The first Oregon Sasquatch Festival kicks off on June 19 and 20 at LCC; keynote speaker has Eugene roots

CORRECTION NOTICE: Please see comments by Autumn Williams below.

Autumn Williams was helping her mother pick up sticks for firewood when she spied two creatures, possibly a mother and a cub.

Being very young herself, Williams thought at first they might have been people. But it was their eyes that gave them away – they weren’t human.

Her mother whispered “walk, don’t run,” and swiftly guided her daughter away from the potential danger. It wasn’t until later that Williams was convinced that the two animals with their reddish-brown fur and deer-like eyes belonged to the Sasquatch family.

In popular culture, Sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot and Skookum, is allegedly one single monster that attacks humans, tearing through the forest with King Kong-like rage. But according to Williams and several other Bigfoot researchers, Sasquatch is in fact a real creature – and yes, there are more than one. Perhaps even thousands…. And Sasquatch rarely seek out people, but live in remote areas, scattering at the sight of lights or loud noises from humans.

The data-based reality is this: Thousands of people in Oregon say they have had some type of encounter with this creature. And they haven’t had people to share it with who might actually take them seriously – until now.

On June 19 and 20, the first Oregon Sasquatch Symposium, or OSS, will be held at Lane Community College in Eugene. Researchers and newcomers alike will join together and share their information and experiences about Bigfoot.

Several researchers from Eugene and surrounding areas will speak at the OSS, including Thom Powell, Dave Rodriguez, and Cliff Barackman. Powell wrote a book on Sasquatch called The Locals, where he discusses some of the most contemporary research in the field. Rodriguez first stumbled upon Bigfoot in 1977, and had several more encounters before finally getting involved with OSS three years ago. Barackman has done field research for more than 15 years, using thermal imaging viewers and other technology to come up with one of the largest footprint cast collections on the West Coast.

The event’s keynote speaker, Autumn Williams, has the largest online database of Sasquatch sightings in Oregon. Though she spent her childhood living near Mount Rainier, Washington, she also lived in Eugene for several years and now lives near Elkton, Oregon. She is one of the most renowned researchers in the field; her work for the last 20 years also included occasional Bigfoot encounters of her own.

But despite her years of experience and contributions to Sasquatch research, many people still don’t understand when she tells them for the first time, “My work is with Bigfoot research.”

“Big…what?” people often say in reaction. “No, really, I’m serious,” Williams answers.

But once people realize she’s serious and not insane, they inevitably share a story about a friend or relative who may have encountered Sasquatch. The biggest skeptics, Williams says, are the ones who have never done any research.

“[Sometimes] I ask them how much they really know about it. And they’re usually not qualified at all,” Williams says.

Recently Williams expressed frustration with the state of Bigfoot research. While there are numerous accounts of paw prints, fuzzy photos and sound files, the hard facts, such as the exact size and fur color of Sasquatch creatures – notorious for avoiding human contact – are few.

Williams herself has been on both sides as a researcher and a witness, so she knows the frustration that comes from the difficulty in describing exactly what she saw, while knowing that it really happened. With the lack of so-called hard evidence, it’s the witnesses who make up almost all the data collected on Bigfoot. To date, there are 1,234 sightings documented in Oregon’s Bigfoot database alone.

Though the media and the public at large still hold a tongue-in-cheek view on whether Sasquatch is real, the OSS and the Bigfoot database are excellent ways for citizens to find out what it’s really all about – and share their stories with people who won’t laugh in their faces.

Darcy Wallace is a senior in her final term at the University of Oregon studying Journalism and Spanish. She has contributed to several on-campus magazines and currently contributes to Eugene Weekly and MyEugene.

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Tagged as: Autumn Williams, Bigfoot, database, June 2010, Oregon, Sasquatch Festival, Skookum