Bigfoot lore alive in Estacada area

Long history of alleged encounters in Estacada

By Vanessa Van Voorhis

The Estacada News, Oct 1, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

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Kiggins sent a copy of her picture to Bigfoot hunter John Greene who later visited her with Roger Patterson, famous for the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film footage from 1967. KATU interviewed her, and she was included in a British television documentary. Her photograph was published in a book written by a wildlife biologist and in a fifth-grade textbook.

During the early 1970s, Estacada became a hotspot for Bigfoot enthusiasts. Scientists, hunters, trappers and the media came from throughout the country and across the sea in the hope of gathering evidence of the existence of an elusive, shadowy creature that walks the forest on two legs.

Many of the Bigfoot hunters also came looking for Kiggins. Eventually, the Estacada Police Department, back when Estacada had one, helped put a stop to it. “We had all sorts of crackpots up here,” she said, “and I guess I’m one of them, because I saw the tracks, but I can’t help that.”

For anonymous firsthand accounts of Bigfoot phenomena, enthusiasts can now peruse the databases of websites, such as oregonbigfoot.com and bigfootencounters.com that collectively contain approximately 40 reports for the Estacada area alone between 1912 and 2006

A U.S. Forest Service employee, who does not wish to be identified, said she has never taken a single Bigfoot report in the 12 years she has worked at the desk of the Clackamas River Ranger District office in Estacada,.

“We don’t have a book or a piece of paper that states sightings at all,” she said. She refused comment further for fear she would “get in trouble again.”

There is at least one highly photographed, easily accessible Bigfoot in Estacada — a menacing replica created by a chainsaw artist. It guards the entrance to Mike’s Second Hand Store and holds a sign warning potential shoplifters they will be eaten.

“I’ve heard second or third-hand stories,” storeowner Mike Doolittle said. “I would think that if there was a Bigfoot, I would’ve heard about it on the six o’clock news. I know Santa Claus is real, because I’ve seen him. I’ve never seen a Bigfoot.”

Kiggins has never seen Bigfoot either, and she is careful to emphasize that she is not exactly sure what created the strange tracks, the spooky sounds or the awful smell.

Although nearly 40 years have passed since she photographed the tracks in the snow, she still gets correspondence from Bigfoot enthusiasts. “I recently got a letter from a guy in England who wants to know about it,” she laughed. “I don’t know if I’m going to write back. It might be just another crackpot.”

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