Bigfoot University 2017

​Bigfoot University 2017 — Sasquatch Syndicate at Team Squatchin USA, Bremerton WA

Let me just say this right up front: if you have never attended a Bigfoot conference, the Team Squatchin USA Bigfoot University at the Baymont Inn & Suites in Bremerton, Washington is an absolutely magnificent place to start. And if you have attended every Bigfoot conference on the circuit and think you've seen it all — Bremerton will find a way to surprise you. Trust me on that.

April 22nd through the 24th, 2017. Three days. The Kitsap Peninsula. A hotel conference room that somehow contained more genuine enthusiasm, more wild ideas, more heart, and more pure unfiltered love for this subject than most venues three times its size. Chuck, Paul, and the Sasquatch Syndicate team rolled in ready for a great weekend — and Bremerton delivered in every possible direction.

Team Squatchin USA, for those unfamiliar, operates under a philosophy that is distinct from the more traditionally science-driven corners of the Bigfoot research world. Their focus is habituation — the patient, respectful practice of building coexistence with Sasquatch rather than pursuing or proving them. Patience. Respect. Observation. Coexistence. Those four words were literally on the chalkboard in the Bigfoot University branding, and they weren't just marketing copy. They represented the genuine worldview of the people in that room, and it made for a community unlike any other in this field. You could feel it the moment you walked through the doors.

The speakers brought a fascinating range of perspectives across the three days — habituation researchers, witness testimony, field investigators, theorists covering everything from wildlife ecology to the far more expansive questions about what Sasquatch actually is and how it moves through the world. The conversation at Team Squatchin USA conferences has never been one-dimensional, and 2017 was no exception. You heard orthodox flesh-and-blood field research in the same hallway where someone was earnestly discussing interdimensional travel and forest portals. We cover that entire spectrum on the Syndicate, and we felt completely at home.

Now. We need to talk about the Sasquatch scanner.

We are still not entirely sure what to call it. Someone — a genuinely brilliant, clearly dedicated, absolutely committed individual — brought a homemade device to the conference that defied easy categorization. It appeared to be a combination of a radar station, a robot, and a washing machine, assembled with what we can only describe as extraordinary conviction and an impressive quantity of copper wire. It had dials. It had an antenna array. It emitted sounds. Whether it was designed to detect Sasquatch, communicate with Sasquatch, or simply intimidate Sasquatch into revealing itself, the inventor was willing to walk any interested party through the full technical specifications at considerable length. We were interested. We got the full briefing. We have no idea if it works. We hope it does. It was the most charismatic piece of equipment we have ever encountered at a conference table, and that is saying something because we have seen a lot of conference tables.

This is what we love about the Bigfoot community. Somewhere between the peer-reviewed academic research and the homemade Sasquatch-detecting appliances is a genuine, wide-open, intellectually alive conversation that you simply cannot have anywhere else. The willingness to entertain every theory, to take every experience seriously, to build a contraption in your garage and drive it to a hotel in Bremerton on the off chance that it might help — that spirit is something to be celebrated, not condescended to. We celebrate it.

The attendees at Bigfoot University 2017 came from all over the country. We met people from the deep South, from the Midwest, from the East Coast, from corners of the Pacific Northwest we'd never heard of. Every single one of them had a story. Many of them had multiple stories. And almost all of them, at some point over the three days, found their way to the Sasquatch Syndicate booth, where Chuck and Paul were doing what they do best — listening, talking, laughing, and connecting with the community that makes all of this worthwhile.

The photos we took that weekend. The conversations that spilled from the conference rooms into the hallways and the lobby and the parking lot under the Kitsap Peninsula sky. The moment someone walked past our booth carrying what appeared to be a Sasquatch call device fashioned from PVC pipe and sheer determination. The late-night discussions that wandered from track morphology to forest acoustics to the deeply personal question of what it actually means to believe something the rest of the world thinks is impossible.

This is the community. This is why we do what we do.

We want to take a moment to thank the organizers at Team Squatchin USA for everything they put into making Bigfoot University happen. Running a conference is not a small undertaking — the logistics, the speakers, the venue, the programming, the sheer organizational effort required to pull three days of this together — it takes real dedication and real love for the subject. You felt that love in every corner of the Baymont that weekend, and we are grateful to have been a part of it. The Bigfoot research community is better for having events like this, and better for having people willing to do the work to make them happen.

We'll be carrying memories from Bremerton for a long time. Some of them involving the scanner.

Learn. Share. Connect. Believe. — that's the Team Squatchin USA motto, and after a weekend like that one, we'd say they're living it.

See you out there.

By Chanelle Elaine, Chief Marketing Officer, Sasquatch Syndicate Inc.