Thought you guys might find this interesting!

[dawn]

James Boston
Lakeside Leader
July 7, 2005
Slave Lake, Alberta

Nobody wants to talk openly about the footprints found in the bush near the Blue Sky Road, 60 kilometres north of town. There?s a certain reluctance to having one?s name attached to a story about one of North America?s most enduring mysteries, the existence of Bigfoot. A man who wished to remain anonymous delivered photographs of the footprints to the The Lakeside Leader last week.

The creature that made them leaves an impression 15 inches long and several inches deep with grooves that would indicate short, claw-like toenails. They are unlike any bear print.

The man who took the pictures believes the creature must have been enormously heavy, because the feet of a human barely leave an impression in the soil.

He says that rumours of the Bigfoot have been circulating for years among those who leave in the wilds north of Lesser Slave Lake. He was prompted to go in search of evidence of Bigfoot?s existence when stories began to circulate that someone had recently come face to face with the creature.

A source at Fish and Wildlife confirms that a man did report a sighting about a month ago. Fish and Wildlife officers took a plaster cast of a footprint, but it is said to be of poor quality because the sighting wasn?t immediately reported.

Also, during the delay heavy rain had eroded the impressions.
The man who reported the sighting wasn?t interviewed for this article. Family members who spoke to The Leader say they don?t want the publicity.

The man who photographed the footprints, however, claims to have heard the tale of the sighting.

Allegedly, the creature is seven or eight feet tall. Tufts of white hair cover his eyebrows and the knuckles of his toes. The hair across his abdomen and forearms is a yellow or blonde colour.
Bigfoot sightings in Canada, or at least those reported in the media, go back nearly one hundred years.

One of the earliest stories to appear about the Bigfoot was a 1929 article in McLean?s magazine written by J. W. Burns, a schoolteacher in British Columbia.

Burns was the first to use the name Sasquatch for the Bigfoot, a word he created by mixing two words from aboriginal languages describing the creature, sokqueatl and soss-q?tal.

As of yet, no conclusive evidence of Bigfoot?s existence has ever been found.


http://www.lakesideleader.com/newsroom/ ... tory1.html
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[mikka]

I wouldnt mind having alook at the pic's

I hope thet get releasted some time.

[Alex]

That bigfoot sounds like it's really old. Old Man Bigfoot, chasing the kids away from his place because they keep stealing corn or whathaveyou.

[dawn]

Bison may have yielded ?sasquatch? hair

Candice O?Grady

The most famous hair sample in Whitehorse will journey south to Alberta for analysis.

This is the most recent turn of events in the intrigue surrounding a hair sample that some believe recently fell from the body of a sasquatch in the Teslin area.

Philip Merchant, a veteran laboratory technician for the territorial Department of Environment, finished his analysis of the hair Wednesday afternoon.

According to his test, which involved comparing a print of the hair?s scale pattern to those of other creatures, the hair likely came from bison.

The results are not entirely conclusive though, said Dennis Senger, the department?s communications co-ordinator.

?(Merchant) is being a scientist,? he said in an interview. ?He?s not 100 per cent sure, so he doesn?t want to say anything conclusive.?

Merchant?s expert opinion remains the same, though. He maintains the hair appears to be bison.

?I have not seen anything to lead me in another direction,? he said in an interview.

There are still many unknowns about the origins of the sample. Merchant said there is no way of knowing how the sample ended up there, whether it blew there or was placed there by human hand.

Over the past week, though, Dr. David Coltman, associate professor of biology at the University of Alberta, contacted Merchant about the sample.

He offered to run DNA tests on the tuft of potential sasquatch hair.
Merchant accepted Coltman?s offer, and has contacted him to set up the DNA analysis.

The test will involve extracting DNA from cells in the roots of the hairs.

These cells will be taken from the mitochondria, the energy-producing part of a cell, because it evolves much more quickly.
It is also easier to isolate mitochondrial DNA than it is to isolate DNA in the nucleus of the cell, Coltman explained in an interview today.

Once the DNA sequence is prepared, it will then be run through a database of all known creatures.

?If it truly is sasquatch DNA, it will probably not match anything,? Coltman said. ?It should most closely resemble human or gorilla.?

If the sample is from a new species, this analysis should identify to what existing creature it most closely resembles, he said. This could be anything from human to bison.

The test results should be complete within a week?s time.

The sasquatch sighting that sparked the current investigation occurred about a week ago, when up to nine witnesses claimed to have seen a creature roaming about in the woods in Teslin.

A footprint and the hair sample were found at one of the sightings.
About a year ago, two local adults also spotted a sasquatch-like figure as it crossed their path early one morning. They were both familiar with the wildlife in the area and, according to reports at the time, were shaken by what they saw.

?It certainly would be exciting if it were something new,? Coltman said.

The Yukon?s latest sasquatch report, meanwhile, has attracted the interest of national media outlets, including CTV and the National Post, which published an article in Wednesday?s editions.

http://www.whitehorsestar.com/auth.php?r=38899
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[dawn]

Noted by Loren Coleman:
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Coverage of bigfoot encourages others to come forward

James Boston
Lakeside Leader
July 27, 2005

Two photographs of prints in the snow were anonymously delivered to The Lakeside Leader with an explanatory note last week.

The photographer is a hunter with trap lines in the bush around Slave Lake.

The hunter and a friend were riding quads northwest of Swan Hills. The snow was almost melted, but on a remaining patch of white the photographer?s friend spotted several tracks running down a trail. They appeared to be made by a two-legged creature, a very heavy one with long, sliding strides.

The hunter took the photographs as his friend used his hands and feet to demonstrate the size of the prints.

In his note, the hunter says that he has seen grizzly tracks in the snow before, but none with size and weight of these ones. He dismisses the idea that they could have been made as a prank, because the snow, and thus the prints, were only days away from disappearing without a trace.

According to the note, the photographs were taken three years ago, just before the May long weekend.

?Up until this time my friend an I would never have believed in ?Big Foot?. Here are the pictures, believe what you want,? he writes.

In addition to encouraging people to come forward with their photographs, recent news coverage of the Bigfoot sighting has also encouraged some people to go out searching for the creature.

?I believe,? says one oil patch worker interviewed for this story.
He wishes to remain anonymous because co-workers have ridiculed his efforts.

During his lunch breaks, he often takes walks in the woods looking for evidence of the Bigfoot.

Most recently he found a tuft of grey hair on a tree at about eye level.

?It wasn?t bear hair because it never stunk like a bear,? he says.
The jibes of co-workers, however, persuaded him to throw the hair sample away. Nevertheless, he retains his convictions.

He says he knows the man, anonymously referred to in a Leader article a few weeks ago, who allegedly spotted the Bigfoot.

?He?s one hell of a reliable source that man,? he says.

He theorizes that the Bigfoot has been driven east into Alberta by forest fires in British Columbia.

Other oil workers, particularly near Peerless Lake, have seen strange things, he says.

?Two of them coming in at the same time saying we just seen something that was running on two legs.? he says.

He?s not sure how much he trusts that source, however. Long periods in the bush and alcohol can cloud perceptions, he says.

One thing he is certain of, however, is that local hunters want to capture the creature, dead or alive.

For a hunter, the fame and fortune that would follow are very tempting, he says.

http://www.lakesideleader.com/newsroom/ ... tory8.html
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[Romeo]

I was having a yarn to an American lad the other day while camping at Straddy. We were having a few beers that night and brought up the topic of Bigfoot. His first response was, "You know that thing's fake, don't you?"

I was devastated.

Then we started talking about the Australian Yowie, and the more we talked, the more intruigued he became. I think the comment he made was the result of not wanting to accept the possibilty of it's existance, rather than factual knowledge of a hoax.

But I must say, I was quite relieved when I realised he didn't have a clue what he was on about.