Case file · Folklore / legend
'Sasquatch' enters English
Teacher J. W. Burns, who worked on the Chehalis (Sts'ailes) reserve near Harrison Mills, B.C., published 'Introducing B.C.'s Hairy Giants' in Maclean's on 1 April 1929.
1929 CE · 49.24, -121.95 · status: legend
The account
Burns collected stories from Sts'ailes people of the sasq'ets, a wild giant of the mountains, and anglicised the Halkomelem word as Sasquatch. Belief in such beings is part of the Sts'ailes tradition, which today uses the Sasquatch as a community emblem.
The sceptical view
Burns reshaped what he heard for a magazine audience, and the modern hairy-ape Sasquatch owes as much to him and later writers as to Coast Salish tradition.
Connections in the atlas
- Sasquatch Provincial Park
- Albert Ostman's captivity story
- Ruby Creek incident
- 'Stick Indians' of the Chinook Jargon
- David Thompson's tracks in the Rockies
- Bigfoot (Sasquatch)