

Inspired by what he saw and curious to dig deeper into other people’s belief systems, in 2016, Thompson founded Bigfoot Okanagan, a group dedicated to archiving and verifying evidence of Bigfoot or sasquatch experiences.

“All I can say is it set a precedent that maybe that is what I was observing,” Thompson told Global News. He never told anyone about it for more than 30 years, until he saw YouTube videos of other animals interacting with each other, even though they weren’t of the same species: crows taking care of kittens, lions caring for gazelles and a bear mothering wolves. Leon Thompson, 57, from the Okanagan Valley, B.C., said his first and only sighting was as a nine-year-old, when he saw what appeared to be a toddler-aged sasquatch with a moose. Kathy Strain says she saw Bigfoot in Oklahoma in 2012, 20. When you review the evidence, including with the DNA, it’s preposterous to think they don’t exist,” Standing said. “There’s just so much evidence out there. suing the fish and wildlife government agencies for not recognizing Bigfoot as an indigenous species. Standing sought to prove otherwise, filing two lawsuits in 2018 - one in California and the other in B.C. To date, the wildlife government agencies in Canada have not acknowledged the existence of sasquatch, and the mythical creature remains the stuff of campfire stories and conspiracy theorists. Indeed, the sasquatch “evidence” dossier is thick: there are alleged eyewitness accounts, grainy videos, audio recordings and even purported abductions, but all of it falls short of scientific proof that the sasquatch exists. While most of Canada’s sasquatch sightings have been reported in B.C., there have been thousands in the territories, Manitoba and Ontario, and even a couple in Newfoundland and Labrador. For the Sts’alies Nation on the West Coast, the sasquatch is a protector of their land and an entity not to be meddled with, while the Haida people view it as a supernatural being to be respected. The legend is rooted in Indigenous history, and the First Nations consider the creatures sacred.Įach tribe has its own set of beliefs. Standing is not alone in his belief of the sasquatch’s existence the story of Bigfoot is easily one of the most popular in North American folklore. Todd Standing pictured here during a sasquatch hunt in Nordegg, Alta., 2012.
