Is Sasquatch real? Many residents of Harrison Hot Springs would say yes

Henry Williams wasn’t always a believer in the Sasquatch. Growing up, he had of course heard the tales of old — of a legendary hairy, bipedal primate said to roam the forests at sundown. Yet for much of his life, 76-year-old Henry had shrugged these stories off without much thought. They were used to remind youngsters to come home before nightfall, he’d reasoned. All that changed, however, on the day that the Sasquatch came to pay him a visit two decades ago, near his home in Squamish in southwest British Columbia.

“It threw a huge boulder into the middle of a nearby river,” says Henry, flinging his arms wide to imitate an almighty splash as we chat in the lobby of the Harrison Hot Springs Resort, a historic hotel famed for its natural thermal pools 60 miles east of Vancouver. I’ve come here for one reason: to track down the elusive Sasquatch.

The Sasquatch has stalked the human psyche, and perhaps the forests too, for millennia. The beast — known as Bigfoot in the US and the Yeti in the Himalayas — has loomed particularly large in the oral traditions of the First Nations communities of Canada, as Henry, who is a member of the Squamish People, tells me.

Semi-retired, Henry now works as an elder in his community, passing down Indigenous knowledge, including tales of the Sasquatch. Henry explains that for the Squamish, it’s the guardian spirit that protects the wilderness, serving as a sacred bridge between the human and natural worlds. While the Sasquatch has typically been portrayed as a bloodthirsty creature in TV series such as The X-Files, for Henry it’s not a figure to fear. “It’s seen as a symbol of good luck if it chooses to pay you a visit,” he says.

I’m not surprised to find a Sasquatch scholar in Harrison Hot Springs — this town is British Columbia’s Sasquatch capital, with a dedicated event in June each year that brings the local Sts’ailes First Nations together for a weekend of Sasquatch storytelling. Sightings abound in this tiny lakeside hub, which is fringed with green mountain ridges and tangled woodlands of Douglas fir and western red cedars. Local lore has it that the mysterious mammal is attracted by the water, coming here to sip from the geothermal pools that skirt glacier-fed Harrison Lake.

Despite its population of just 1,900 residents, Harrison Hot Springs attracts 20,000 visitors annually — many of them hoping to catch sight of the beast. The fascination with the Sasquatch of Harrison Hot Springs dates back to 1929, when writer and government agent JW Burns, who lived nearby, penned an article titled ‘Introducing B.C.’s Hairy Giants’ for Maclean’s magazine, featuring first-hand accounts from the Sts’ailes community. In 2017, a dedicated Sasquatch Museum, filled with hairy mannequins and maps of sightings, opened in Harrison Hot Springs’ visitor centre, alongside a walking trail, complete with Sasquatch statues. Gift shops now sell everything from yeti-style slippers to mini powdered doughnuts known as ‘Sasquatch Balls’.

Henry says any visitors hoping to catch a glimpse should first brush up on some Sasquatch etiquette. “Offer food so that it becomes a friend,” he advises. “After it visited me, I took a couple of apples down to the riverbank and placed them up high on a tree.” Returning the following day, he discovered that the apples had completely disappeared. “They hadn’t been pecked by birds,” he says, pausing for dramatic effect. “They had been taken whole.”

“The Squamish are a verbal society, so our stories are passed by word of mouth and change from village to village,” he continues. The shape-shifting beast — which is so hard to pin down as it’s thought to move between realms, even vanishing at will — is also gender fluid, he says, adding that his people speak of a forest-dwelling Sasquatch-like figure called Kalkalilh. “She’s around seven-feet tall,” he says, eyes wide. “In my community, it’s said that if you push her into a fire and she burns, a flock of ravens is released from her hair.” Henry explains that this symbolises transformation.

Through the window, as guests pad past us in towelling robes bound for the hot springs, Harrison Lake shimmers in the midday sunshine. Soon, I wave goodbye to Henry and stroll a few minutes to the hot springs myself — the emerald waters are thought to offer healing benefits. A handful of bathers have beaten me to it, already reclining in the geothermal pools. Each one is just a few feet wide, bordered by rocks and set against old-growth forest.

As I plunge my feet into the warm water, there’s a rustle in the thicket behind me. Quietly, I take Henry’s advice: I step out of the pool and place an apple at the base of the tree.