GRAND RAPIDS — Northern Minnesota is a land of boreal forests, of lakeside mountains, of bogs. These wild lands are home to loons, moose, bears and, some believe, a breeding population of hairy, 7-foot hominids.
"The only thing I could describe it as is Chewbacca," said Lisa Muggli, who came to the Minnesota Bigfoot Conference on Oct. 8 with a story of spotting a creature outside her Cusson, Minnesota, home.
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"It walks like a person," explained Muggli, who said she's very familiar with bears and is certain this animal was different.
"They're out there," said organizer Abe Del Rio, addressing the conference's approximately 250 attendees during an opening town-hall session. "These are real. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be here talking about it."
Russell Acord, co-host of "Expedition Bigfoot" on the Travel Channel, said the Northland is a "perfect environment" for Sasquatch. "It's definitely dense enough, populated enough. Everything that you would need to survive on the land is here, and it's private. Heavily forested."
Acord was one of four keynote speakers at the conference, a project of Del Rio's Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team. Acord's "Expedition Bigfoot" castmate Mireya Mayor was also on the lineup.
"I'm definitely coming back. What a beautiful place," said Mayor, a well-known primatologist who was making her first visit to Minnesota. Mayor opened her presentation with a video clip of Jane Goodall acknowledging there might be some factual basis for eyewitness reports of Bigfoot.
"I actually started to feel kind of sorry for them," said Mayor, describing scientific colleagues who criticized her public participation in a Sasquatch search. "If at this point in your career, you have lost that curiosity and that sense of wonder, then you're not going to really be doing a very good job."
"I love Mireya," said Nicholas Victorino, who drove to the conference from Bloomington, Minnesota, with his husband, Spencer, and had no regrets. "It's really just awesome. We're four hours away from home, and just like the nice getaway."
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"We found footprints when I was 17, back in 1990 by Mt. Rainier. That was my experience, so I've been into it ever since," said Spencer Victorino, whose T-shirt identified him as "just a boy who loves Bigfoot."
Nicole Tischler and her father, Mike, both of Willow River, attended the conference together. "Father-daughter bonding was always this," said Nicole. "We'd go to Grandma and Grandpa's house and watch 'Finding Bigfoot' when I was little."
"We had something weird happen at our house last year that we can't explain," said Mike Tischler. "We live out in the woods in the middle of nowhere, and when something strange happens, it raises questions. You have to decide if you're crazy, or something explains it."
Presenters and vendors tabled along the walls of the Timberlake Lodge's Grand Event Center, selling everything from books ("Bigfoot and the Tripwire") to DVDs ("Beyond Bigfoot: A Lifetime of Experience") to water bottles ("Bigfoot saw me, but no one believes him") to footprint wall plaques ("hide and seek world champ").
A table selling Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team shirts ("Squatch on!") was doing brisk business. Del Rio reached behind the table for Bigfoot sport shakers ("spot me, bro") to award as participation prizes to three school-age children who were encouraged by their parents to participate in a Sasquatch calling contest. Two of the kids leaned into the microphone and summoned timid whoops; one declined, declaring that he simply didn't know how to make a Bigfoot sound.
Del Rio emceed the proceedings with the boundless enthusiasm, and the barrel-chested physique, of a grade school gym teacher. "It's OK," he assured one North Shore resident who hesitated to take the stage with her binder of evidence. "You're among people who are believers as well."
Speaker Cliff Barackman, proprietor of the North American Bigfoot Center in Boring, Oregon, cautioned attendees about relying on personal stories of Bigfoot encounters. "Words are essentially wind, and you can't catch wind," said Barackman, urging attendees to supplement their accounts with documentation like the numerous footprint photos he displayed onscreen.
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"A lot of people say, 'Oh, I think they migrate to the coast,'" said Barackman during his presentation. "What do you base that on? Gut feelings? That's cute. Why don't we use data instead?"
It was the third annual conference that Del Rio's presented in Grand Rapids. The Itasca County city sits in a swath of the state where Sasquatch sightings are commonly reported; 22 miles to the southwest, the city of Remer has officially declared itself "home of Bigfoot."
"By the grace of God," Del Rio said, his organization managed to host an initial conference in 2020 during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Hand sanitizers were all around, masks were being worn."
The public health situation was very different by this year's conference, but even so, "coming into a group like this makes me a little nervous," said Jerry Greenwood of Mora, Minnesota. COVID put him in a coma for three months, Greenwood said, and he didn't attend either of the previous conferences, but decided to attend this year since he's "constantly" on the lookout for Bigfoot.
"Call it what you may, a legend, a myth," said Greenwood, who said he's heard but not seen a Sasquatch. "I think there's a lot of truth to a lot of it. Look at the gathering of people here! There's definitely something to it."
This story was updated at 12:23 p.m. Oct. 17 to correct the name of the child pictured participating in a Bigfoot calling contest. It was originally published at 8 a.m. Oct. 14. The News Tribune regrets the error.
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