Sasquatch mate?

This tale is true, sort of.

Yours truly good husband material married a Sasquatch in a recent Masters Review fiction writing contest.

The 1,000-word story did not take the $3,000 first prize, or even the second $200 award.

Gee. Life is so unfair sometimes.

The bride’s name was ‘Saskie.’ The alleged groom was born and raised in Saskatchewan. The two long-winded words are similar enough to suggest a natural attraction, right?

But there is more to it. Many years ago the curious tale-twister actually experienced what he took to be a presumed Sasquatch maiden offering him her hand. The hairy hand was rising from dense tender-tops underbrush in the mountains behind Nakusp. His hot springs passion had placed him there searching for what eventually became Nakusp Hot Springs.

The hand was not a paw, as in bear. Twenty feet away it had thick “fingers,” grey-brown in color. He did not see the rest of her, but from the gentle hand and a lifetime observing feminine pulchritude he sensed it was a youngish “woman.”

The famous 1967 female Bluff Creek sighting in northern California shows prominent breasts on motion picture film. The huge creature moves beautifully, almost other-worldly, striding away from the camera with her long arms swinging.

Unfortunately, the Nakusp sighting was thought to be a bear, so the alarmed witness did not tarry. To compensate for the once-in-a-lifetime missed opportunity he married her, in the story.

Have you heard of Albert Ostman? In 1924, Ostman was on a lumberman’s holiday gold-prospecting up Toba Inlet from Lund, north of Powell River. In a convincing recorded testimony on YouTube he states he was kidnapped by a large male Sasquatch and held captive by the family. The detailed encounter and matter-of-fact way he tells it are hard not to believe.

Until he passed several years ago, Canada’s doyen Bigfoot researcher

John Bindernagel spent much of his adult life studying Sasquatch evidence.

Reported B.C. sightings and huge footprint casts were part of the Courtenay scientist’s daily research, much of it in nearby Strathcona Park.

For centuries, Coastal First Nations people have believed in the large “hairy man,” or Sasquatch. Depictions are said to be carved on some of their totem poles.

The area around Mission and Harrison Hot Springs has long been a Sasquatch-sighting habitat. Apparently they enjoy soaking away the world’s cares and frustrations, too, and to drown irksome “cooties” no doubt.

There is even a Sasquatch Inn at Harrison Mills, where the Harrison and Fraser Rivers meet, established 1936.

Ordinary people stay there too, apparently.

Where does this leave compassionate Todd Standing, a Golden, B.C., wildlife caregiver and filmmaker? He has spent years studying the fascinating creatures, and maybe still is. A Canadian Press report from Vancouver a few years ago said the British Columbia Supreme Court had thrown out his lawsuit.

The unusual statement of claim maintained the provincial government has, in effect, been careless, and committed a “dereliction of duty by failing to protect the Sasquatch as a threatened or endangered species.”

One cute but insensitive media headline at the time read: “Judge stomps on bid to protect bigfoot.”

Once again, typical faithless bureaucracy has blinded the somewhat unusual or different, as Sasquatches admittedly are.

Welcome to the modern world, Saskie. Maybe it’s better we didn’t marry and have to live among unbelievers.

It’s a struggle sometimes.