Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “Hello Wes, My name is Tim and I’m not even sure if the sightings I’m about to report are “Sasquatch Chronicles worthy” especially since they aren’t my sightings, but my grandparents and a friend of my old neighbors.

I know that you rarely have sightings on-air reported from North Dakota. So, I thought maybe this might have some value. My grandparents had their sighting in right around 1974, give or take a year. They farmed near a town called Aneta, North Dakota. It is pretty much about an hour-and-a-half due west of Grand Forks, North Dakota.

I’ve always been fascinated with bigfoot ever since I could remember. When I was very young, I remember seeing Nimoy’s In Search Of show with both Bigfoot and the Yeti. My father had gotten a Reader’s Digest book in the mail called Strange Stories, Amazing Facts that was filled with many, many pages of stories and items that terrified and captivated me all at the same time and Bigfoot was in those pages. I even remember at the age of four or five making cardboard feet, strapping them to my boots with Mom’s macrame’ cord, & putting on my mother’s black faux fur coat. Off I went out the door and across our one-acre yard towards the street. I aimed to walk behind the bush-line by the street, trying to fool the passer-by(s) in their cars that they were seeing the North Woods legend. Of course, we lived pretty much smack-dab in the middle of town. I’m sure if I was spotted, they just thought, “Well there’s that weird kid again.” Anyway, I’ve been super-interested my whole life.

I did art & craft festivals doing portraiture from photos of families, homes, Harleys, pets, you name it…I could draw it. I’ve done commission work for the Fargo Dome, the Chamber of Commerce, and other business entities. I have done portraits and gotten to dine and meet many country music stars including Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and many others. I was employed part-time at a liquor store in North Dakota while attending NDSU finishing up one of my degrees. It was a super-casual job, and I could do homework, work on my portraiture orders, or surf around on the internet in-between customers.

One night my mother called to gab and asked, “What are you doing?”. I told her I was just looking at the internet. When she inquired on subject matter, I told her Bigfoot sightings. She then said, “You have always been coo-coo about Bigfoot since you were little. Did I ever tell you about Grandpa & Grandma’s Bigfoot sighting?”

I’ve got to tell you, I damned near dropped the phone, I was so taken aback. I asked how in the heck she went the last 25 years with my grandparents having a Bigfoot sighting and never even told me. She said “I never really thought about it until now because I told Grandpa (he probably saw a bear. He got so upset with me that he never brought it up again.” I eagerly grasped the phone and said, “Well Mom, spill it!”

She then told me what my grandpa had told her and Dad on the phone many years ago: My grandparents were “authentic”, old, true-to-life Norwegians. Their parents came from Norway, and they spoke Norwegian to each other fluently around the house when others weren’t there all the time. They didn’t think of or know of Bigfoot at the time they had their sighting, so when they called Mom & Dad the next day, my Grandpa said, “We saw an Inbred in the farmyard last night.”
My dad said, “What the heck are you talking about?”

Grandpa said “We pulled into the farmyard yesterday after being into town. It was twilight and you didn’t quite need your headlights of the car on yet.” Grandpa continued “We rounded the bend after the trees and there was movement behind the granary. Out walks this hairy man. He walked across the yard, through the garden, and into the trees in back of the house then just disappeared.”

My mom cut in and said, “You probably just saw a bear.” Grandpa snapped loudly at her, “It wasn’t a God Damned bear!! I know what a bear looks like!! This thing walked on two legs all the way to the garden, through the garden and into the woods…all on two legs! It looked right at us and this thing plainly had hands on the end of its swinging arms! It wasn’t a God-Damned bear!!!”

My mom said that my grandparents then just abruptly quit talking about it ending the conversation and abruptly hung up, never to mention it again.

There is much more to my grandparents sighting that I found out and can certainly tell you if you would like to call me.

I can also tell you what some friends of my old neighbor told us about several sightings in Wisconsin at his grandmothers near a town called Danbury he and his cousins had as children. I have one of those Sasquatch garden statues that my wife gave me for a gift. My neighbor guys (beer drinking buddies) always give me shit about my belief in Bigfoot. This is mostly when we were around the bonfires that we would have often in our old neighborhood. One night a coworker of my neighbor and her husband came down to our place for a bonfire. The guys started teasing and giving me the usual business about Bigfoot. The husband of my neighbor’s coworker said, “I believe in them and have seen them countless times when I was little at my grandmas in Danbury.” He then told us some pretty wild stuff that shut my neighbor guys up and from then on, they pretty much quit giving me so much crap about Bigfoot.

Anyway, I would certainly welcome a phone call from you if you would like me to tell you the rest of these details on these two things.

I really enjoy listening to your podcast. I do a lot of trade shows and find it is a great thing to listen to on my road trips throughout the upper Midwest.

Thank you for providing this non-judgmental outlet for people regarding the subject.”