Staff Pick
Along with salmon, rain, and huge trees, Bigfoot is one of the Northwest's enduring icons, yet the blurry beast seldom gets taken seriously. Where Bigfoot Walks is an open-minded and wide-ranging look at the phenomenon of Bigfoot, and the cultural significance of Sasquatch in regional history, place names, and collective consciousness. It takes us deep into the natural beauty of our remaining wilderness, investigates the cool weirdness of Bigfoot seekers, examines evidence and ecology in equal measure, and shares legends and tales from before Lewis and Clark to the modern day. Robert Michael Pyle blends scientific rigor with genuine curiosity, respect for his subject, and a poet’s sensibilities, ultimately suggesting that Bigfoot will exist only as long as we save a healthy amount of untamed land for Sasquatch — and our imagination — to roam free. Recommended By Jason W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Where Bigfoot Walks is a spectacular, moving, and witty narrative exploration of not only the phenomenon of Bigfoot, but also the human need to believe that something is out there beyond the campfire, and that wildness remains as well.
Awarded a Guggenheim to investigate the legends of Sasquatch, Robert Pyle trekked into the unprotected wilderness of the Dark Divide near Mount St. Helens, where he discovered both a giant fossil footprint and recent tracks. He searched out Indians who told him of an outcast tribe, the Seeahtiks, who had not fully evolved into humans. He attended Sasquatch Daze, where he met scientists, hunters, and others who have devoted their lives to the search, and realized that "these guys don’t want to find Bigfoot — they want to be Bigfoot!" A handful of open-minded biologists and anthropologists countered the tabloids he studied, while rogue Forest Service employees and loggers swore of an industry conspiracy to deep-six accounts of unknown, upright hominoid apes among us.
In the end, Pyle concludes that if we can hang on to a sizeable hunk of Bigfoot habitat, we will at least have a fragment of the greatest green treasure the temperate world has ever known. If we do not, Bigfoot, real or imagined, will vanish; and with it will flee the others who dwell in that world. "Looking at that tangled land," he writes, "one can just about accept that Sasquatch could coexist with towns and loggers and hunters and hikers, all in proportion. But when the topography is finally tamed outright, no one will anymore imagine that giants are abroad on the land."
In the years since publication, the author’s fresh experiences and finds — detailed in an all-new chapter which includes an evaluation of recent DNA evidence from Bigfoot hair and scat, the study of speech phonemes in the "Sierra Sounds" purported Bigfoot recordings, Pyle’s examination of the impact of the wildly popular Animal Planet series Bigfoot Hunters, the reemergence of the famous Bob Gimlin into the Bigfoot community, and more — have kept his own mind wide open to one of the biggest questions in the land.
Review
"Where Bigfoot Walks is a pleasure, whether he is helping a slug across the road, hugging a tree, crawling through a lava tube or discussing the colour of bear excrement, Pyle rejoices in the beauty of the world, and communicates his enthusiasm and expert knowledge with a rare modesty. His book should appeal to anyone with an interest in why people want to believe in the supernatural, when they already live in a world bursting with natural wonders." New Scientist
Review
"Celebrated author Pyle, whose Wintergreen won a John Burroughs medal, is fascinated not so much by Bigfoot as he is by the people who believe that Bigfoot exists – and are trying to prove it." Library Journal
Review
"[A] leisurely, gracefully written meditation." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Robert Michael Pyle is the author of eighteen books, including Wintergreen, Rambles in a Ravaged Land, Chasing Monarchs, The under Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland, Sky Time in Gray’s River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place, and the recent poetry collection Evolution of the Genus Iris. A Yale-trained ecologist and a Guggenheim fellow, he is a full-time writer living in southwestern Washington.