Page 32 - AT

A32 FEATURE
Monday 21 october 2019
Roadside Bigfoot: Georgia museum devoted to legendary beast

By PAUL NEWBERRY was summoned by a Flori-
Associated Press da man who had spotted
CHERRY LOG, Ga. (AP) strange creatures on his
— Along a bustling four- property. Using a thermal
lane highway that winds imager, he and his team
through the north Georgia were able to make out a
mountains, an unassuming pair of creatures emerging
wooden structure breaks from a nearby swamp.
the monotony of churches, "We took turns looking at
billboards and stores selling them," he says. "They finally
kitschy knickknacks. figured out we could see
Once a BYOB supper club, them, so they left."
it's now ground zero in the Bakara could talk all day
search for a legendary about what's become his
beast. Welcome to Expedi- life's work but clams up on
tion: Bigfoot! The Sasquatch the most obvious questions:
Museum. "I can remember What is Bigfoot?
my great-grandmother Where did it come from?
talking about having a "That's a secret we're not
cabin in the woods, and supposed to know about,"
she saw Sasquatch," says he replies ominously.
Sherry Gaskinn of Villa Rica, Bakara implies that the
Georgia, who was driving This Aug. 8, 2019, photo shows Bigfoot masks on display at Expedition: Bigfoot! The Sasquatch creatures are the unin-
by one afternoon and had Museum in Cherry Log, Ga. tended consequence of
to stop in. "I've always been Associated Press a government experiment
curious." 57-year-old Bakara says. "I account. "I couldn't pull the with fame, Bakara is quick gone haywire, hinting that
Her husband, Phillip Blevins, was thinking, 'Maybe I can trigger because something to point out countless sight- his life would be disrupted if
lets out a skeptical chuckle. make this thing like a family told me this ain't right." ings the world over. he ever went public with his
"If it was up to me," he says, attraction.'" There's even a glass case In Australia, the mythical entire body of work.
"I'd already be on down Instead of Space Moun- claiming to hold feces col- creature is known as Yow- Bakara has been interest-
the road." tain, the attraction not far lected from a Sasquatch ie. In the Himalayas, they ed in Bigfoot since a young
The owner of this intriguing from the Tennessee state in Oregon. Believers con- call it Yeti. In Russia, it goes age, spurred on by early
piece of Americana at the line has an elaborate dis- tinually add to the already by Alma. Closer to home, news reports and the 1972
southern edge of the Ap- play of Bigfoot laying siege ample collection. On a re- there's the Florida Skunk cult classic "The Legend
palachians is David Bakara, to a remote cabin, with a cent day, the mail carrier Ape, the Georgia Booger, of Boggy Creek," a sort of
a longtime member of the hatchet-wielding manne- delivered two casts of foot- the Missouri Momo. docudrama about a Sas-
Bigfoot Field Researchers quin desperately trying to prints supposedly made by "There are several subspe- quatch-like creature sup-
Organization who served in bar the door as two hairy foreign Bigfoots. cies of these things," Bakara posedly hunkered down in
the Navy, drove long-haul paws burst over the top. "You want to see an Aus- claims, displaying nothing Arkansas.
trucks and tended bar be- Color-coded maps docu- tralian cast?" Bakara asks, but sincerity. "Some have He knows he'll never per-
fore opening the museum ment hundreds of alleged tearing into the package. short hair. Others have long, suade all the people —
in early 2016 with his wife, sightings, a towering re- He has filled up the former red flowing hair. Some are even most of the people —
Malinda. production depicts a hairy supper club and is planning multicolored, almost like of Bigfoot's existence, and
He's looking to provide 8-foot-tall beast, and the to expand his museum, a squirrel where's there's he's fine with that.
both entertainment and famed 1967 video of an which welcomes about gray and red and brown "Does everybody need
enlightenment in an area alleged Sasquatch sight- 50,000 visitors a year. mixed together. Some of to know everything you
known for apple orchards ing plays on a loop, along For those who think Bigfoot them have a very human- know?" Bakara asks. "No. It's
and blazing fall colors. with harrowing recollec- is a phenomenon con- like face. They just run the best they don't know.'
"I wanted to take what I tions from those who claim fined to the Pacific North- gamut." There are doubters, of
know about Bigfoot as an to have encountered a west, where that grainy He'll gladly tell you about course.
active researcher and in- Bigfoot. "The reason I didn't video from more than five the time he saw a pair of One person signed the
vestigator, but I'm also a shoot it is, it was just too hu- decades ago gave Sas- the elusive beasts. guestbook as "Bigfoot,"
huge Disney World fan," the man," a hunter says in one quatch its greatest brush In 2010, Bakara says, he listing his home as the
"Woods." In the section
that asks "How did you
hear about us," the visitor
writes: "People were tak-
ing my picture." But Bakara
says most visitors treat the
museum with respect, at
least while they're on the
grounds. "I'm just curious,"
says Angie Langellier, who
stopped in with her fam-
ily recently while passing
through on a trip from Illi-
nois. "So far, I've had noth-
ing that's convinced me.
"But obviously, a lot of
This Aug. 8, 2019, photo shows a plaster cast of footprints be- This Aug. 8, 2019, photo shows items donated by the family of people have seen a lot of
lieved to be made by a Bigfoot on display at Expedition: Bigfoot! Yeti researcher Tom Slick on display at Expedition: Bigfoot! The things that have convinced
The Sasquatch Museum in Cherry Log, Ga. Sasquatch Museum in Cherry Log, Ga.
Associated Press Associated Press them."q