Media Article # 124
Article submitted by Richard Noll

Wednesday, March 17, 1971

Sasquatch Footprints Found Near Colville

AP

Colville, Wash. -

Even the skeptics now wonder if the elusive ape-like Sasquatch lurks in their midst.

To local believers, fresh reports Tuesday of the giant animal's presence simply confirm what they claim to have known all along:

That the creature known variously as the Sasquatch, Bigfoot or Ohma, roams the mountains near this Northwestern Washington logging town.

New so-called evidence Tuesday turned out both the skeptics and the believers.

Dozens of footprints - some measuring 16 inches long, with stride averaging about 50 inches - were found in grain fields and at the community dump in Arden, a village just south of Colville.

W. W. Wendt, a state wildlife agent, led a handful of persons to mystifying tracks at the dump.

There in semifrozen mud were numerous prints of a giant foot, complete with distinct toe outlines.

The left print showed the hint of what one investigator said was a malformation of the boxlike foot.

"They're definitely not bear tracks, or that of any other known animal," said Ivan Marx, a former big game guide turned professional Sasquatch hunter. Others agreed.

Marx, five helpers and several hunting dogs, are combing this area in a sort of minor Sasquatch expedition sponsored by the International Wildlife Conservation Society, Inc., of Washington, D.C.

The private foundation has financed a year-long search of this area for the Sasquatch.

"This animal weighs about 500 pounds," said Marx, studying the prints. "It's not nearly as big as the one I photographed."

Marx referred to a Sasquatch he claims he pictured on 16mm color film last fall in the mountains north of here near the Canadian border.

At the time he previewed the film for two newsmen and it has been seen by a number of local residents and Sasquatch buffs.

Others witnessing Tuesday's prints were William J. Harper. a U.S. Border Patrolman who, along with Wendt, spent their lunch hour investigating the tracks.

Marx said all prints in the area were made by the same animal.

The first prints made public this year were located Monday in the snow in the grainfield.

Ernie H. Sackman, a farmer who was loading hay nearby, said, "I hadn't seen the tracks, but they definitely weren't made by a man using a board to make the prints."

The band then was led to the dump where the mud prints were found. "He (Sasquatch) had been jollying around here," said Marx, referring to the scattered pattern of the tracks.

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