John Green: a Lifetime of Sasquatch Research
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The RELICT HOMINOID INQUIRY 4:1-36 (2015) Tribute JOHN GREEN: A LIFETIME OF SASQUATCH RESEARCH This publication, the RHI, and its editor, are China Flats Museum. He truly established a indebted to the curiosity, commitment, and pragmatic foundation to the investigation of generosity of John Green. After spending over sasquatch, from which serious researchers and 50 years in pursuit of the sasquatch question, investigators now operate. it was John who encouraged this editor to John’s insight and perspectives are best undertake the creation of this journal, and who expressed in his own words. Therefore, in personally invested in its realization. It was addition to a biographical sketch provided by John’s example of persistently laying this cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, this tribute subject before the scientific community, of includes three previously unpublished challenging individual academics to object- discourses delivered by John, two of them tively engage the apparent evidence, that in presented before scientific bodies, i.e. The large measure inspired this editor to commit to International Society for Cryptozoology, and establishing a scholarly venue dedicated to the the Society for Scientific Exploration, the investigation and discussion of evidence for third at the opening of the new wing of the sasquatch and other relict hominoids. John had Willow Creek – China Flats Museum, a journalist’s knack for facts and a statesman’s dedicated to Bigfoot. skill for logically and eloquently articulating a compelling argument. His accumulated data John Willison Green base established a baseline from which an by Loren Coleman informed profile of the sasquatch could be inferred. His instructive books were John Green has enriched the study of instrumental in promoting a matter-of-fact unknown hair-covered primates in North consideration of the subject. He played a key America for decades. He once told a reporter role in establishing the collection of original he had a database of more than 3000 sighting casts and other artifacts at the Willow Creek – and track reports, before the advent of the © RHI 2 Internet. He holds the title as the first primary Ostman’s 1924 Sasquatch abduction incident. chronicler in Sasquatch studies. His work in John Green also extended the modern history the field has led some to affectionately refer to of Sasquatch back to the 1941 Ruby Creek John Green as “Mr. Sasquatch.” encounter labeled such because it happened a John Willison Green was born on February half-mile east of that little settlement in British 12, 1927, growing up in Harrison Hot Springs, Columbia. Although only the Chapman family British Columbia. His father was Howard was involved in this sighting, others in the Green, a long-time Member of the Canadian Ruby Creek area also saw the footprints. Parliament and a Cabinet Minister. His Although only the Chapman family was mother, Marion Green (nee Mounce), was the involved in this encounter, others in the Ruby daughter of a Vancouver Island lumber baron Creek area also saw the footprints. and the first woman to graduate from the During 1958, hundreds of large footprints University of British Columbia (UBC) school were found on a logging road near Bluff of Agricultural Sciences. Creek, California, by construction workers John Green's writing career began in 1944. and reported to authorities. One man, When Green was a student at the UBC, he bulldozer operator Jerry Crew, took a plaster wrote for the student newspaper, The Ubyssey cast of one track to a local newspaper as and the Totem yearbooks. He also covered “proof,” and the moniker “Bigfoot” was born. campus news for the Vancouver Province. John Green and his wife June immediately After graduating at 19 (UBC, BA, 1946, major drove south to investigate, but were told they English), he immediately went to Columbia were too late; the tracks had been back bladed. University, and soon obtained a Masters in Green grew skeptical and told his wife they Journalism. might have just driven three days for a prank. Green worked part-time for The Globe and He asked the road construction crew if they Mail in New York City, and then for two could look around, anyway. years as a full-time reporter at the paper’s Green says that what happened next was Toronto headquarters. He returned to June opened her car door and there was a Vancouver to cover local news for The footprint a few feet from their vehicle. What Province, worked for a time at the Victoria particularly impressed John Green was the Times Colonist, and then decided to purchase similarity between the outline of these Bluff the Agassiz-Harrison Advance in 1954. Creek tracks and the tracings he had of one of As a journalist and publisher, Green had the Ruby Creek footprints. Today, John Green access to a variety of British Columbia news, remains the sole surviving investigator of this and was first asked about Sasquatch in 1956 significant first American Bigfoot case. when Swiss-born René Dahinden entered During the years after 1958, Green became a Green’s office to inquiry about two-legged well-known member of a loose group of upright creatures, like the Abominable Bigfoot-Sasquatch hunters and researchers Snowmen, reported in the area. Green told working together and apart throughout the Dahinden the accounts were nonsense. Pacific Northwest. He was hired by Texas But Green continued hearing about lore and millionaire Tom Slick to track Sasquatch in sightings from people he respected. Thus British Columbia, and suggested to Roger Green started investigating Sasquatch reports Patterson he might wish to look for Bigfoot in in earnest in 1957, interviewing witnesses and the Bluff Creek, California area. When conducting on-site inquiries. In the late 1950s, Patterson and Bob Gimlin encountered and Green was the first to conduct an in-depth filmed a Bigfoot there on October 20, 1967, interview of Albert Ostman, regarding Green was one of the initial researchers to A LIFETIME OF SASQUATCH RESEARCH 3 understand the footage’s importance and get a he won a commissioner’s seat in 2002. screening of it before scientists at UBC. Bigfoot and Sasquatch were always there John Green’s first book On the Track of the too, of course. John Green noted to The Sasquatch, was soon published, and through Observer’s Michelle Vandepol: “In 1978 I co- various editions, has sold nearly 250,000 published with Hancock House a 492-page copies since its release in 1968. hard-cover book, Sasquatch, the Apes Among Green published three books over five years Us, which included different coverage of while he owned a printing business. The much of the same information that was in the books, On the Track of the Sasquatch, Year of earlier books and a lot more, including the Sasquatch, and The Sasquatch File, sold information from eastern North America.” mainly on magazine racks. The first two were Green did not stand still. In 2005, Green combined and published in 1973 by a wrote four updating chapters combining his California pocket book publisher, selling old books for Hancock House into a tome 100,000 copies alone. called The Best of Sasquatch Bigfoot. That Green sold The Advance in 1972, “when book and the Hancock’s second paperback income from my [Sasquatch] books exceeded version of Sasquatch the Apes Among Us are the net income from the overall business,” he still in print. told reporter Michelle Vanderpol of The Green became so famed for his Sasquatch Observer, August 22, 2007. He worked off studies that late in his life he complained and on over the next 18 years, part-time, for about trying to keep up with an ever-growing the Hope Standard, the Sidney Review and body of people who wanted to correspond the Advance. with him. Green kept encouraging others to go Green’s Sasquatch investigations were beyond his own works. He directly interacted merely one part of his life. He raised his and influenced many of the early researchers family, ran a business and pursued his in the field, including René Dahinden, Tom political aspirations. He ran for provincial Slick, Ivan T. Sanderson, Roger Patterson, office as a Conservative and lost four times. Loren Coleman, Mark A. Hall, Bob Titmus, Finally, he was elected as village mayor of Grover Krantz, Chris Murphy, and Jeff Harrison Hot Springs in 1963, and got funding Meldrum, to name a few. to have hundreds of thousands of tons of sand In Sasquatch Odyssey: The Hunt for Bigfoot from the lake bottom cover the large boulders (director Peter von Puttkamer, 1999), John found along the shore. He was responsible, Green is profiled as one of the “Four therefore, for creating the popular beach that Horsemen of Sasquatchery,” along with exists there today and transforming the area Grover Krantz, Rene Dahinden, and Peter into one of southern British Columbia’s most Byrne. popular tourist locales. He is the founder of John Green, a historical figure, major the World Sand Sculpture Championships. chronicler, and renowned authority in the field Green took on many challenges in his life. of Sasquatch investigations, has appeared as a He was a competitive sailboat racer in his keynote speaker at all three of the major youth, and designed and constructed the first scientific Sasquatch symposia held so far. He fiberglass hull sailboat to steer through British was the guest of honor at “A Tribute to John Columbian lakes. He also was a successful Green,” held in Harrison Hot Springs from investor of the inheritance he received from April 8–10, 2011, and attended by over 300 his father, and a philanthropist. Then finally, specially invited patrons. Tributes were given years after being mayor, Green returned to by most of the well-known figures in the field, politics.