Exploring Canada's Historic Sasquatch Encounters: Part Five

A fascinating deep dive into Canadian Sasquatch history recently surfaced on YouTube, and it's one any researcher will want to carve out time for. The video comes from the channel John Horrigan - Pro Sports Announcer and Historian, and it tackles one of the most debated cases in Sasquatch lore: the 1884 capture of "Jacko" near Yale, British Columbia. According to the Daily British Colonist of Victoria, BC, published on July 4, 1884, a train crew spotted what appeared to be a half-man, half-ape figure lying beside the tracks about 20 miles north of Yale along the Fraser River. The crew stopped the train and managed to capture the creature, reportedly knocking it senseless with a stone when it tried to scale a steep rocky bank. They tied it up with a bell rope and stuffed it in the baggage car. When the train reached its destination, a large crowd gathered to see the captive, whom the crew had named "Jacko." Jacko was described as roughly 4 feet 7 inches tall, weighing around 127 pounds, with long black coarse hair and short glossy hairs covering his body. His forearms were notably longer than a man's and reportedly powerful enough to tear a branch in two. Jacko's ultimate fate remains unknown, though some researchers suggest he may have ended up exhibited in a Barnum & Bailey Circus. Here's where it gets really interesting. The video explores multiple theories about what Jacko actually was. One possibility is that he was a young Sasquatch. Another is that he was simply a chimpanzee, perhaps a sailor's pet that escaped or was released when it became too difficult to handle. And then there's the third theory, and the one the video seems to lean toward: that the whole thing was a hoax. As the video points out, newspapers of that era regularly printed hoax stories that weren't considered dishonest at all. The hoax was practically its own literary genre back then. The video doesn't stop at Jacko though. It traces the broader history of Sasquatch encounters across North America, starting with explorer David Thompson's 1811 discovery of a 14-inch by 8-inch footprint with four toes near modern-day Jasper, Alberta. Thompson figured it was a grizzly, but his companion argued it couldn't be a bear because bears have five toes. There's also a mention of the infamous 1910 Nahanni Valley incident, where two brothers named McLeod were found decapitated in what became known as "Headless Valley." While Bigfoot was blamed at the time, the video notes it was far more likely the work of humans, either Indigenous people or desperados. The history lesson continues with the origin of the term "Sasquatch" itself, which didn't really catch on in Canada until the 1930s thanks to J.W. Burns, a British Columbian writer who wove Indigenous lore into his stories. Burns' Sasquatch was actually quite different from what folks think of today. He was a giant Indigenous man who lived in the wilderness, hairy only in the sense of having long hair on his head, but fully human. The character became so popular that there was a Sasquatch Inn near Harrison, BC, and the town even held "Sasquatch Days" celebrations. One of the most compelling segments covers the William Roe encounter from October 1955. Roe was climbing Mica Mountain near Tete Jaune Cache in British Columbia when he spotted what he initially thought was a grizzly bear on the far side of a clearing. As the creature stepped into the open, Roe realized it was no bear. In a sworn affidavit, Roe described seeing a massive figure about 6 feet tall, nearly 3 feet wide, and weighing around 300 pounds, covered from head to toe in dark brown, silver-tipped hair. As it came closer, Roe noticed it had breasts. It was female. The creature came within 20 feet of Roe, who was crouched behind a bush, and squatted to munch on leaves. Roe had his rifle leveled at one point but ultimately lowered it, saying he felt it was a human being and knew he could never forgive himself if he killed it. As it disappeared into the woods, it made a sound "half laugh and half language" before tipping its head back and uttering the same cry one last time. The video also touches on the 1940 Chapman family incident at Ruby Creek, BC, where an 8-foot tall hairy male reportedly approached their home, causing them to flee and leaving behind 16-inch footprints and an overturned barrel of salted fish. There's also a brief mention of a 1918 Seattle Times account of "mountain devils" attacking a prospector's shack near Mount St. Helens.