Unit 1: Mysteries in BC History
Searching for Sasquatches
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When you talk to a judge, you have to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A man named Albert Ostman from British Columbia told a judge that he was once kidnapped by a family of sasquatches. Was he telling the truth?
In 1924, Ostman said he went camping in the woods of British Columbia. One night, he was sleeping in his sleeping bag. Suddenly, something lifted him up. It carried him through the woods while he was balled up in his sleeping bag. This went on for three hours. Then he was dumped out onto the ground. He looked up to see a family of four sasquatches looking down at him. The sasquatch family held him at their camp. They would not let him leave. After six days, he was finally able to escape.
A reporter named John Green was interested in stories like this one. He wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery of the sasquatch. So he put together hundreds of reports by people who said they had seen the animal. Green’s research says the sasquatch is a big and hairy beast that looks like an ape. It walks on two legs. It stands three metres tall. It can run very fast, and it smells very, very bad.
Harrison Hot Springs is a place in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. If you drive to Harrison Hot Springs, you will see a sign that says, “Land of the Sasquatch.” Many people say they have seen a sasquatch in this area. In 1957, the government of Harrison Hot Springs started a search party to look for the beast. They didn’t find it.
Stories of the sasquatch are not new. Many First Nations people in British Columbia have told stories about a big ape-like beast for thousands of years. Very old paintings and carvings show ape-like beasts, too. But there is no proof that the sasquatch is real. No sasquatch bones have ever been found. There are no photos or videos of a sasquatch that scientists say are real.
Scientists know that an ape three metres tall did exist 200,000 years ago. Scientists think this ape has died out. Many people who believe in the sasquatch say that maybe the ape did not die out after all. Maybe this is the ape we now call a sasquatch.
Just in case the sasquatch is real, it is on the list of protected animals in British Columbia!
Word Patterns
The letters –dge like in judge make the /j/ sound. The d is usually silent.
The letters –tch like in sasquatch make the /ch/ sound. The t is usually silent.
These patterns are only found at the end of a word or syllable, or after a short vowel.
Media Attributions
- tent-548022_640 © bhossfeld is licensed under a CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license
- Sasquatch Statue © Bernell is licensed under a Public Domain license
- Harrisons_Hot_Springs_Mountain_by_ajithrajeswari © Ajith Rajeswari is licensed under a Public Domain license
- Archaeologist_working_in_Trench © Sue Hutton is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license