I Spent the Morning Reading About Bigfoot

I've been a Bigfoot blogger for ten years now. Go ahead and laugh if you want to. It is weird how these things happen.

There's always been curiosity about the big elusive creature. Does anyone forget the first time they saw the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot video?



When my 2 youngest children were about ages 6 through 10 we took a lot of "home school field trips" and several times were in Trinity County, CA - to visit Weaverville, the Joss House, the museum there, and the area around Clair Engle Lake, aka. Trinity Lake. As we approached Trinity Center, CA - there was a Bigfoot statue, and I was immediately drawn to it. "This is what I've been looking for," my heart told me. "They're here."

Ever since I first heard about the town of Happy Camp, I wanted to be there. Happy Camp, CA is a very remote small town in the center of the Klamath National Forest in Northern California. On January 11, 2000 I moved into a cabin-like house there, surrounded by the forest. The house was just outside of the town, in a semi-secluded area. There were other houses nearby.

The town of Happy Camp is full of Bigfoot statues now, but when I moved there, the only Bigfoot statue was the one in front of the post office.

There were also "Bigfoot footprints" painted on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store, and many of the businesses in the town were named after Bigfoot. There was the Bigfoot Trailer Park, Bigfoot Towing, and the Bigfoot Car Wash. That was in 2000 - several years before JavaBob opened his restaurant, JavaBob's Bigfoot Deli. Now that is closed but there's a place called the Bigfoot Store that has a deli in it, across the street from where JavaBob's restaurant was.

Brandon Tennant of Idaho, and JavaBob Schmalzback in JavaBob's Bigfoot Deli late in 2005, in Happy Camp, CA. At the time we met Brandon Tennant, he was doing research while organizing a Bigfoot conference held in Pocatello, Idaho in 2006.

Bigfoot Lives in Idaho
Brandon Tennant illustrated this.
Buy at Amazon.

I was always curious about Bigfoot, and wondered why so few of the Happy Camp local old-timers had anything to say about it. They acted like it was a joke, but they loved the annual Bigfoot Jamboree, a three day annual festival over Labor Day weekend.

By 2005 JavaBob was president of the Chamber of Commerce and I worked in a small office across the street from his deli. The chamber needed a focus for marketing Happy Camp and chose to market it as an artist's retreat town. I told JavaBob that we already had a theme in the town - and it was (and still is) Bigfoot.

Monsters, Myths, and Me
By Robert (JavaBob) Schmalzbach
Buy at Amazon

Anyhow, I got serious about wanting to find the truth about Bigfoot. I wanted to know why this town claimed a theme of Bigfoot but then denied any knowledge of Bigfoot sightings in the area. So I bought the domain name for my blog, Bigfoot Sightings, and started doing research.

I've never seen one, but many credible people have, and I know they're real. I collected no less than five Bigfoot sighting reports about sightings that happened within a mile of the cabin I lived in, there in Happy Camp.

When I moved to Idaho in 2013 I wanted to be able to continue Bigfoot research in the forests around where I live, in Northern Idaho. I live in Post Falls, which is on a prairie. No Bigfoot here! And I have no car anymore... so I can't do field research. But I do intend to continue working on my blog, which has been silent for many months now. I spent this morning "cleaning it up" - ie: making format improvements - and reading the amazing comments people leave there about their Bigfoot sightings.

I do believe I'll be blogging more there, soon. It is time for me to compile the rest of what I know about Bigfoot sightings in the Klamath River Valley.

... I said yesterday that I might write more about Keith today, but I'm just not ready. Maybe soon, but not today.

Update 8/23 - I decided to write about Keith on my other blog: How Comforting it is to Know He Takes Care of Us

On second thought...

Right after I wrote about my frustration with not getting the sheriff's office reports, I started getting them. Yay! Now I feel my news site is a better service to my community.

Today I'm buying a few new domain names from GoDaddy - and downloading the first program - now in the archives at GoDaddy Radio. Seems like everyone wants to get into internet radio these days. I want to do a show on family rights... but don't have the right equipment yet. My computer is so old I'm using Win98SE - it's a Pentium III and I want to upgrade to something more capable of handling internet radio production.

My new domain names are all about bigfoot. Why? Because I live in a place where bigfoot is a big issue because there's so many sightings around here. I am the new owner of BigfootSightings.Org, BigfootHunt.Com, and BigfootJamboree.Com. The last one is a local celebration held every Labor Day weekend... sort of a local faire where there's lots of events and vendors.

This year my daughter signed up to sell Bigfoot Jamboree Raffle Tickets. I'm planning to put a paypal link up somewhere for her to sell them online.

Yesterday she and I went to Yreka for a doctor appointment (hers) and then we went to Medford so she could spend her birthday money at the mall there. Her birthday isn't until April 20 (she'll be 16) but she couldn't wait and I caved in and gave her what she wanted early. It seems I'm the only one in my household that sees value in waiting for the official birthday. Anyhow, we had a great day in Oregon and were very happy to get home just before midnight. The only animal I saw on our way home through the forest was a small rabbit. Seems strange there's so few deer the last year or two.

Happy Camp History Research for my Novel

When I woke up this morning ... first thing, I picked up a copy of the Siskiyou County Pioneer - the historical society's annual publication.

The one I own (the ONLY one I own) is about the history of bootlegging and prostitution in the county, the 1994 edition of the Pioneer. The reason I bought it was... because I have in mind to write a children's book about this area.. taking place in about 1920. I'm trying to get a good grasp on what the culture of that era was. Still I have so many questions. Were there telephones in Happy Camp then? If so, were they just on this side of the Klamath River or were they on the other side too? Were there any wild horses then? Were bootleggers out here very concerned about being caught? How many elementary schools were there in 1920 in this area, and where exactly were they?

Bird by Bird
by Anne Lamott
Buy at Amazon

Sure, I could make up a lot of stuff and probably most people would never know the difference, but do I want to do that or do I want the absolute facts? How deeply must a historical novelist dig in order to find factual data for a good novel? Somehow, it is much easier to write a fantasy... and that's why my first novel IS a fantasy... at the time I didn't want to stop to research because I knew I was going to write that novel in a hurry. (It took 17 days to write 50,152 words, and since it is a children's novel, that's more than enough.)

Writing Down the Bones
Freeing the Writer Within
by Natalie Goldberg
Buy at Amazon

At night now I'm reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott... I just love that book. It is strong on both humor and good writer's information. I like it better than the book I read last month - Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, though that's one of the classics for writers.

Keith stayed up all night last night. Now he looks so tired. He says he couldn't sleep... like he really tried.

(later...) Now it is noon and he is resting. He said he planned to wake up in an hour and I told him I wouldn't wake him up. We'll see what happens.

All I've done so far this morning is write this and read my email. I have too much email coming and and must delete most of it. I just scan for information except on the lists I own, and the web design lists - I try to get as much information out of those as possible.

River Girl
by Linda Jo Martin
Buy at Amazon

Update: My novel, River Girl, was published in 2011.