 |
| The mask disappeared in 1939 from Sts’ailes First Nation, near Harrison Hot Springs in B.C.’s Fraser Valley. |
The Vancouver Sun tracks interesting Bigfoot news as a man's journeys across nations and decades to find a mask that was rumored to be taken by a man consumed and obsessed by the Sasquatch legend. Read an excerpt from the story below.
VANCOUVER - Hunting for an elusive sasquatch mask revered by a British Columbia First Nation has been a 16-year journey for James Leon, taking him through London, Boston, New York and Ottawa.
In the end, all it took was a question to the lady sitting next to him at a Vancouver event that led him to his nation's Sasq'ets mask that vanished 75 years ago.
Leon was at a repatriation event for another First Nations artifact held by the Vancouver Museum when he asked the lady sitting beside him if she knew of the ape-like mask partially covered in bear fur.
"Her eyes lit up and she said 'We were just looking at that mask the other day.' And they were gracious enough to go get it for me," he said with a chuckle.
The mask disappeared in 1939 from Sts'ailes First Nation, near Harrison Hot Springs in B.C.'s Fraser Valley.
Community elders told Leon that the mask had been taken by J.W. Burns, a teacher at the Chehalis Indian Day School, and a man obsessed with the sasquatch legend.
Burns, who is often credited for bringing the word "sasquatch" into common use, donated the mask to the Vancouver Museum.
Leon took the job of finding the mask seriously and learned it had been on travelling display. He searched through the archives of several museum's known for having artifacts from British Columbia.
While all those elders are gone, he said they'd be pleased the mask has been returned.
"We do burning for the sasquatch. It's our belief that his primary role is to ensure that the land is being taken care of. Because everyone of us, as Sts'ailes people, we carry an ancestral name, a rich name from the land."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Let's keep the language clean, keep in mind we have younger fans and we want to make this the best bigfoot website for bigfoot news and bigfoot research.