This Bigfoot Was Speaking Perfect English, But When It Noticed I Was Recording…
I never believed in Bigfoot until that fateful summer of 1980—a summer that would forever alter my understanding of the world and the creatures that inhabit it. My name is Vincent Holloway, and at 72 years old, I still wake up some nights, hearing that deep, resonant voice echoing in the darkness, reminding me of the choice I made between proof and survival.
Let me take you back to the beginning, to a time when I was just 27, a freelance nature photographer based out of Portland, Oregon. The economy was recovering, and the Pacific Northwest was buzzing with excitement after the eruption of Mount St. Helens that May. I was making decent money selling photographs to outdoor magazines like *Field and Stream* and *National Geographic*. My childhood in Salem, Oregon, had instilled in me a profound love for the wilderness, a passion that blossomed into a career.
In July 1980, I drove east from Portland into the Cascade Range, eager to capture images of wildlife during the salmon spawning season. My 1978 Ford Bronco, a trusty companion equipped with four-wheel drive and ample cargo space for my camera gear, represented freedom to me—the freedom to chase any photograph, explore any trail. As I drove through the winding roads, I listened to the radio, with songs like Blondie’s “Call Me” and Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” filling the airwaves.
I parked at a remote forest service access road, hidden behind a stand of Douglas firs, my gear packed into my hiking backpack. The trail I was about to follow wasn’t on any official map; I had learned about it from an old logger named Walt, who had shared tales of a valley where bears congregated every summer due to a creek rich in salmon. With a rough map drawn on a cocktail napkin, I set out, excited to document nature’s splendor.
The hike was invigorating, the morning sun filtering through the trees as I made my way to the creek. When I arrived, I was greeted by a breathtaking sight: a crystal-clear creek, about 20 feet wide, with salmon swimming upstream. I set up my equipment, mounted my camera, and began to record the ambient sounds of the forest with my new Sony TCM 600 cassette recorder. Little did I know how crucial that device would become.
As I waited for the bears to appear, I lost myself in the beauty surrounding me—the sounds of the water, the calls of birds, the rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze. Hours passed, and finally, a large black bear emerged from the forest, drawing my full attention. I began photographing the magnificent creature, completely absorbed in my task.
And then, it happened. A voice, deep and resonant, broke the tranquility of the forest. “That’s a nice camera you have there.” I froze, my heart racing as I turned slowly to find myself face-to-face with something that should not exist. Standing about 15 feet behind me was a massive figure, easily seven and a half feet tall, covered in dark brown hair that hung in long, shaggy strands. Its eyes were intelligent and curious, studying me as if weighing my intentions.
For a moment, we simply stared at each other, the air thick with disbelief and wonder. My mind raced, trying to process this impossible encounter. “You can speak?” I stammered, still reeling from the shock.
“Of course,” the creature replied, its voice calm and measured. “I’ve been watching you photograph the bear. You’re very patient.” As it spoke, I felt a strange mixture of fear and fascination. This creature—this Bigfoot—was conversing with me in perfect, unaccented English.
I managed to regain my composure and asked, “How do you speak English?” The creature settled onto a fallen log, its massive frame dwarfing the wood beneath it. “I learned it the same way anyone learns a language—by listening, observing, practicing. I’ve lived in these mountains for 47 years, close enough to human settlements to hear conversations and radios.”
My mind spun as I absorbed this revelation. Here was a being that had lived alongside humanity for decades, hidden in the shadows, learning our language, our ways. “What are you?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“We are the people of the deep forest,” it replied, “the ones who walk between the trees. Your names—Bigfoot, Sasquatch—they’re as good as any.”
I was captivated, my curiosity overwhelming my initial fear. We talked about its life, its history, and the world it inhabited. I learned that it had separated from its family long ago, migrating south to avoid human expansion. I felt a kinship with this creature, both of us navigating the complexities of existence in our respective worlds.
But then, as our conversation deepened, I noticed something alarming. My Sony recorder was still sitting on the rock where I had placed it, the red recording light illuminated. Panic surged through me as I realized I had captured our entire exchange. The creature’s demeanor shifted instantly, its voice turning cold. “You’re recording this?” it asked, not as a question but as a statement of fact.
“Yes, but I didn’t mean to—” I stammered, my heart racing. “I set it up to capture forest sounds. I forgot it was running.”
The creature took a step toward me, and instinctively, I backed away. “To take evidence back to your world that we’re real? To become famous as the man who proved Bigfoot exists?”
“No! I wouldn’t do that!” I pleaded, desperation clawing at my throat. “I swear, I wasn’t trying to capture proof of your existence. I just wanted to document the forest!”
The creature’s eyes narrowed, its voice growing louder. “You’re a photographer. Your profession is documentation, proof, evidence. And now you have 90 minutes of me speaking English on tape. Do you have any idea what that’s worth?”
I felt the weight of its words settle heavily in the air between us. I could claim the recorder malfunctioned, run back to my Bronco, and drive away with the most significant recording in cryptozoological history. Fame, fortune, recognition—all within my grasp. But at what cost?
“I won’t use it,” I said desperately. “I’ll erase it right now!” I moved toward the recorder, but the creature was faster, snatching it from the rock and examining it with surprising gentleness. “Your word?” it asked, skepticism lacing its tone. “The word of a human I’ve known for less than an hour?”
“Because I respect you,” I insisted, my voice steadying. “You trusted me enough to talk to me, and I won’t betray that trust. I understand what it means to be lonely, to seek connection.”
The creature studied me, its expression softening slightly. “You understand loneliness,” it said, almost as if it were considering my offer. “Yes, I spend most of my time alone in the wilderness. My friends don’t understand why I prefer forests to bars, why I’d rather photograph birds than go to parties.”
We stood there, human and Sasquatch, locked in a moment that would define both our futures. Finally, the creature held out the recorder to me. “Take it,” it said. I reached out carefully, taking the device from its hand. Our fingers brushed, and I felt the warmth radiating from its skin.
“I’m going to trust you, Vincent Holloway,” the creature said. “Not because I’m certain you’ll honor your word, but because I want to believe that some humans are still capable of putting ethics above opportunity.”
“I am,” I vowed. “I promise you I am.”
“Then prove it. Erase that tape now while I watch.” I looked down at the recorder, at the cassette still turning inside it. This was it—the moment of decision. I pressed the stop button, the tape ceased moving, then I pressed rewind, watching as it spooled backward, erasing every word of our conversation.
The creature watched in silence as the tape rewound completely, erasing every sound of its voice. When the rewind finished, I pressed play. Static. Nothing but static. I ejected the cassette and held it out to the creature. “Here, you can keep it if you want or destroy it. Whatever makes you feel safer.”
The creature took the cassette and turned it over in its large hands, examining it. Then, with sudden force, it crushed the cassette between its palms. Plastic shattered, tape spilled out in long ribbons, and the creature let the pieces fall to the ground. “Thank you,” it said quietly.
We stood there for a moment longer, and then the creature spoke again, its voice returning to that earlier conversational tone. “I misjudged you. You chose integrity over profit. That’s rare, especially in your society where everything seems to have a price.”
“Not everything,” I replied. “Some things are more valuable than money.”
“Yes.” The creature looked around at the forest, at the creek, at the mountains rising in the distance. “I should go. It’s not safe for us to spend too much time together. The longer we talk, the greater the chance someone else will come along.”
“Will I ever see you again?” I asked, surprising myself with the question.
“Perhaps. If you come back to this valley, stay respectful and quiet. I may visit you again, but no recording devices, no cameras pointed in my direction. Just conversation if that’s acceptable.”
“More than acceptable. I’d like that.” The creature nodded, then began to turn away, but paused and looked back at me one last time. “What you did today—keeping your word, erasing that tape—took courage. It also took something else: recognition that some beings have the right to remain hidden, to exist on their own terms without human documentation and interference.”
“I will,” I promised again.
Walker reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, just as it had done in 1984. The touch was warm and real, full of unspoken meaning. Then Walker turned and walked back into the forest, disappearing into the darkness between the trees.
I stood there for a long time after Walker left, looking up at the stars, listening to the night sounds of the forest. The same sounds I had heard 45 years ago by that creek when I made a choice that defined the rest of my life. I packed up my equipment, the bear never returned, and I no longer cared about getting photographs.
What I had experienced was so much more significant than any image I could have captured. I hiked back to my Bronco as the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. When I reached my vehicle, I sat in the driver’s seat for a while, just thinking before starting the engine and beginning the long drive back to Portland.
On the drive home, I listened to the radio. Paul McCartney’s “Coming Up” was playing, and I thought about what the creature had said about loneliness, about trust, about the value of keeping some things hidden. I thought about the choice I had made and whether I would regret it later. I didn’t regret it. Not then, and not in all the years that followed.
When I got back to my apartment in Portland around 11 p.m., I developed the film from that day. The photographs of the bear were good—some of the best wildlife shots I had taken all year. I sent them to *Outdoor Life* magazine the following week, and they published them in their October issue, with a nice check that helped pay my rent for two months. But the photographs felt less important now.
They were just images, just documentation of the natural world that anyone with patience and a good camera could capture. What I had experienced with the creature was unique, irreplaceable, something that couldn’t be reduced to film or tape.
I returned to that valley three weeks later in early August. I hiked to the same creek, set up in the same spot, and waited. I brought no recording equipment, no special cameras—just myself and a thermos of coffee. Around noon, the creature appeared, stepping out of the forest as casually as if we had arranged to meet.
“You came back,” it said.
“I said I would.” We talked for hours that day. The creature eventually told me I could call it Walker, a name it had chosen for itself after listening to humans discuss names and their meanings. It asked me questions about human society, about technology, about politics and culture. It was fascinated by the upcoming presidential election, by the Iran hostage crisis that had dominated the news for months, by the ways humans organized themselves into nations and governments.
Walker told me about growing up in the forests of British Columbia in the 1930s, about migrating south with its family group during World War II when logging operations expanded dramatically to supply timber for the war effort. “We could hear the war even in the deep forest,” Walker said. “Aircraft flying overhead, increased human activity, the sound of distant explosions from military training exercises. It was a frightening time for us.”
Walker spoke about the difficulty of survival in an increasingly human-dominated landscape. “When I was young, there were perhaps 200 of us in the Pacific Northwest. Now, maybe 60 or 70 at most. Your species expands. Ours contracts. It’s the natural order of things.”
Our friendship, despite the impossibility of it, became one of the most important relationships in my life. Walker was wise, patient, and genuinely interested in understanding human nature. I learned more about philosophy and ethics from those conversations in the forest than I ever had in school.
But nothing lasts forever. In the spring of 1984, I arrived at our usual meeting place to find Walker already there and immediately knew something was wrong. The creature looked thinner than usual, and there was a wound on its left arm, a deep gash that looked infected.
“What happened?” I asked, alarmed.
“A trap,” Walker said quietly. “I was traveling through a clear-cut area two valleys over, foraging for early mushrooms, and I stepped into a bear trap someone had set illegally. It took me an hour to free myself.”
I could see the injury was serious. The trap had cut through skin and muscle, and the wound was inflamed, oozing. Walker needed medical attention, but obviously couldn’t walk into a hospital.
“I have first aid supplies in my truck,” I said. “Let me get them. I can clean that wound. Bandage it properly.”
“No, Vincent. It’s too risky for you to be seen carrying medical supplies into the forest. Someone might wonder what you’re treating.”
“I don’t care. You need help.”
We argued about it, but eventually Walker relented. I hiked quickly back to my Bronco. I was driving a newer model by then, a 1982 version in blue and white, and grabbed my expanded first aid kit. I cleaned the wound as best I could, applied antibiotic ointment, and wrapped it in gauze and bandages.
Walker sat patiently through the process, though I could see the pain in its eyes. “You should rest,” I told Walker when I’d finished. “Let this heal. Don’t push yourself.”
“I can’t rest,” Walker said. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve been putting off.”
It paused, and I saw something in those intelligent eyes that I’d never seen before. Fear. “I’m leaving, Vincent, permanently. I’m migrating north back to Canada, possibly all the way to Alaska.”
My stomach dropped. “Why? Is it because of the trap?”
“The trap is a symptom of the larger problem. This area is becoming too developed, too populated. There are too many logging roads, too many hikers, too many people setting traps and hunting in areas they shouldn’t. Five years ago, I could move through these mountains and encounter humans once a month. Now, it’s once a week. It’s not safe anymore.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Soon, within the month. I wanted to say goodbye properly, to thank you for these years of conversation. You’ve been a good friend, Vincent, better than I expected any human could be.”
I felt tears in my eyes, and I didn’t try to hide them. “You’ve been a good friend to me, too. The best friend I’ve had. Honestly, I’m going to miss our talks.”
“As will I, but this is necessary. My survival depends on remaining hidden, and that’s becoming impossible here.”
We sat together for a long time that day, not talking much, just sharing space. When the sun began to set and I had to leave, Walker stood and placed one massive hand on my shoulder. “Live well, Vincent Holloway. Remember what we talked about, the value of wild places, the importance of leaving some things undocumented and unknown. Carry those lessons forward.”
“I will. I promise.”
That was the last time I saw Walker. I returned to the valley several times over the following months, hoping for one more meeting, but the creature never appeared. Eventually, I accepted that Walker was truly gone, had migrated north to safer territory, and I was left with only memories of our impossible friendship.
Life moved forward, as it always does. I continued working as a nature photographer through the 1980s and into the 1990s, building a solid reputation and eventually publishing three books of wilderness photography. I never married, never had children, preferring instead to spend my time in the forests and mountains that had always felt more like home than any building could.
The conversations with Walker changed me in fundamental ways. I became an advocate for wilderness preservation, donating portions of my photography income to conservation organizations. I wrote articles arguing for leaving certain areas undeveloped, for respecting the wild places that still existed. I never mentioned Walker, never hinted at the real reason for my passion. But those who knew me recognized that something had shifted in my perspective after 1980.
My parents passed away in the early 1990s. My father in 1991 from a heart attack. My mother in 1993 from cancer. At their funerals, relatives asked me about my life, why I’d never settled down, why I was still wandering around in the woods at 40 years old. I tried to explain that I had settled down, just not in the way they understood. The wilderness was my home. The forests were my family.
In 1995, when I was 42, I made a decision that surprised everyone who knew me. I sold my apartment in Portland and bought a small cabin on 5 acres of forested land in the Cascade Foothills about 90 miles east of the city. The property was remote, accessible only by a rough dirt road with no neighbors within 2 miles. It was perfect.
I spent the next 30 years living there, supporting myself through photography sales, book royalties, and eventually some teaching. I gave workshops on nature photography that attracted students from around the country. But mostly, I lived quietly, watching the seasons change, observing the wildlife that passed through my property, and remembering the conversations I had had with a creature that most people believed was a myth.
I never told anyone about Walker. Not my parents before they died. Not my few close friends. Not the students who came to my workshops asking about my most memorable wildlife encounters. The secret stayed locked inside me, a private treasure that I promised to protect.
But I thought about Walker often, especially on quiet evenings when I’d sit on my cabin porch with a cup of coffee, listening to the forest sounds. I wondered if Walker had made it to Canada or Alaska, if the creature had found safer territory, if there were still wild places remote enough for beings like Walker to survive. I wondered if Walker ever thought about me, about our conversations by that creek in 1980.
The world changed dramatically during those decades. The internet arrived, transforming how information spread. Cell phones became ubiquitous, giving everyone the ability to document and share instantly. Trail cameras proliferated in forests, automatically photographing anything that moved. Drones began flying over wilderness areas equipped with high-resolution cameras. The world became smaller, more documented, more connected, and I worried constantly about Walker and others like it, about how they could possibly survive in an era when privacy and anonymity were disappearing.
I’m 72 years old now, living in the same cabin I bought in 1995. My hair is white, my joints ache on cold mornings, and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I still photograph the natural world, though I use digital cameras now instead of film. The technology has changed, but the essential act of witnessing and documenting nature remains the same.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that day in 1980 when I erased the recording of Walker’s voice, about the choice I made and whether it was the right one. In the 45 years since then, Bigfoot has remained a mystery, a legend, something people argue about but never prove. There have been hoaxes, blurry photographs, dubious videos, but never the kind of concrete evidence that would force science to acknowledge their existence. And I could have changed that. I had 90 minutes of a Sasquatch speaking perfect English on tape, and I erased it.
Some people might say I made the wrong choice, that I deprived humanity of crucial knowledge, that I put one creature’s privacy above the advancement of science and understanding. They might argue that proving Bigfoot exists could have led to habitat protection, to conservation efforts, to legal protections for the species. But I know Walker was right. A tape like that wouldn’t have led to protection. It would have led to a manhunt, or rather a Sasquatch hunt.
Every forest in the Pacific Northwest would have been flooded with researchers, hunters, curiosity seekers, all desperate to be the first to capture one. The military might have gotten involved, treating them as potential security threats or biological specimens to study. Walker’s worst fears would have come true. I made the right choice. I’m certain of that now more than ever.
Last week, something remarkable happened. I was sitting on my porch in the early evening, watching the sunset paint the sky orange and purple, when I heard a sound from the forest behind my cabin—a low, resonant vocalization that I hadn’t heard in 45 years, but recognized immediately. I stood up slowly, my heart pounding, and walked to the edge of my clearing.
And there, standing in the shadows between the trees, was a figure I’d thought I’d never see again. Walker looked older, the hair more gray than brown now, the face more lined, the movement slightly stiffer, but the eyes were the same—intelligent and aware, watching me with recognition and something that might have been affection.
“Hello, Vincent,” Walker said, the voice deeper than I remembered, but unmistakably the same. I found myself crying, tears running down my weathered face, unable to speak for a moment. Then I managed to say, “I thought you were gone. I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I almost didn’t come back. It’s not safe even here. But I’m old now, and I wanted to see you one more time before…” Walker paused. “Before my time ends. We don’t live forever, Vincent. Even my kind has limits.”
We talked for hours that evening, catching up on 45 years. Walker had made it to British Columbia, had lived in remote areas of the coast mountains, had survived, and even found others of its kind. “There are more of us than I thought,” Walker told me. “Perhaps 150 in Canada and Alaska, living in the most remote areas. We’ve become very good at staying hidden.”
I told Walker about my life, about the cabin, about my continued photography work, about how I’d never forgotten our conversations or broken my promise to keep Walker’s existence secret. “I knew you wouldn’t,” Walker said. “That’s why I trusted you. That’s why I’m here now.”
As the moon rose and the stars appeared, Walker stood to leave. “This is goodbye, Vincent. Truly goodbye this time. I won’t be back. I’m too old for travel now. And this journey from Canada took everything I had.”
“But I wanted you to know that what we shared in 1980, those conversations, they mattered to me. They gave me hope that your species isn’t completely lost. That some humans still understand the value of mystery and wildness.”
“They mattered to me, too,” I said, “more than I can express. You changed my life, Walker. You taught me what really matters.”
Walker nodded slowly. “Then my risk in approaching you all those years ago was worthwhile. Live well, Vincent Holloway. Whatever time you have left, spend it wisely. Protect the wild places. Tell the stories that need telling and keep our secret.”
“I will. I promise again.”
Walker reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, just as it had done in 1984. The touch was warm and real, full of unspoken meaning. Then Walker turned and walked back into the forest, disappearing into the darkness between the trees.
I stood there for a long time after Walker left, looking up at the stars, listening to the night sounds of the forest, the same sounds I had heard 45 years ago by that creek when I made a choice that defined the rest of my life. I packed up my equipment, the bear never returned, and I no longer cared about getting photographs.
What I had experienced was so much more significant than any image I could have captured. I hiked back to my Bronco as the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. When I reached my vehicle, I sat in the driver’s seat for a while, just thinking before starting the engine and beginning the long drive back to Portland.
On the drive home, I listened to the radio. Paul McCartney’s “Coming Up” was playing, and I thought about what the creature had said about loneliness, about trust, about the value of keeping some things hidden. I thought about the choice I had made and whether I would regret it later. I didn’t regret it. Not then, and not in all the years that followed.
When I got back to my apartment in Portland around 11 p.m., I developed the film from that day. The photographs of the bear were good—some of the best wildlife shots I had taken all year. I sent them to *Outdoor Life* magazine the following week, and they published them in their October issue, with a nice check that helped pay my rent for two months. But the photographs felt less important now.
They were just images, just documentation of the natural world that anyone with patience and a good camera could capture. What I had experienced with the creature was unique, irreplaceable, something that couldn’t be reduced to film or tape.
I returned to that valley three weeks later in early August. I hiked to the same creek, set up in the same spot, and waited. I brought no recording equipment, no special cameras—just myself and a thermos of coffee. Around noon, the creature appeared, stepping out of the forest as casually as if we had arranged to meet.
“You came back,” it said.
“I said I would.” We talked for hours that day. The creature eventually told me I could call it Walker, a name it had chosen for itself after listening to humans discuss names and their meanings. It asked me questions about human society, about technology, about politics and culture. It was fascinated by the upcoming presidential election, by the Iran hostage crisis that had dominated the news for months, by the ways humans organized themselves into nations and governments.
Walker told me about growing up in the forests of British Columbia in the 1930s, about migrating south with its family group during World War II when logging operations expanded dramatically to supply timber for the war effort. “We could hear the war even in the deep forest,” Walker said. “Aircraft flying overhead, increased human activity, the sound of distant explosions from military training exercises. It was a frightening time for us.”
Walker spoke about the difficulty of survival in an increasingly human-dominated landscape. “When I was young, there were perhaps 200 of us in the Pacific Northwest. Now, maybe 60 or 70 at most. Your species expands. Ours contracts. It’s the natural order of things.”
Our friendship, despite the impossibility of it, became one of the most important relationships in my life. Walker was wise, patient, and genuinely interested in understanding human nature. I learned more about philosophy and ethics from those conversations in the forest than I ever had in school.
But nothing lasts forever. In the spring of 1984, I arrived at our usual meeting place to find Walker already there and immediately knew something was wrong. The creature looked thinner than usual, and there was a wound on its left arm, a deep gash that looked infected.
“What happened?” I asked, alarmed.
“A trap,” Walker said quietly. “I was traveling through a clear-cut area two valleys over, foraging for early mushrooms, and I stepped into a bear trap someone had set illegally. It took me an hour to free myself.”
I could see the injury was serious. The trap had cut through skin and muscle, and the wound was inflamed, oozing. Walker needed medical attention, but obviously couldn’t walk into a hospital.
“I have first aid supplies in my truck,” I said. “Let me get them. I can clean that wound. Bandage it properly.”
“No, Vincent. It’s too risky for you to be seen carrying medical supplies into the forest. Someone might wonder what you’re treating.”
“I don’t care. You need help.”
We argued about it, but eventually Walker relented. I hiked quickly back to my Bronco. I was driving a newer model by then, a 1982 version in blue and white, and grabbed my expanded first aid kit. I cleaned the wound as best I could, applied antibiotic ointment, and wrapped it in gauze and bandages.
Walker sat patiently through the process, though I could see the pain in its eyes. “You should rest,” I told Walker when I’d finished. “Let this heal. Don’t push yourself.”
“I can’t rest,” Walker said. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve been putting off.”
It paused, and I saw something in those intelligent eyes that I’d never seen before. Fear. “I’m leaving, Vincent, permanently. I’m migrating north back to Canada, possibly all the way to Alaska.”
My stomach dropped. “Why? Is it because of the trap?”
“The trap is a symptom of the larger problem. This area is becoming too developed, too populated. There are too many logging roads, too many hikers, too many people setting traps and hunting in areas they shouldn’t. Five years ago, I could move through these mountains and encounter humans once a month. Now, it’s once a week. It’s not safe anymore.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Soon, within the month. I wanted to say goodbye properly, to thank you for these years of conversation. You’ve been a good friend, Vincent, better than I expected any human could be.”
I felt tears in my eyes, and I didn’t try to hide them. “You’ve been a good friend to me, too. The best friend I’ve had. Honestly, I’m going to miss our talks.”
“As will I, but this is necessary. My survival depends on remaining hidden, and that’s becoming impossible here.”
We sat together for a long time that day, not talking much, just sharing space. When the sun began to set and I had to leave, Walker stood and placed one massive hand on my shoulder. “Live well, Vincent Holloway. Remember what we talked about, the value of wild places, the importance of leaving some things undocumented and unknown. Carry those lessons forward.”
“I will. I promise.”
That was the last time I saw Walker. I returned to the valley several times over the following months, hoping for one more meeting, but the creature never appeared. Eventually, I accepted that Walker was truly gone, had migrated north to safer territory, and I was left with only memories of our impossible friendship.
Life moved forward, as it always does. I continued working as a nature photographer through the 1980s and into the 1990s, building a solid reputation and eventually publishing three books of wilderness photography. I never married, never had children, preferring instead to spend my time in the forests and mountains that had always felt more like home than any building could.
The conversations with Walker changed me in fundamental ways. I became an advocate for wilderness preservation, donating portions of my photography income to conservation organizations. I wrote articles arguing for leaving certain areas undeveloped, for respecting the wild places that still existed. I never mentioned Walker, never hinted at the real reason for my passion. But those who knew me recognized that something had shifted in my perspective after 1980.
My parents passed away in the early 1990s. My father in 1991 from a heart attack. My mother in 1993 from cancer. At their funerals, relatives asked me about my life, why I’d never settled down, why I was still wandering around in the woods at 40 years old. I tried to explain that I had settled down, just not in the way they understood. The wilderness was my home. The forests were my family.
In 1995, when I was 42, I made a decision that surprised everyone who knew me. I sold my apartment in Portland and bought a small cabin on 5 acres of forested land in the Cascade Foothills about 90 miles east of the city. The property was remote, accessible only by a rough dirt road with no neighbors within 2 miles. It was perfect.
I spent the next 30 years living there, supporting myself through photography sales, book royalties, and eventually some teaching. I gave workshops on nature photography that attracted students from around the country. But mostly, I lived quietly, watching the seasons change, observing the wildlife that passed through my property, and remembering the conversations I had had with a creature that most people believed was a myth.
I never told anyone about Walker. Not my parents before they died. Not my few close friends. Not the students who came to my workshops asking about my most memorable wildlife encounters. The secret stayed locked inside me, a private treasure that I promised to protect.
But I thought about Walker often, especially on quiet evenings when I’d sit on my cabin porch with a cup of coffee, listening to the forest sounds. I wondered if Walker had made it to Canada or Alaska, if the creature had found safer territory, if there were still wild places remote enough for beings like Walker to survive. I wondered if Walker ever thought about me, about our conversations by that creek in 1980.
The world changed dramatically during those decades. The internet arrived, transforming how information spread. Cell phones became ubiquitous, giving everyone the ability to document and share instantly. Trail cameras proliferated in forests, automatically photographing anything that moved. Drones began flying over wilderness areas equipped with high-resolution cameras. The world became smaller, more documented, more connected, and I worried constantly about Walker and others like it, about how they could possibly survive in an era when privacy and anonymity were disappearing.
I’m 72 years old now, living in the same cabin I bought in 1995. My hair is white, my joints ache on cold mornings, and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I still photograph the natural world, though I use digital cameras now instead of film. The technology has changed, but the essential act of witnessing and documenting nature remains the same.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that day in 1980 when I erased the recording of Walker’s voice, about the choice I made and whether it was the right one. In the 45 years since then, Bigfoot has remained a mystery, a legend, something people argue about but never prove. There have been hoaxes, blurry photographs, dubious videos, but never the kind of concrete evidence that would force science to acknowledge their existence. And I could have changed that. I had 90 minutes of a Sasquatch speaking perfect English on tape, and I erased it.
Some people might say I made the wrong choice, that I deprived humanity of crucial knowledge, that I put one creature’s privacy above the advancement of science and understanding. They might argue that proving Bigfoot exists could have led to habitat protection, to conservation efforts, to legal protections for the species. But I know Walker was right. A tape like that wouldn’t have led to protection. It would have led to a manhunt, or rather a Sasquatch hunt.
Every forest in the Pacific Northwest would have been flooded with researchers, hunters, curiosity seekers, all desperate to be the first to capture one. The military might have gotten involved, treating them as potential security threats or biological specimens to study. Walker’s worst fears would have come true. I made the right choice. I’m certain of that now more than ever.
Last week, something remarkable happened. I was sitting on my porch in the early evening, watching the sunset paint the sky orange and purple, when I heard a sound from the forest behind my cabin—a low, resonant vocalization that I hadn’t heard in 45 years, but recognized immediately. I stood up slowly, my heart pounding, and walked to the edge of my clearing.
And there, standing in the shadows between the trees, was a figure I’d thought I’d never see again. Walker looked older, the hair more gray than brown now, the face more lined, the movement slightly stiffer, but the eyes were the same—intelligent and aware, watching me with recognition and something that might have been affection.
“Hello, Vincent,” Walker said, the voice deeper than I remembered, but unmistakably the same. I found myself crying, tears running down my weathered face, unable to speak for a moment. Then I managed to say, “I thought you were gone. I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I almost didn’t come back. It’s not safe even here. But I’m old now, and I wanted to see you one more time before…” Walker paused. “Before my time ends. We don’t live forever, Vincent. Even my kind has limits.”
We talked for hours that evening, catching up on 45 years. Walker had made it to British Columbia, had lived in remote areas of the coast mountains, had survived, and even found others of its kind. “There are more of us than I thought,” Walker told me. “Perhaps 150 in Canada and Alaska, living in the most remote areas. We’ve become very good at staying hidden.”
I told Walker about my life, about the cabin, about my continued photography work, about how I’d never forgotten our conversations or broken my promise to keep Walker’s existence secret. “I knew you wouldn’t,” Walker said. “That’s why I trusted you. That’s why I’m here now.”
As the moon rose and the stars appeared, Walker stood to leave. “This is goodbye, Vincent. Truly goodbye this time. I won’t be back. I’m too old for travel now. And this journey from Canada took everything I had.”
“But I wanted you to know that what we shared in 1980, those conversations, they mattered to me. They gave me hope that your species isn’t completely lost. That some humans still understand the value of mystery and wildness.”
“They mattered to me, too,” I said, “more than I can express. You changed my life, Walker. You taught me what really matters.”
Walker nodded slowly. “Then my risk in approaching you all those years ago was worthwhile. Live well, Vincent Holloway. Whatever time you have left, spend it wisely. Protect the wild places. Tell the stories that need telling and keep our secret.”
“I will. I promise again.”
Walker reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, just as it had done in 1984. The touch was warm and real, full of unspoken meaning. Then Walker turned and walked back into the forest, disappearing into the darkness between the trees.
I stood there for a long time after Walker left, looking up at the stars, listening to the night sounds of the forest, the same sounds I had heard 45 years ago by that creek when I made a choice that defined the rest of my life. I packed up my equipment, the bear never returned, and I no longer cared about getting photographs.
What I had experienced was so much more significant than any image I could have captured. I hiked back to my Bronco as the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. When I reached my vehicle, I sat in the driver’s seat for a while, just thinking before starting the engine and beginning the long drive back to Portland.
On the drive home, I listened to the radio. Paul McCartney’s “Coming Up” was playing, and I thought about what the creature had said about loneliness, about trust, about the value of keeping some things hidden. I thought about the choice I had made and whether I would regret it later. I didn’t regret it. Not then, and not in all the years that followed.
When I got back to my apartment in Portland around 11 p.m., I developed the film from that day. The photographs of the bear were good—some of the best wildlife shots I had taken all year. I sent them to *Outdoor Life* magazine the following week, and they published them in their October issue, with a nice check that helped pay my rent for two months. But the photographs felt less important now.
They were just images, just documentation of the natural world that anyone with patience and a good camera could capture. What I had experienced with the creature was unique, irreplaceable, something that couldn’t be reduced to film or tape.
I returned to that valley three weeks later in early August. I hiked to the same creek, set up in the same spot, and waited. I brought no recording equipment, no special cameras—just myself and a thermos of coffee. Around noon, the creature appeared, stepping out of the forest as casually as if we had arranged to meet.
“You came back,” it said.
“I said I would.” We talked for hours that day. The creature eventually told me I could call it Walker, a name it had chosen for itself after listening to humans discuss names and their meanings. It asked me questions about human society, about technology, about politics and culture. It was fascinated by the upcoming presidential election, by the Iran hostage crisis that had dominated the news for months, by the ways humans organized themselves into nations and governments.
Walker told me about growing up in the forests of British Columbia in the 1930s, about migrating south with its family group during World War II when logging operations expanded dramatically to supply timber for the war effort. “We could hear the war even in the deep forest,” Walker said. “Aircraft flying overhead, increased human activity, the sound of distant explosions from military training exercises. It was a frightening time for us.”
Walker spoke about the difficulty of survival in an increasingly human-dominated landscape. “When I was young, there were perhaps 200 of us in the Pacific Northwest. Now, maybe 60 or 70 at most. Your species expands. Ours contracts. It’s the natural order of things.”
Our friendship, despite the impossibility of it, became one of the most important relationships in my life. Walker was wise, patient, and genuinely interested in understanding human nature. I learned more about philosophy and ethics from those conversations in the forest than I ever had in school.
But nothing lasts forever. In the spring of 1984, I arrived at our usual meeting place to find Walker already there and immediately knew something was wrong. The creature looked thinner than usual, and there was a wound on its left arm, a deep gash that looked infected.
“What happened?” I asked, alarmed.
“A trap,” Walker said quietly. “I was traveling through a clear-cut area two valleys over, foraging for early mushrooms, and I stepped into a bear trap someone had set illegally. It took me an hour to free myself.”
I could see the injury was serious. The trap had cut through skin and muscle, and the wound was inflamed, oozing. Walker needed medical attention, but obviously couldn’t walk into a hospital.
“I have first aid supplies in my truck,” I said. “Let me get them. I can clean that wound. Bandage it properly.”
“No, Vincent. It’s too risky for you to be seen carrying medical supplies into the forest. Someone might wonder what you’re treating.”
“I don’t care. You need help.”
We argued about it, but eventually Walker relented. I hiked quickly back to my Bronco. I was driving a newer model by then, a 1982 version in blue and white, and grabbed my expanded first aid kit. I cleaned the wound as best I could, applied antibiotic ointment, and wrapped it in gauze and bandages.
Walker sat patiently through the process, though I could see the pain in its eyes. “You should rest,” I told Walker when I’d finished. “Let this heal. Don’t push yourself.”
“I can’t rest,” Walker said. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve been putting off.”
It paused, and I saw something in those intelligent eyes that I’d never seen before. Fear. “I’m leaving, Vincent, permanently. I’m migrating north back to Canada, possibly all the way to Alaska.”
My stomach dropped. “Why? Is it because of the trap?”
“The trap is a symptom of the larger problem. This area is becoming too developed, too populated. There are too many logging roads, too many hikers, too many people setting traps and hunting in areas they shouldn’t. Five years ago, I could move through these mountains and encounter humans once a month. Now, it’s once a week. It’s not safe anymore.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Soon, within the month. I wanted to say goodbye properly, to thank you for these years of conversation. You’ve been a good friend, Vincent, better than I expected any human could be.”
I felt tears in my eyes, and I didn’t try to hide them. “You’ve been a good friend to me, too. The best friend I’ve had. Honestly, I’m going to miss our talks.”
“As will I, but this is necessary. My survival depends on remaining hidden, and that’s becoming impossible here.”
We sat together for a long time that day, not talking much, just sharing space. When the sun began to set and I had to leave, Walker stood and placed one massive hand on my shoulder. “Live well, Vincent Holloway. Remember what we talked about, the value of wild places, the importance of leaving some things undocumented and unknown.
