1941 Sasquatch Encounter in British Columbia Still Raises Questions

Bigfoot researchers have been discussing a recently posted video by Bigfoot Michigan Rob, in which he reads an interview that Ivan Sanderson conducted with the Chapman family in Canada about their encounter with a Sasquatch or Bigfoot in September 1941. While some have praised the story as a classic and compelling case of Sasquatch behavior, others have criticized it for its alleged racism towards indigenous people and its lack of verifiability. Nonetheless, the details of the encounter remain fascinating and puzzling. According to Mrs. Chapman, she and her three children were outside their house in Ruby Creek, where her husband worked on the railroad, when her eldest son, aged nine, saw a "cow coming down out of the woods at the foot of the nearby Mountain." However, when she looked closer, she realized that what she thought was a bear was actually "a gigantic man covered with hair not fur, the hair seemed to be about four inches long all over and a pale yellow brown color." The creature then advanced towards the house, while Mrs. Chapman used a blanket to cover her kids and hide them from it. She believed that the creature was after her kids and might go into the house to look for them instead of following her. She recalled that the creature was "about seven and a half feet tall, had a rather small head and a very short thick neck in fact really no neck at all, a point that was emphasized by William Rowe and by all others who claim to have seen one of these creatures. Its body was entirely human in his shape except that it was immensely thick through its chest and his arms were exceptionally long. She did not see the feet which were in the grass its shoulders were very wide and it had no breasts from this Chapman assumed it was a male though she also did not see any male genitalia due to the long hair covering its groin." When Mrs. Chapman and her children reached the river, they ran downstream to the village to seek help. George Chapman arrived home a few hours later and saw "the Woodshed door battered in and spotted enormous humanoid Footprints all over the place." He found the foot tracks of his wife and kids going off toward the river, which reassured him that they were safe. However, when he saw the giant foot tracks on the riverbank, he became worried and asked his father-in-law and two others to return with him for protection of his family when he was away at work. The foot tracks returned every night for a week, and on two occasions, the dogs the Chapmans had taken with them set up a ruckus at exactly two o’clock in the morning. However, the Sasquatch did not harm them, touch them, or even touch the house or the woodshed. The whole experience was too unnerving for the Chapman family to bear, so they moved out and never returned. What makes this Sasquatch encounter interesting beyond its basic description is the fact that Mrs. Chapman and her husband heard a strange gurgling whistle that the men in California who said they had heard Bigfoot call also reported. Ivan Sanderson emphasized that "this is a sound I cannot reproduce and print but I can assure you that is unlike anything I have ever heard by man or beast anywhere in the world." He found it incredible that an American Indian couple in British Columbia should give out exactly the same strange sound in connection with a Sasquatch that the two highly educated white men did over 600 miles south in connection with California's Bigfoot. Sanderson believed that this information was of the greatest significance and challenged skeptics to explain how this noise, which defies description, always sounds the same no matter who has tried to reproduce it. Despite the alleged flaws and biases in the written account of the sighting, researchers and enthusiasts of Bigfoot remain fascinated by this case and debate its implications for the existence and behavior of Sasquatch. To some, the Chapman family's encounter is another piece of evidence that supports the hypothesis that a large, bipedal, humanoid species is living in the wilderness and avoiding humans when possible. To others, it is a cautionary tale about the dangers of jumping to conclusions, citing rumors, and relying on anecdotal evidence. Whatever one's opinion may be, the Sasquatch continues to captivate and challenge the minds of investigators and curious people.