Where Do People Say Sasquatch Lives?

Sasquatch, Bigfoot, or whatever you want to call the alleged hairy, humanoid creature that some say stealthily roams forests has been "spotted" everywhere from Florida to Washington State in the U.S. However, according to Britannica, Sasquatch is predominately believed to dwell in the northwestern United States and western Canada. 

That makes sense in a couple of ways. It's easy to believe the dense, lush forests of the Northwest still have some secrets. Another factor that makes the Northwest the perceived notion of where Sasquatch lives is that's where the story originated, or at least that's where the idea of Bigfoot took hold in popular culture in the U.S.

According to excerpts from "Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend," it all started in 1958 when a logger saw footprints he perceived as "big and manlike." When he told the fellas about it, many of them chimed in that they too had seen tracks in the forest they couldn't identify.

The men dubbed the maker of the tracks, "Bigfoot," and since allegedly the gigantic footprints kept showing up, the loggers ascribed various unexplained things that happened in the forest to the mysterious creature who they never actually saw.

As gossip between the loggers continued, eventually a letter about the mysterious large footprints made its way to a columnist at the Humbolt Times, and the alleged creature became the talk of the town, according to "Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend."

Yet decades before the loggers stumbled upon 16-inch footprints in the forests of the Northwest, First Nations People and Native Americans had their own stories of a human-like creature who was elusive and lived in the forest. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, "the word Sasquatch is believed to be an Anglicization of the Salish word Sasq'ets, meaning 'wild man' or 'hairy man.'"

In Canada, a story of a "half-man and half-beast" was published in 1884 in Victoria's British Colonist, and is considered one of the first documented story of a Sasquatch sighting, per the Canadian Encyclopedia — even more reason to believe if Bigfoot exists, he lives in and roams the Northwest. 

And as for why Sasquatch is so elusive, the Salish people — now called the Sts'ailes First Nation — had a reason for that. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, "The Sts'ailes people claim a close bond with Sas'qets, and believe it has the ability to move between the physical and spiritual realm." 

Mystery solved!