owls,
-Like the some-- -It sounded more ape-like, I-- I-- if I would have to
compare it to something, it would sound like more like a chimpanzee,
Then I gotta go with you, your gut feeling,
More than likely it was one of them,
So looks like this cast is done now and I'm gonna pull it out,
Now, don't expect me to flip it over and see a perfect footprint because
you're on pine needles,
So I'm gonna pull it up, Oh, you can flip it over and you're just going to see a
plastic cast covered in pine needles, So,,,
but that's a good size,
Big toe, little toes would have been down there, heel's got a bit of a bend to it,
which is a little bit common, I think, especially when he's got a foot there and he's-
we found another footprint just up-- get my bush pointer here-
right up in here another one,
So it would be right foot, left foot, and on,
So there you go, right foot, left foot, and up through the bush,,,
where the big fellow lives,
This is major trampling, This is last night,
They come through here,
And,,,
-So you've broken branches here, -[Ashley] Yeah,
So definitely something went through here,
-And look up this way here, and it doesn't look like it, -Uh-uh,
You know, prevailing wind when people are using this camp is northwest summertime wind,
We're in summer season at the end but we have a southeast blowing,
which is the prevailing winter wind,
So with the northwest, this is where you want to come because right now you're basically
behind the cabin, you can scent it, you can smell the humans,
So you'd want to come along here, and with your ear listening,
remember how sound travels,
If you yell from up a hill, it's hard for the people down below to hear you,
But the people down below just talking, the guy up on top of the hill can hear them,
So being elevated here and then see how he is-- he's not walking through there,
Deer, elk; they just you go anywhere,
But whatever walks to here repeatedly because all these branches have been cleared
and it's been cleared for years because you can see the broken ones
on the forest floor have started to be decomposed and brought into the forest,
I built this camp in 2006, so eleven years something possibly has been using this trail,
It's very straight,
It's taken advantage of no silhouette,
So it's got the rock bluff behind it, it has these trees for coverage
but you can hear the water down there at the camp,
So if people are down there talking and making noise, you can hear it all,
And the wind, westerly, he's not gonna be smelled,
Now when he comes out into the kayak count behind the outhouse,
he has great observation, he can see, and his scent won't be picked up by them,
See, the animal doesn't realize that our scent is not as good as theirs,
They just equate that we possibly have a nose as good as a deer or a wolf or a bear,
so that's how you look at his trails and where he's setting up to observe you,
So let me give this back,,, Let Thomas poke at this thing around,
He's got more experience than I do with a cast, So,
see what comes out of this, Again, I'm not expecting too much because of the type
of terrain we have here, which is just needles and basically a sponge,
But the odds on our first night to get one of something a cast by a creek
in the mud or in the sand, it's-- We're lucky even to have seen these,
[Kiana] My disappointment was overshadowed by the footprint we found,
Our team couldn't be happier to discover the print,
We packed up our things and headed back to the beginning of the hike,
[Kiana] As we left beautiful Vancouver Island
and said goodbye to the land of the sasquatch,
I couldn't help but reflect on the findings and my feelings towards Bigfoot,
The sense of purpose was fulfilled,
So James, what have you taken from this experience that we've had north of Campbell River?
I found it to be an experience and a half loaded with information
-and actually coming up with a lot more questions now, -Mm,
I was fascinated with the stories from Thomas Sewid
and the-- and the energy of the crew we had up there,
It-- it was one of those-- that kind of group that came together
with a focus and was testing each other to see-- to see how we each thought about it,
it was a very, very, very interesting way of looking at it,
plus I really screwed my knee up, So that was fun too,
which was an adventure and a half coming down with like a fifty pound pack on my
wonky old knee which swole up really good,
So I felt like, you know, I-- I-- I was limping around some old Treasure Island,
I should have had a crutch and, arrrr, and a parrot or something,
But I found that one of the things that was really interesting is-
and this is how the way I come away from this going in as a skeptic,
we woke up and checked the tree for the cherries we had put in it
and-- and gosh, darn if they weren't all still there,
So we started clearing things up and looked down and there was
footprints everywhere that weren't there the day before,
That was interesting, Because we were literally sleeping
seven or eight yards away from where these footprints were found,
And that soil there in this typical Vancouver Island coastal rainforest
was primarily pine needles and I'm two-hundred and thirty-five pounds,
I jump up and down on that and my feet would go in about a quarter of an inch
and I could literally watch that kind of spring back up,
These footprints that weren't there the day before because there were obvious
the next morning were two-and-a-half to three inches into the ground,
Yep,
And if somebody had the energy and the stealth ability to get out there,
of stealth or not, they-- they couldn't have pounded a hundred plus footprints
into the ground that deep without
one of us waking up because we're sleeping in a plywood shack that
really didn't make for a really good sleep,
So we're half asleep, half awake the whole night,
There was-- we're all together and nobody could have done that, nobody,
And that's-- we picked-- there was one gorgeous track, nice, great
big one and I was pointing it out to one of the people on the crew who
then forgot about it and walked right through it and kind of scuffed the whole thing over,
That was my first one that I was going to fill with my-- my plaster,
And the second one ended up being that twenty-two inch by, I don't know, nine-inch track,
And in hindsight, looking back at it, I'm thinking I actually probably missed
a chunk at the front-- at top end of it,
It looked almost too much like a human, you know, little toe down here, big toe up here,
and I'm sure I must have missed or broke off the piece that squared it a little on the top,
But that was fascinating to me on how deep that was in that ground
and the number of them that went up through the bush where they'd come down,
And there were two different sizes, which was fascinating,
Unfortunately, the- and typically, my understanding anyways it's just typical,
it wasn't the type of ground you-- you get an ideal footprint from,
Right,
It was pine needles,
It-- you know, there was no perfect clay or sand or, you know, typical
when it comes to that type of research
you're always going to end up finding something that's gonna make it
a little bit harder,
But I came away thinking more of them being
real from the sounds we heard the night before, the knocking,
the hooting that definitely wasn't an owl, unless they have owls with lips up there,
Very, very loud,
And nobody was gonna follow us down into that camp area,
-It was well off the road, -Well, because it's too-- yeah, too far off,
Yeah, And I know it wasn't me because
I was pretty well close to myself most of the night,
The-- but-- and-- and it's still isolated, it's just an isolated place out there,
What did you come away with?
I came away with feeling solidified
with my choice of Bigfoot being there and being present because, like you said,
the knocking and the sounds, there's something that you can't explain,
We're too far in for anything to make those noises other than Bigfoot,
And even the presence of where we were, there's like something different there,
It's not-- it's hard to explain that feeling unless you're actually there,
-which I assume you've felt something there but,,, -Yeah,
To me, just even seeing those imprints, that, like you said, nothing could make that,
I found kind of unique, too, is when we talk about putting the cherries up in the tree,
the reason we put cherries up in the tree is I had spoken to a psychic who's often on my
podcast, a lady out of south-
south-central Washington state named Skeeter Wellhouse and she said,
"Put cherries in the tree and see what happens,"
And I-- when I told that to Thomas Sewid,
he looked at his wife and they both kind of giggled
because last time they were up there,
they had cherries and a cooler outside of the hut they were in
and the next day the cooler was taken away, it was opened up,
The only thing removed from the cooler were the cherries and the lid was put back on,
So they thought that was fascinating and-- and with a psychic on the other side,
you know, of Cascadia basically telling us,
"Well, I think they like cherries so put those in the tree,"
-Yeah, -Unfortunately, they didn't take them but they did mess
with one of the night-vision cameras, I think they see them or something
'cause the footprints came right down, they stopped and turned and walked right away,
-Yeah, -They all came down to the tree
and then left, like, "Ah, you're not gonna catch us,"
But, can't do anything about the footprints,
Yeah, Still no evidence,
And imagine, like-- like I say, I'm two-hundred and thirty-five pounds,
I cannot make a footprint in that ground
and these things are two and a half to three inches into the ground,
-And staying, -And staying, flattened,
That was-- to me, that was-- and knowing we would hear though-
anybody faking that, we would definitely have woken up or stuck our noses out
and find out what the heck is going on out there because it would have taken
hours to do that many footprints
and just pounding something into the ground, it would have made a lot of noise,
Yeah,
And-- and I'm sure something made those footprints,
And it wasn't a bear,
They weren't staggered with back paw into the front paws,
Very few grizzly bear on Vancouver Island,
They actually have to swim over to that area,
A lot of black bear but black bear do not make footprints that are,
you know, six, seven feet away from each other constant walking,
-Yeah, -And these weren't print over print,
These were one foot hitting the ground and rolling and walking,
-which was absolutely fascinating, -Yeah,
We hope you've enjoyed coming along this journey to discover Bigfoot,
This was one group's experience,
And there are many others out there,
We hope this gives you a little bit more information to decide if Bigfoot truly does exist,
My name is Kiana and I am Bigfoot Girl,
[intriguing music]