Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide

by Robert Michael Pyle

Overview

One of America’s most esteemed natural history writers takes to the hills of the Pacific Northwest in search of Bigfoot—and finds the wildness within ourselves.

“A unique book in the bigfoot literature . . . that understands what most lifetime bigfooters eventually come to know: that bigfooting is about the journey more than the destination.” —Cliff Barackman, field researcher and star of Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot

Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to investigate the legends of Sasquatch, Yale–trained ecologist Dr. Robert Pyle treks into the unprotected wilderness of the Dark Divide near Mount St. Helens, where he discovers both a giant fossil footprint and recent tracks. On the trail of what he thought was legend, he searches out Indians who tell him of an outcast tribe, the Seeahtiks, who had not fully evolved into humans. A handful of open–minded biologists and anthropologists counter the tabloids Pyle studies, while rogue Forest Service employees and loggers swear of a vast conspiracy to deep–six true stories of unknown, upright hominoid apes among us. He attends Sasquatch Daze, where he meets scientists, hunters, and others who have devoted their lives to the search, only to realize that “these guys don't want to find Bigfoot―they want to be Bigfoot!”

Where Bigfoot Walks was the inspiration for the 2020 film The Dark Divide, starring David Cross and Debra Messing. Since the book’s original publication, Pyle’s fresh experiences and findings have been added to his original work through an updated chapter. With an evaluation of recent DNA evidence from Bigfoot hair and scat, the study of speech phonemes in the “Sierra Sounds” purported Bigfoot recordings, an examination of the impact of the wildly popular Animal Planet series Bigfoot Hunters, the reemergence of the famous Bob Gimlin into the Bigfoot community, and more, Walking With Bigfoot keeps every Bigfoot enthusiast’s mind wide open to one of the biggest questions in the land and brings Pyle’s work on the “legend” of Bigfoot into the new century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619029651
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	08/01/2017
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	386,051
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Robert Michael Pyle is the author of fourteen books, including Sky Time in Gray's River, Chasing Monarchs, Where Bigfoot Walks, and Wintergreen, which won the John Burroughs Medal. A Yale–trained ecologist and a Guggenheim fellow, he is a full–time writer living in southwestern Washington.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Bukwus and Dzonoqua at Play xi

I Pan's Bridge

1 Not Looking for Bigfoot 3

2 Juniper Ridge 13

3 Ghost Moths at Moonrise 23

4 Sunrise with Bears 32

5 The Saddle 46

II Heart of the Dark Divide

6 Of Ouzels and Old Growth 63

7 Monty West and the Well-Adapted Ape 82

8 Legends of the Dark Divide 96

9 Yellowjacket Pass 116

10 Grendel Redux: Snagtooth, 135

III Devils in Heaven

11 Whistling with Bigfoot 149

12 "Bigfoot Baby Found in Watermelon, Has Elvis's Sneer" 177

13 One Hundred Hours of Solitude 199

14 Natural History of the Bigfoot Hunters 220

15 Back to Earth 250

V Footsteps On the Wind

16 Northern Spotted Bigfoot 269

17 Lost in the Big Lava Bed 294

18 Mermaids, Monsters, and Metaphors 314

19 Carson on the Columbia 336

20 Something in the Night 359

Epilogue: Monsters in the Mist 378

Back to the Dark Divide: 2017 396

Map of the Dark Divide 416

Appendix: A Protocol for Encounter 419

References 425

Acknowledgments 429

Index 433

Editorial Reviews

Pyle, eminent naturalist (The Thunder Tree), ecologist and expert on butterflies, conducted his search for Bigfoot or Sasquatch, the perhaps-mythical giant, hairy, apelike humanoid, by trekking across the mountains and plateaus of Washington and northern California. In this leisurely, gracefully written meditation, he talks with Northwest Coast Indians who describe their purported encounters with Bigfoot; attends a Sasquatch conference in British Columbia in 1994; hobnobs with Bigfoot hunters and retraces some of their sightings. Pyle found some 16" footprints and heard eerie whistles that tallied with Sasquatch sounds as described by Native Americans, but the evidence he presents is inconclusive. Nevertheless, this enlightening report will intrigue skeptics and believers alike. Reviewing the battle between those who advocate finding and killing a Bigfoot specimen and those who only condone live capture, Pyle sets forth a protocol designed to protect our giant hominoid relatives, if they exist. Photos. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Fast claiming his place as one of the country’s finest natural history writers, Pyle takes to the hills in search of Bigfoot in this absorbing, classily written field report. Pyle makes all the right connections. Best of all, he loves a good mystery and is smart enough, open and radical enough, to never say never.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] leisurely, gracefully written meditation.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Celebrated author Pyle, whose Wintergreen won a John Burroughs medal, is fascinated not so much by Bigfoot as he is by the people who believe that Bigfoot exists—and are trying to prove it.”
—Library Journal

“I like the book very much. Only, I don’t know why you were so circumspect. To me, the evidence seems overwhelming.”
—Dr. Jane Goodall, in conversation with the author

“A search for the Pacific Northwest's fabled Bigfoot provides a jumping–off point for nature writer Robert Michael Pyle's lyrical ruminations on wilderness, isolation, and the occasional triumphs of mystery over so–called progress. Pyle's well–researched stomping ground is Washington State's Dark Divide in the Cascade Mountains . . . Pyle's route alternates between desolate clear–cuts and majestic ancient forests, between the inroads of civilization and the dark recesses of the wild. But never does the author get too caught up in proving anything to himself or the reader; this search for Bigfoot has as much to do with locating the wild nature within each of us as it does with finding a legend.”
—Amazon.com, Editorial Pick

“Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide is a unique book in the bigfoot literature, one that is not so much concerned with whether the creatures exist or not, but rather one that focuses on the value of the mystery itself. Dr. Pyle’s writing stands alongside those of the great naturalist writers and is full of wit and wisdom. Through his journey, we find that he intuitively understands what most lifetime bigfooters eventually come to know: that bigfooting is about the journey more than the destination.”
—Cliff Barackman, field researcher and star of Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot

“Cross into the Dark Divide with Robert Pyle and you will find yourself in another world, a world where we are one among the animals, a deeper, more ambiguous world, where science answers some of the questions, and our hearts and imaginations answer (or seek to answer) the rest. ‘In a class of its own’ is an overused phrase, but Where Bigfoot Walks is so haunting and beautiful and bold that I can think of nothing else like it. Follow Bob into the woods, into the labyrinth that is the mystery of Bigfoot—you will find no better guide.”
—Molly Gloss, author of Falling From Horses, The Jump–Off Creek, Hearts of Horses, and Wild Life

“Splendidly lyrical and just as splendidly crusty, Where Bigfoot Walks is the sort of book Thoreau might have written if he had discovered giant footprints of an unknown origin in the vicinity of Walden Pond.”
—Lawrence Millman, author of Our Like Will Not Be There Again: Notes from the West of Ireland and Last Places

From the Publisher