Sasquatch hunt: science expedition, ecotour, ripoff--or does it matter?

Posted by kim schneider

The Bigfoot Research Organization has been spreading honey, sardines, licorice, even gorilla pheremones across the woods of Marquette in hopes of luring out a Sasquatch. Bigfoot's still staying low, but the debate's raging: would a true researcher charge someone $300 to come along on what may be a wild Sasquatch chase, or does that mean the expedition leaders are con artists of some kind?

Local forestry officers are weighing in on editorial pages of local papers, saying that if there was a Bigfoot in the UP, they'd surely have seen a sign. On the other hand, the Bigfoot expedition, in an open meeting with locals, heard tales of sightings of a big hairy animal with beady red eyes.

But as Loren Coleman speculates in his latest blog posting on Cryptomundo, the search for perhaps the world's most elusive creatures have become an interesting new form of ecotourism. Vacations that include time spent with researchers are a hot trend if you think about dolphins, turtle rescues and the like. And here, while the "quest" may be for the creature, I'd speculate that the "experience" goes way beyond that.

It's not unlike my recent trek to Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica. This wilderness area said to be the second most biodiverse spot on earth, is home to roaming jaguars among other creatures. We never saw a jaguar, but we did see monkeys playing in the treetops, a sloth cradling its baby, trees so giant they seemed to be as mystical as, well, a Sasquatch. We even panned for gold, knowing full well we weren't about to hit the bounty. But just maybe . . . Meanwhile, with senses on full alert, we lived in the moment--noticing sounds, breezes, rare plants, the even rarer silence.

Maybe $300 isn't such a steep price for the experience that UP expedition member, Fox News Reporter Griff Jenkins, is blogging. Heck, having his new repertoire of stories to tell will likely be worth that, as he wears a helmet cam and treks around the woods at dark, lets out some Sasquatch-style howls, today heads back to the spot where another trek members says something standing on two feets tossed an injured shrew--one that had been "bitten"--at his car.