Informant: Sasquatch! Ahhhhh, a good Northwest legend. Or maybe… Real? (Fakes a dramatic gasp, then laughs) You might not know this, but of the most recent in Bigfoot, which kinda really started in the 70s, a lot of the earlier sightings were up by Mount Baker. Particularly on the south fork of the Nooksack, which is a place where I used to go to all the time when I was in high school. It’s veeeeeery remote, and if you don’t know how to get there, you’d never – you’d have a thousand acres to yourself, and there’d be no one else around, and it got creepy at times. You know that feeling, how you feel like somebody’s watching you? Yeahhhh, I felt that a couple times out there.

Me: Were you ever specifically looking for Bigfoot, or did you just want to be alone?

Informant: Nah, I was just hanging out. Just something to do. But you’d be sitting there by the river and all of a sudden you’d be like “… Someone’s watching me.” And then you would leave. Yeah, it was creepy. And there was one time, after graduation, me and a bunch of friends went up camping, up in that general area, and we all got freaked out in the middle of the night, ‘cuz we all kinda woke up, and we actually got in the car and left in the middle of the night, ‘cuz we were too freaked out – you just have these feelings. So, never saw any footprints, but definitely felt a presence.

Me: Like… a ghost?

Informant: No. Bigfoot.

Me: It had to be Bigfoot?

Informant: Of course. It was definitely Bigfoot.

Background:
My informant is my father. He is in his mid-fifties, and grew up in a rural farm town in Washington State, where Bigfoot is a widely accepted legend. We have Bigfoot merchandise sold in almost every store, and are very proud that he’s from our area. I’ve never known the informant to be the type to believe things without evidence, but Bigfoot is the one he’s always accepted, despite never having any experiences seeing footprints or coming face to face with him or anything like that.

Thoughts:
I personally don’t know if I believe Bigfoot’s real, but I like him as a character. I’m proud that he’s from the Pacific Northwest, because I’m very proud of being from the Pacific Northwest. I’ve never had any interactions with him, or known anyone who’s had interactions with him. I have no reason to believe he’s real, but I also have no reason to believe he’s not real.