Us Canadians are always the first. The first at inventing the telephone, the first at discovering vaccines, the first to document a sighting and capture of a Sasquatch.
The headline running in Victoria's newspaper the British Colonist's read that a half man, half beast creature was captured near Yale, BC. a small town on the Fraser River. The men that captured it, nicknamed the thing that resembled a human but looked like a gorilla 'Jacko'.
They had corralled it between two rock shelves, got above it and threw rocks down on it's head, almost killing it, the story went something like this...
A group of First Nations people standing on the shores of British Columbia facing the early explorers: warning them about huge, hairy creatures that roamed the forests.
David Thompson, himself a skeptic at first, wrote about that warning in his log, dated January 5, 1811. On the 7th his party discovered huge unexplainable footprints in the snow of an enormous biped creature.
Terrifying stories turned legend abound among the First Nations people of 'hairy giants' chasing people through the forests, catching them and eating them. The creatures have been spotted many times drinking water on the banks of rivers. They called them 'Sasquatch' and they adorned many of their totem poles and still do to this day.
Just such a story happened right here in British Columbia, it goes like this. It was the summer of 1884, the crew of a steam locomotive travelling along side the Thompson River between Lytton and Yale spotted something ahead on the train tracks, thinking it a bear they slowed down. As they approached the creature stood up on it's hind legs and stepped off to the side and watched as the train passed.
Several of the crew jumped off the train and gave chase and actually caught the ape like beast in a net. After it fell, after they hit it on the head with a rock. It was alive so they caged it and nicknamed it, 'Jacko'. It was a youngster - 140 centimetres (4ft.7in.) tall and weighed 57.6 kilogrames (127 lbs)
The history of this anmimal they called a 'Sasquatch' is a little sketchy. It was created up and was on its way to London, England for an exhibiton when all records end of it's existence.
It's believed the creature succumbed to the combination of being incarcerated and the troubles with transport.
There has never been another Bigfoot captured, however a man named Alfred Ostman claims; in 1924 while digging for gold he was snatched out of his tent by one, and dragged to a nearby nest where a family awaited. They kept him with them for 6 days. Were non-violent vegetarians and had a crude communication system, consisting of a few grunts and groans. He lived to tell his story by just getting up and walking away.
Sightings still continue, just recently a man spotted one on a river bank while fishing.
The legend will continue as more sightings are reported. These creatures are protected under law from being hunted.
There was no more mention of 'Jacko' the hairy man. The story ends here. What happened to it? No one knows.
A lot of people think it was some kind of hoax. True or false it was the first reported, documented case in the world of a Sasquatch sighting. Something us Canadians can be proud of, the first at almost everything, eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment