John Green made many contacts who shared the stories they heard in their areas with him. Two of them for the Vancouver area were Bruce McKelvie and Charles Cates.
Bruce Mckelvie was a journalist and historian, who spent time listening to the stories told by the people in the area. He was known to keep silent if asked to and never told of the secret encounters. Charles Cates, Mayor of North Vancouver, also collected stories of these creatures. Both of these men recorded these tales long before anyone thought to keep any sort of systematic records. Unfortunately, most of what they knew was lost when they died in the late 1950s.
Charles Cates was friends with the Native Americans on a north Vancouver reserve. A friend of his was among a group of people who were camped on Anvil Island in Howe Sound. One night they were startled when a sasquatch put its head into their tent.
Both men knew of the story involving Mike King but they disagreed on when the incident took place. Bruce's version claimed it was on the Campbell River, Vancouver Island. King was alone, his Native American packers had refused to accompany him into the area. They expressed their fear of the "Monkey Man" of the forest. Late in the afternoon, King came upon a "man-beast" bending over a water hole. It appeared to be washing roots, which it was placing into two neat piles. When it realized that King was there, it gave a cry and started up the hillside. After going a short distance from him, it turned and looked back at King. He described the creature as being "covered with reddish-brown hair, and his arms were peculiarly long and were used freely in climbing and in bush running; while the trail showed a distinct human foot, but with phenomonally long and spreading toes."
Alex Oakes of Coombes, Vancouver Island, shared that he had heard many stories from people who claimed to have seen a sasquatch during the 1940s and 1950s. He also told of how he himself had seen a sasquatch in the early 1940s when the creature ran across the road in front of his car when nearing his home. It ran at high speed and hurdled the fences on either side of the road. Oakes added that he could see how its hair streamed out behind its shoulders as it ran and leaped. He described it as about 7 ft tall and the color of a brown bear. The hair on its shoulders was around 6 in. long.
In 1915, there was a sworn statement made by Charles Flood (Hope, BC), Donald McRae (Agassiz, BC), and Green Hicks (Agassi, BC). They were prospecting at Green Drop Lake and were exploring an area near an unknown divide near the Holy Cross Mountains on their way back to Hope.
Hicks started telling Flood and McRae that near them was Alligator Lake where he had seen alligators and Cougar Lake where he said were wild humans. The other two, curious, followed Hicks to Alligator Lake and saw the alligators, black in color and twice the size of lizards in the middle of the small muddy lake. A few miles further was Cougar Lake. To get there they passed through an area where several years earlier a fire had burned quite a few square miles of the mountains. In the re-growth were large areas of mountain huckleberry.
While the men were walking through this dense berry growth, Hicks suddenly stopped and pointed to a large, light brown creature. It was 8ft tall, standing on it's hind legs, pulling the berry bushes with one hand and putting berries in it's mouth with the other. Hicks called the creature a "wild man". McRae insisted that it was a bear. The creature heard them arguing and disappeared into the brush about 200 yards away. Flood thought the creature looked more like a human. He had seen several black and brown bears on trips but thought this creature looked different.
Around 1933, a retired insurance broker and a friend took a weekend trip to the head of Pitt Lake, just east of Vancouver. They climbed to the edge of a small plateau, looking for interesting rocks. They eventually sat down to have lunch. As they ate, they noticed movement behind a thicket about a quarter of a mile away. Looking through field glasses, they decided it had to be a black bear eating berries. Then the friend said to take another closer look at the face. Through the glasses they saw that the creature seemed to have a human face on a fur-clad body. They decided to wait until it left and then they would go and look for tracks.
The tracks they later found were not real good as the surface was stony. But they seemed to be a large human track with no claw marks. And appeared to definately not be bear tracks. When the creature left, it "shuffled off on two feet, without haste." The insurance broker was told by his friend : "Let's go back. What you have just seen is a sasquatch; don't mention this to anyone, not even your wife. No one will believe you, you will just be laughed at and you will have a miserable time of it. Just forget the whole thing and keep quiet."
Burns Yeoman, from Deroche, BC, told a tale that took place sometime in 1939 or 1940. Five men, including Yeoman, were up at Silver Creek head waters looking for molybdenite. On the other side of the hill in the valley, they saw four or five animals who appeared to be wrestling just like men would. They were around 3/4's of a mile away and appeared to be black in color. They thought the creatures were hair-covered, as it did not seem to look like skin or clothing. All the creatures were on two legs during the entire time. The men did not feel that these were bears. They watched them wrestle for about a half hour.
There was never any sign of any of the creatures being hurt. One would throw the other down. He would jump right up on his hind legs again. The men felt they must have been around 7 ft high; bigger than a man. They weighed about 400 lbs or more and were heavier built than men.
Mrs. Jane Patterson lived on a ranch near Bridesville, BC, just north of the U.S. border. It was around 1937, she recalls that she went by herself to find an abandoned house on the ranch where she had been told rhubarb grew in an old garden there. As she neared the house, she ducked under some tree branches to enter the garden. As she straightened up, she found herself facing a creature sitting about 10 feet away with it's back against a tree. For some unknown reason, she said "Oh, there you are."
The creature sat like a person would, hands on knees. Sitting, it was taller than her while standing. It blinked its eyes and she supposed it was surprised at her coming out of the trees. She judged the creature to be a light brown, not tan. The body was hair covered, but did not appear to be thick. It never moved except to blink. Patterson backed away from the creature and headed for home. Once there, she told her husband what she had seen and asked him to go back with her to look at it. He told her he hadn't "lost no monkey" and wasn't going to go looking for one. Three days later, he finally gave in and followed her to the old garden, still protesting that he hadn't lost no monkey and he didn't want to see no monkey. He didn't see the monkey.
Charles Cates when talking with John Green in 1957 left these points. The stories he heard and repeated always had some basis in truth. He further made the following statements : Almost all of the Native peoples of British Columbia have a name for the creatures. In the Squamish language it sounded like "smy-a-likh". The stories always seemed to have the same physical description. They did not use the existence of these creatures to tell any fantastic tales. They merely referred to them by their name. The creatures were described as being quite shy and doing no harm. They would always refer to the creatures in a quite casual manner, as if not a big thing. These same Native peoples also would mention having seen the creatures in various parts of the coast.
Nancy
"I'll spark the thought; what you do with it is up to you."
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