He’s Met Bigfoot Since the 70s. What It Told Him About Humans Will Shock You! – Sasquatch Story

🌲 The Unseen Sanctuary: The Confession of Earl Whitaker

 

I’m 97 years old, and for more than fifty years, I’ve carried a secret—a truth so vast and improbable that no one would believe it, even if they begged me to prove it.

Between 1973 and 1998, tucked away in the deepest folds of the Cascade Mountains, I met the same Bigfoot. Not once, but again and again, long enough for him to show me things about humanity I wish I didn’t know. This is the truth I’ve avoided telling my entire life, and the reason I can’t hold it in anymore.

My name is Earl Whitaker.

The Retreat (1973)

 

In 1973, I was 45 and freshly widowed. Martha had died that spring from breast cancer, and the house in Bellingham became a shrine of unbearable memory. The kitchen where she’d bake bread on Sunday mornings, the porch where we’d drink coffee and watch the sunrise, even the damn wallpaper she’d picked out in ’68—every detail was a fresh reminder of the silence.

So, I did what any broken man does. I ran away.

I took the small inheritance from Martha’s family and my savings from the lumber mill and bought a piece of land: 60 acres of dense forest, about 40 miles east of Concrete, Washington, with a creek cutting through it. The previous owner had left behind a small, rudimentary cabin built in the ‘50s. It was one room, a wood stove, an outhouse, and a hand pump. No electricity, no phone line. It was perfect. It was exactly what I needed to drown out the silence Martha had left behind.

I moved in that July, my 1968 Ford F-100 packed with simple supplies: canned goods, a kerosene lamp, some tools, my hunting rifle, and a transistor radio to catch the news and the baseball games. The cabin sat in a small clearing, surrounded by Douglas firs and western hemlocks that stretched up like the columns of a forgotten cathedral. The nearest neighbor was eight miles away.

For the first two months, I saw nothing unusual. I spent my days chopping wood, repairing the cabin roof, and trying to figure out how to live with the quiet. Martha and I had been married for 23 years. The silence was a physical weight, pressing down on my chest.

Then came September 17th, 1973.

The Encounter

 

I remember the date because it was a Monday, and Howard Cosell had been talking about the Billy Jean King match on the radio the night before. I woke up around dawn to a sound I’d never heard: a low, guttural moaning coming from near the creek, maybe 200 yards from the cabin.

I grabbed my rifle and went to investigate. The morning fog was thick, rolling through the trees like smoke. I followed the sound, my boots crunching on the forest floor, and that’s when I saw it.

At first, I thought it was a bear. It was lying on its side near the creek bank, partially hidden by ferns. But as I got closer—maybe 30 feet away—I realized this was no bear. The thing was massive, easily seven feet tall even lying down, covered in dark reddish-brown hair. Its shoulders were impossibly broad, and one of its legs was twisted at an unnatural angle.

It saw me and tried to get up, but collapsed with a sound that was almost human—a groan of pain and frustration.

That’s when I got my first clear look at its face.

I’ve thought about that moment every day for 52 years. The face wasn’t quite ape, wasn’t quite human. The eyes were deep set and dark, but held an intelligence that froze me in place. It wasn’t looking at me like an animal looks at a potential threat. It was studying me, calculating, deciding what I was going to do.

My rifle was raised, finger on the trigger. This was 1973. I knew about the Patterson-Gimlin film from ’67—had seen it in a magazine once—but most people thought it was a hoax. Standing there, looking at this creature bleeding onto the moss, I knew Roger Patterson had been telling the truth.

The creature made a sound, not aggressive, more like a question. It gestured weakly toward its injured leg with one massive hand. Five fingers, I noted. Long, thick fingers that could crush my skull without effort.

I lowered the rifle.

I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was the loneliness, maybe it was something in those eyes, but I walked back to the cabin, grabbed my first aid kit and some old towels, and returned to the creek.

The creature watched me approach, its breath coming in short, painful gasps. I’m no doctor, but I knew a bad break. The lower leg bone, the tibia, I think, was fractured, probably from a fall. I couldn’t set it properly, but I could clean the wound and try to stabilize it.

For the next hour, I worked while this seven-foot creature lay perfectly still, allowing me to touch it. Its hair was coarser than I expected, more like thick wire than fur. The skin underneath was dark gray, almost black. When I poured hydrogen peroxide on the wound, it growled low in its throat, but didn’t pull away. I used two straight branches and some rope to make a crude splint, wrapping it as tight as I dared. The creature watched my hands the entire time, those dark eyes tracking every movement.

When I finished, I backed away slowly. The creature sat up with obvious effort, looked down at its leg, then back at me. It made a sound I can only describe as acknowledgement. Not quite a grunt, not quite a word. Then it stood, balancing on one leg, and hobbled into the forest, using trees for support.

I didn’t expect to see it again.

But three days later, I found a freshly killed rabbit on my porch. No note, no explanation. Just a rabbit, cleanly killed, still warm. I looked out into the treeline and saw nothing, but I knew it was watching.

That was how it started.

The Language of Trust (1975–1978)

 

Over the next two years, the pattern continued. I’d leave food scraps at the edge of the clearing—apple cores, bread crusts, leftover beans. They’d be gone by morning. Sometimes I’d find things in return: fish from the creek, wild mushrooms, once a whole deer haunch that kept me fed for two weeks.

I rarely saw the creature clearly during those first years, just glimpses: a shape moving between trees at dusk, a massive silhouette against the moonlight, the sound of something large moving through the underbrush. But I knew it was there, watching, learning about me the same way I was trying to understand it.

In the spring of ’75, I was splitting wood behind the cabin when I felt that familiar sensation—the weight of being observed. I turned slowly, and there it was, standing at the edge of the clearing, maybe 60 feet away in full daylight. It was taller than I’d realized during our first encounter. Seven and a half feet, maybe more. The injured leg had healed, though it still favored the other one slightly. Its face was weathered, with silver-gray hair mixed into the reddish-brown around its muzzle and chest.

We stared at each other for what felt like an hour. Then I did something crazy. I raised my hand in a wave.

The creature tilted its head, considering this gesture. Then, slowly, deliberately, it raised its own massive hand and mimicked the movement.

That’s when I knew this was going to be something bigger than I’d ever imagined.

By 1976, we had developed what I can only call a routine. Not quite a friendship—that word implies too much familiarity—but a careful mutual understanding. It would appear every few weeks, always at dusk or dawn, always keeping a respectful distance. I started calling it August in my mind because that’s when our arrangement truly began to solidify.

I bought a journal that summer, a green canvas-covered notebook. I documented everything: dates, times, behaviors, observations. I still have those journals, twelve of them now, stacked in a box under my bed.

August’s intelligence became more apparent with each encounter. In September of ’76, I was replacing rotted boards on the front steps. I’d set my hammer down to measure a piece of wood, and when I turned back, the hammer was gone. I looked up to see August standing thirty feet away, holding the hammer, examining it with a kind of focused curiosity.

I held out my hand, palm up. August studied me for a long moment, then walked forward, closer than it had ever come, and placed the hammer in my hand. Its palm was rough, calloused, like someone who’d worked hard labor their whole life. The fingers were warm.

We stood there, maybe ten feet apart. The eyes were more human than ape, deep brown with flecks of amber set under a prominent brow ridge. The nose was broad and flat, the lips dark and expressive. There were scars on its face, old ones, accumulated over decades of living in the wild.

“Thank you,” I said, even though I didn’t think it understood English.

August made a sound, a soft rumble from deep in its chest, and touched its own chest with one finger, then pointed at me. It was asking my name.

“Earl,” I said, touching my chest. “Earl.”

August’s mouth moved, trying to form the shape, but no sound came out that resembled speech. Instead, it made a different sound: two quick grunts, almost like ’Au-gh’, and touched its chest again. I understood. It was giving me permission to name it, or telling me it already had a name I couldn’t pronounce. Either way, August stuck.

The late ’70s were strange years for America. But up in the mountains, time moved differently. August and I existed in a bubble separate from disco and the Cold War. We were building our own language. By 1978, August would sometimes sit on the far side of the clearing while I worked, sometimes for hours. I’d talk to it, mostly about Martha, about the life I’d left behind, about loneliness. August didn’t understand the words, but it seemed to understand the meaning behind them. Sometimes it would make soft sounds in response, almost trying to comfort me.

Lesson One: Patience (1979)

 

That’s when I started noticing the first lesson. One afternoon in June of ’79, I was trying to fix my chainsaw. I’d been at it for two hours, getting more and more frustrated, cursing and throwing tools. August was sitting at its usual spot, watching.

When I finally gave up and stomped back toward the cabin, August stood and walked to the chainsaw. I watched as it picked up the screwdriver I’d been using and examined it. Then it looked at the chainsaw, tilted its head, and tried the same thing I’d been attempting: removing the air filter cover. But August did it slowly, carefully, without force, and the screw turned.

I walked back over. August handed me the screwdriver and stepped back.

“Patience,” I said aloud, understanding the lesson. “You’re telling me I need patience.”

August made that rumbling sound again, the one I’d come to recognize as approval. Over the next year, I watched August demonstrate patience in dozens of ways: the way it would sit motionless for hours, waiting for fish in the creek; the way it would carefully extract grubs from rotting logs, never rushing, never forcing. It was teaching me without words. And I was beginning to realize these weren’t just lessons about survival. They were lessons about being human.

Lesson Two: Forgiveness (1979–1980)

 

In November of 1979, I made a mistake that almost cost me everything. I’d driven into Concrete for supplies and stopped at the Cascade Inn, a dark little tavern. I’d had a few too many Rainiers, got to talking with some locals about hunting season, and stupidly mentioned seeing something unusual on my property.

“Bigfoot tracks? Jesus, Earl, you serious?” a guy named Dale asked, his eyes lit up.

Word spread fast. Within a week, I had three trucks of hunters show up on my property, rifles ready, talking about becoming famous. I ran them off, told them I’d been drunk and making up stories, but the damage was done. I’d put August in danger because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

I didn’t see August for two months after that. December and January passed with no sign, no tracks, no gifts of food. I thought I’d lost it forever.

Then, on a February morning in 1980, I woke to find August sitting on my porch, maybe six feet from my front door. I opened the door slowly. August looked at me with those deep brown eyes, and I swear I saw something like forgiveness in them, or maybe understanding that humans make mistakes.

August reached into the thick fur on its side and pulled out something small, holding it out to me. A smooth river stone, perfectly round, the size of a half-dollar, warm from being kept close to its body. A gift, an acceptance.

I sat down on the porch step, and August sat beside me, not touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from its massive body. We sat there for maybe twenty minutes watching the sun come up.

That’s when I understood the second lesson: Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. August had every reason to disappear forever, to see humans as nothing but threats. But it chose to come back. It chose to trust again despite everything.

I cried that morning, right there on the porch. The first time since Martha’s funeral. August didn’t move, didn’t react, just sat with me while I worked through years of accumulated grief. When I finally looked up, August was holding out one massive hand, palm up, an invitation. I placed my hand in its palm, and August’s fingers closed gently around it.

We sat like that, man and creature, both scarred, both lonely, both trying to understand what connection means. That was the moment our relationship changed from observation to something deeper.

The Conversation of Art (1981–1985)

 

The 80s brought change everywhere except my mountain. Reagan was president, and MTV was launched. But August remained constant. By 1981, our meetings had become more frequent. August began bringing me things I didn’t understand at first: arrangements of stones, carefully constructed piles of sticks, once a perfect circle of pine cones. I documented everything, sketching the patterns, trying to decode the meaning.

It was my neighbor, Tom Hris, who accidentally helped me understand. In March of ’82, he showed me an art project his daughter had made in school, using found objects from nature. That’s when it clicked. August wasn’t leaving random arrangements. It was creating art.

The next time August appeared, I tried something new. I gathered stones from the creek and arranged them in a spiral pattern on a flat rock. Then I stepped back and waited. August emerged from the treeline, approached the stones, and studied them. Then it looked at me, and I swear it smiled. Not a human smile, but a warmth in the eyes that hadn’t been there before.

August sat down and began rearranging the stones into a different pattern, a circle with radiating lines, like a child’s drawing of the sun. When it finished, it looked at me expectantly.

“I see it,” I laughed. “It’s beautiful.”

That became our new form of communication. We were having conversations through art, through symbols neither of us fully understood, but both recognized as meaningful.

Lesson Three: Intrinsic Worth (1982)

 

In July of 1982, something happened that taught me the third lesson, one that shook my understanding of human nature. I’d hiked down to the new Safeway in Concrete and witnessed an argument between a father and his son in the parking lot. The kid, maybe ten, had knocked over a shopping cart, and the father was berating him, loud and angry, calling him “stupid” and “clumsy.”

Two days later, August appeared while I was splitting wood. It watched me work for a while, then approached. It picked up a piece of wood I’d split poorly—jagged and uneven—and held it up. Then August took another piece, one I’d split cleanly, and held them side by side. I thought it was critiquing my work.

But then August placed both pieces together, carefully, gently, as if the poor cut and the good cut were equally valuable. It made a soft sound and touched its chest, then pointed to both pieces of wood.

The message hit me like cold water. Both pieces were still wood. Both had value. One wasn’t stupid or worthless because it wasn’t perfect.

“You’re talking about that kid,” I said aloud, though August couldn’t have known about the parking lot. “You’re saying we’re too hard on each other.”

August set the wood down and made a gesture I’d seen before: touching its eyes, then sweeping its hand toward the forest. Look. Observe. Understand. I realized August had been watching humans for decades, observing our cruelty and kindness, our contradictions. And August had drawn conclusions.

Lesson Four and Five: Nature and Trust (1983–1985)

 

Over the next few years, August showed me more. In 1983, it led me to a spot where someone had dumped trash—old tires, beer cans, a rusted refrigerator. August stood there gesturing at the mess, then at the pristine forest around us.

“We’re destructive,” I said. “We don’t respect what we have.”

August touched its chest again, then touched a tree trunk, then the ground. The message: I am part of this. You are separate from it. That was Lesson Four: Humans had forgotten we were part of nature, not above it.

Then, in August of 1985, a day when “We Are the World” was everywhere on the radio, August showed me something that changed everything. It brought another creature to the clearing.

I was inside when I heard an unusual sound: two distinct vocalizations. I looked out the window. August stood at the clearing’s edge with a smaller version of itself—adult-sized, maybe six and a half feet tall, with darker, almost black fur. A female, I guessed.

August gestured for me to come out, slowly, carefully. I set down the rifle and stepped onto the porch with my hands visible and empty. August made a series of soft sounds to its companion. The female remained behind August, cautious but curious.

August walked forward alone, picked up a stick, and drew a simple shape in the dirt: two tall figures, one smaller one between them. Then August pointed at the female, at itself, and swept its hand toward the mountains. Family.

August had brought its mate or sibling or friend to see me—to prove to her that not all humans were dangerous. That was Lesson Five: Trust is the most precious thing any creature can offer. And betraying it destroys more than just a relationship; it destroys the possibility of connection.

The female never came close that day, and I never saw her again. But that encounter made me realize August’s loneliness probably mirrored my own. We were both isolated from our kind, both seeking something we couldn’t find in our own species.

Lesson Six: Systems of Value (1987)

 

By 1987, I was 59. My hair had gone completely gray, my hands were developing arthritis. August looked older, too, with more silver in his fur and a slight stoop.

One evening, we sat on opposite sides of the clearing. I was reading a week-old newspaper from Seattle about the stock market crash—Black Monday. Everyone losing money, panicking about the future.

August made a questioning sound, gesturing at the newspaper.

“Money,” I tried to explain. “People are upset because they lost money. We use these paper pieces to trade for things we need—food, shelter, tools.”

August tilted its head, clearly not understanding. It stood up, walked to the edge of the forest, and returned with a freshly caught trout. It held up the fish, then gestured at the forest around us—trees, water, sky—and made a sweeping motion with its arms.

The meaning was clear: Why do you need paper when everything you need is here?

I couldn’t answer that.

August set the fish down between us and looked at me with something like pity. That’s when I understood Lesson Six: Humans had created elaborate systems of value that separated us from what actually sustains us. We’d convinced ourselves that abstract concepts like money and status were more important than food, water, shelter, and connection. We’d made our lives incredibly complicated, and August couldn’t understand why. Neither could I.

Lesson Seven: The Cost of Isolation (1990)

 

The late 80s rolled into the 90s. The Berlin Wall came down, the world was accelerating, but my life remained simple: the cabin, the forest, and August. By the spring of 1990, my body was reminding me that I was 62. August was aging, too. We were two old creatures meeting in the woods, both aware our time was limited.

That awareness changed things. In June of 1990, August did something it had never done before. It entered the cabin.

I’d left the door open on a warm afternoon. I heard heavy footsteps on the porch and turned to see August’s massive frame filling the doorway, having to duck to avoid hitting its head.

It approached my small table where I’d been sorting through old photographs—pictures of Martha, my parents, our wedding day in 1950. August picked up the wedding photo, holding it in its enormous hands, studying Martha’s face.

“That’s Martha,” I said quietly. “My wife. She died a long time ago.”

August looked from the photo to me, back to the photo. Then it touched Martha’s face in the photograph with one finger, gentle, reverent, then touched my face the same way. The gesture was unmistakable. It understood loss. It understood grief. It was telling me it knew what I’d been carrying all these years.

I sat right there at my kitchen table and sobbed, while this creature that most people thought was a myth stood beside me, one massive hand resting lightly on my shoulder.

When I composed myself, August carefully placed the wedding photo back and picked up a picture of me and three other men at the lumber mill, arms around each other’s shoulders, laughing. August studied it, then made a sound between a sigh and a question, gesturing at the forest, then back at itself alone.

“You miss them, too,” I said. “Your family, your people.”

August’s response was to gather all the photographs showing me with other people and arrange them in a line on the table. Then it pointed at each person, then at the empty cabin around us, and finally at itself in the forest.

Lesson Seven hit me hard: Humans need each other, but we keep choosing isolation. We build walls, create distance, convince ourselves we’re better off alone, but we’re not. We were both living proof that isolation, even chosen isolation, was a kind of slow death.

Lesson Eight: The Permanent Illusion (1991)

 

After that day, August came inside the cabin regularly. We’d sit together, August examining my books, my tools, my radio with fascination.

In November of 1991, I finally bought a Polaroid camera. The thought of dying without any proof of August’s existence bothered me more than the fear of ridicule. When I showed August the camera during its next visit, it was suspicious. But I took a photo of the cabin interior and showed it the developing picture. August watched in amazement as the image appeared.

I took three photos that day. One of August sitting in the doorway, one of its hand next to mine for scale, and one of us both sitting side-by-side on the porch, taken with the camera timer. They’re locked in a safe deposit box now, along with my journals.

August became fascinated with the concept of preserving memory. It would point at old photos and then at the forest, as if asking why I didn’t photograph the trees, the creek, the mountains. “I guess I never thought they needed preserving,” I admitted. “They’re always there.”

August shook its head and led me outside. For the next hour, it showed me things I’d walked past a thousand times without seeing: a spider’s web jeweled with dew, the pattern of lichen on a boulder, the way light filtered through the canopy at a specific angle.

Lesson Eight: We photograph people because we know we’ll lose them, but we ignore the world around us because we assume it’s permanent. Nothing is permanent. Everything deserves attention, appreciation, remembrance.

Lesson Nine: The Choice of Cruelty (1992)

 

By 1992, the world was accelerating beyond recognition with cell phones and the internet. What affected us most was the increasing presence of hikers and tourists. The forest was becoming popular.

In July of ’92, a group of college kids camped two miles from my cabin. They stayed for three days, left behind a mess of trash, and carved their initials deep into several trees.

August showed up the day after they left, more agitated than I’d ever seen it. It led me to the campsite and stood there, gesturing at the damage, making distressed sounds. The carved trees upset it the most.

I tried to explain. “They’re young. They don’t think about consequences.”

August wasn’t buying it. It picked up a beer can and crushed it in one hand. Then it did something calculated. It walked to a tree, raised its hand as if to gouge the bark, but stopped inches away. It looked at me, making sure I was watching, then gently touched the tree instead, almost caressing it.

The message: The choice to harm or not harm is conscious. Those kids knew what they were doing. They just didn’t care.

Lesson Nine: Cruelty and thoughtlessness aren’t signs of youth or ignorance. They’re choices, and humans choose destruction far more often than we choose preservation.

Lesson Ten: The Boundary of Worth (1994–1995)

 

That was the beginning of a darker period. August was seeing more human activity, and none of it was good. Then, in 1994, a logging company started clearcutting five miles south of my property. The sound of chainsaws echoed for months. The creek ran muddy. Animals disappeared.

August came to the cabin in March of that year, looking different. Not just upset, but defeated. For the first time, August looked old, worn down, broken. We sat on the porch, listening to the distant sound of falling trees.

“I’m sorry,” I said, though the words felt worthless. “We’re a destructive species.”

August turned to look at me with eyes that held something I’d never seen before: Judgment. For the first time in 21 years, August was looking at me not as an individual, but as a representative of humanity. And humanity was found wanting.

August stood, walked to the edge of the clearing, and disappeared into the forest. I didn’t see it again for eight months. The silence of those months was worse than the loneliness after Martha died.

March of 1995 brought a thaw and, with it, August. I saw it standing at the far edge of the clearing, thinner, moving with obvious stiffness. New scars on its face and arms.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” I said.

It made a low, sad sound. It gestured at the forest, then at itself, then at me. Then it touched its chest over its heart and held up one finger. One. Alone. The same.

August sat down heavily, and I sat too. Finally, August stood and led me deeper into the forest, to a spot where the clearcutting had stopped. The contrast was stark: on one side, ancient forest; on the other, a wasteland of stumps and mud.

August stood at the boundary and touched a massive Douglas fir that had been spared. Then it walked into the clear-cut and touched a stump of a tree probably the same age.

August looked at me, and I understood Lesson Ten: Humans measure value by what we can extract, consume, profit from. We don’t see the intrinsic worth of existence itself.

“We’re afraid,” I said aloud. “Afraid of not having enough, of not being enough. So we take and take, thinking it’ll fill whatever’s empty inside us.”

August made a sound I’d never heard before—a keen, a mournful roar. Then, it sat down in the clear-cut, surrounded by devastation, and put its head in its hands. It was grieving.

I sat beside August in the mud and stumps, and we grieved together.

Lesson Eleven: Simple Presence (1996)

 

Our meetings after that day took on a different quality. Less teaching, more companionship. We were two survivors clinging to something that couldn’t last.

In the summer of 1996, I had a small heart attack. When I got back to the cabin, August was waiting on the porch. August examined me carefully, touched my chest gently. Then it lay down and positioned itself so I could lean against it, using its body as a backrest. We stayed like that for hours, August’s warmth and steady breathing keeping me grounded.

That’s when I understood the final lesson. Lesson Eleven: The greatest thing any creature can offer another is simple presence. Not solutions, not wisdom, not even hope. Just the willingness to stay, to be there, to witness each other’s existence without trying to fix what can’t be fixed.

The Final Goodbye (1997–1998)

 

By 1997, I was 69 and August was visibly failing. Its movements were slow, labored. The silver in its fur had spread completely. I was failing, too.

August’s visits became less frequent. When it did come, we’d sit in silence, or I’d read aloud from books. We’d walk slowly through the forest, saying goodbye to a world we’d shared.

In September of 1997, August brought me something it had never offered before: a tuft of its own fur, carefully pulled and twisted into a small bundle. It placed it in my hand and closed my fingers around it—a keepsake, a way to prove, if only to myself, that this had all been real.

“Thank you,” I whispered, “for everything, for teaching me, for seeing me when I didn’t want to be seen.”

August touched my face with one massive hand, gentle as a whisper, and made that rumbling sound one last time.

The last time I saw August was March 15th, 1998. Exactly 25 years after our first encounter. I woke that morning to find August sitting on the porch, backlit by dawn. It looked terrible, emaciated, breathing shallow. It had come to say goodbye.

I sat beside it, and we watched the sunrise together one final time. August reached over and took my hand, held it in both of its massive palms. We sat like that until the sun cleared the mountains.

Then August stood, slower than I’d ever seen it move, and walked toward the treeline. At the edge of the clearing, it turned back one last time. It raised one hand, not a wave, more like a benediction, and then it was gone.

I searched for months afterward. Found no body, no sign, no evidence beyond the memories and the tuft of fur I kept in a small wooden box.

The Confession

 

I’m 97 years old now. I left the cabin in 2003 when my health finally forced me into assisted living. The cabin’s still there, falling apart, reclaimed by the forest. The property is in a land trust now. It will never be developed or logged.

People ask me why I’m telling this story now. The truth is, I wasn’t waiting. I was processing, trying to understand what August taught me over those 25 years.

Here is what I learned. What August was trying to show me about humans:

We’ve forgotten how to be present. We’re always rushing, always consuming, always taking. We judge each other brutally, but we’re all just trying to survive, carrying wounds we don’t show. We’ve separated ourselves from nature and called it progress. We’ve created abstractions like money and called them more valuable than the real things they represent. We’re capable of profound connection, but we choose isolation. We’re capable of preservation, but we choose destruction.

And yet, we’re also capable of change. Of choosing differently, of seeing the world through different eyes if we’re willing to sit still long enough, be quiet enough, humble enough to learn from something we don’t understand.

August didn’t hate humans. It just wished we were better, kinder, more aware, more connected to what actually matters. I wish that, too.

The tuft of fur is still in my bedside table. Sometimes, when the nursing home is quiet, I take it out and remember sitting in the forest with something impossible. Remember being seen, fully seen, by eyes that held no judgment, only curiosity and sadness and hope.

If you take anything from this story, take this. Slow down. Look around. See the world, really see it before it’s gone. Connect with someone different from you. Learn that value isn’t about what you can extract or consume.

And if you’re ever in the Cascade Mountains, in the deep forest where the old trees still stand, be quiet. Be respectful. Be open. Because maybe, just maybe, something’s watching—something that’s been observing us far longer than we’ve been looking for it. Something that knows what we are, what we could be, and what we’re choosing to become.

August taught me that the biggest mystery isn’t whether Bigfoot exists. It’s why we, despite all our intelligence and technology and supposed superiority, are so determined to destroy the only home we’ve ever known.

I’m 97 years old, and I still don’t have an answer to that question.