STILL TALKING TRACKS

drawing by Jeremy Moore

One of the best reports on tracks that John Green ever received was in a letter sent to him by Jack Woodruff in September, 1967.

I would like to just quote from that letter as it shows you just how important tracks are to research. And how casting them can help you have time to study them more in depth later on.


So, with thanks to John Green and Jack Woodruff :


"On the morning of August 15 I discovered the footprints of four persons along the river bank at this location. I measured these footprints, made casts of four different prints and have these casts in my possession.


"The casts are of three different people or sub-humans,. Two of them are perfect in every detail and the other two are of the fore part of the feet. One of the perfect casts is of a small child, I should judge about three or four years of age. The other is of a full grown adult and is a foot in length, four and a half inches wide at the ball of the foot and has a three and a half inch heel. This footprint or cast is perfect in detail and distinctly human.


"The two casts of the fore part of two foot prints are not identical. One seems to be of an adult, matching the footprint described above. The other cast is of a huge footprint. This print was a full six inches across the ball of the foot. The big toe is huge and well defined and the other toes show up as being big and powerful.


"The print was made along creviced bedrock, and although the entire footprint showed when discovered, only the fore part of the foot was well enough imprinted in a sandy crevice to show in the cast. I measured this print carefully and it was a full fourteen inches long, very wide and appeared to have been made by a very heavy man.


"There were six prints left by this barefoot family. Two of the prints were of children but one of these was spoiled by a careless viewer. It was the footprint of a child about eight or nine years old. The other print was of a huge adult and this one was spoiled by a raccoon stepping on the sandy ridge and caving it in. I am confident I have casts of the male of this family, the mother and the youngest child.


"These prints were made Monday night, August 14, between seven-thirty p.m. and eight a.m. the following morning. I would guess they were about six hours old when I found them.


"There is no possibility of measuring the stride of these visitors as I did not find any two prints in a a succession that would be made by a person walking. The bed of the east fork of the Coquille River is bedrock, sandstone. These people are very canny about stepping on sand bars or any place when they would leave prints. All the prints I found were made in shallow crevices filled with sand and fine gravel. I scouted the bed for half a mile in either direction and came up with nothing. This in spite of considerable trapping experience in a misspent youth. These people do not walk where they can be trailed.


"The casts of the adult feet show huge callouses. The smaller adult cast could be that of any civilized woman except that she was barefooted in one of the roughest creek beds in Oregon. Her cast does not show anything extraordinary except size but the other cast is unbelievable. The old boy must be tremendously strong, judging from his footprint."


Nancy


"I'll spark the thought; what you do with it is up to you."


Source : "Sasquatch, the apes among us" by John Green