Sasquatch

The controversial "Patterson-Gimlin footage" of 1967 is the standard model for Sasquatch's likeness in popular culture.

Sasquatch (also known as Bigfoot) is the name given to a mythological simian, ape, or hominoid-like creature that is said to inhabit forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest of North America. In folklore, Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid. The term sasquatch is an Anglicized derivative of the Halkomelem word sásq'ets.

Scientists discount the existence of Bigfoot and consider it to be a combination of folklore, misidentification, and hoax, rather than a living animal, because of the lack of physical evidence and the large numbers of creatures that would be necessary to maintain a breeding population.

Sasquatch in The House of Daniel

Bigfoots or sasquatches lived in the Pacific Northwest. While most preferred to live in the woods, others, who enjoyed the trappings of society, worked and lived in towns and cities. When the House of Daniel went to Klamath Falls, Oregon, Jack Spivey encountered bigfoots for the first time, and had a conversation with a bigfoot lumberjack.

Sasquatch in State of Jefferson

Sasquatches were native to what is now the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, predating Homo sapiens by thousands of years. They were possibly descended from Homo erectus, or perhaps Gigantopithecus.

Sasquatches first encountered little people when the ancestors of the Native Americans arrived in the New World approximately ten thousand years ago. Early encounters were hostile, and both sides developed an antipathy that continued into modern times.

Sasquatches became a small-but-prominent part of the population of Jefferson after its establishment in 1919. The state's second governor, Charlie "Bigfoot" Lewis, was a Sasquatch, and had made much of the economic prosperity of the Coolidge Administration, building the Governor's Mansion in Yreka to suit Sasquatches rather than little people. However, after Lewis left office, it wasn't until the 1970s that Jefferson elected another Sasquatch governor, Bill Williamson.

The Sasquatch language, Sasquat, was all but extinct by the 20th century. Academics made greater use of it than Sasquatches.

See also

• Yeti: Another similar mythical primate that reportedly lives in the Himalayas.
• Mountain apes of Derlavai: Primates in the Darkness Series that may be based on the Sasquatch.
• Sims, descendants of Homo erectus who share the modern Americas with humans in A Different Flesh. In the State of Jefferson Stories, sasquatches are hypothesized to be also descendants of H.e.
• Gigantopithecus, an extinct ape species regarded by some cryptozoologists as an ancestor of the yeti. In State of Jefferson it is named as a possible ancestor of sasquatch.
• Strongbrow Neanderthals, who share the world with "highhead" humans in "Down in the Bottomlands," much as sasquatches and/or yetis do in other Harry Turtledove timelines.