The North American Bigfoot Center and Everyday Mystery
By Lorie Shaull
“The symbols of the divine show up in our world initially in the trash stratum.”
-Philip K. Dick
Take SE Powell east out of Portland, Oregon until it turns into US Route 26, Mount Hood Highway, to the expertly named Boring, Oregon. Boring is sister city to Dull, Scotland and Bland, Australia. It is also rumored to be the inspiration for Disney’s Gravities Falls, a cartoon about two kids whose mysterious uncle runs a cheesy roadside attraction that hides some truly paranormal secrets. Just a few minutes into the countryside, take the Hwy 212 exit and turn left onto SE Compton Rd. Cross over the highway and take your first right into the truck stop. Hidden in the southeast corner, you will find the North American Bigfoot Center.
The day we went was a characteristically rainy Oregon spring day, tree covered mountain tops disappearing into dark clouds. Boring was once a busy logging community, but now the road to it and the surrounding hills sit quietly in the fog. A humble little highway sign points the way to the Bigfoot center. The truck stop has a gas station and a few restaurants, all sharing a crumbling parking lot.
Opened fully in October 2019, the NABC has a gift shop with a nicely stocked book selection, bumper stickers, yard art and clothes, a free information center, exhibits for admission, and they run a Bigfoot news blog. The blog is membership based and run on Patreon, it looks pretty active, with footage from sightings, news stories, events, and photos. There are three levels of membership with various perks if you’re interested in getting active in the community. Members have first access to tickets for events and speakers, and leftovers are offered to the general public.
The admissions area, for just eight bucks, has “dozens” of displays featuring “evidence and historical artifacts”. The exhibit area is very heavy on castings and blurry nighttime security cam footage, punctuated by a few fun Bigfoot dummies and pieces of Native American art. The oddest, most hair-raising bit of evidence on offer was probably recordings of big foot howls. Though I’m not enough of a woods’ person to say they were from some other scary animal, they were pretty scary. You can also view an alleged Bigfoot hair under a powerful microscope.
The most interesting bit was on Native American legends similar to Bigfoot, including a long list of indigenous Bigfoot facsimiles. The whole thing has a comically zoo-like graphic design feel, as if you walked out of the monkey exhibit and into the Bigfoot exhibit, before moving on to the tigers. The attendant at the front desk even looks like some kind of park ranger. Although it was fun, we left the center underwhelmed, the whole walk through taking us only about a half an hour. But despite the forgotten road, the boring town, the dingy surroundings, and lack luster displays, the North American Bigfoot Center might signal a deeper shift than its surrounds imply. A certain fundamental logic runs throughout the displays and eyewitness testimonies: Is it possible? It’s almost more of an imaginative activity than a linear scientific reasoning, and the results are much more fun.
By Lorie Shaull
The long list of native Bigfoot legends shows that the weird mysteries of the forest have fascinated humans since they first appeared in the northwestern woods and used to play an important part in the cosmology of their everyday lives. We can also fit Bigfoot into a larger category of wild man legends dating back to one of the oldest long form poems, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which features the wild man Enkidu, whose contact with human society eventually civilizes him. The tension between our mythic ‘natural’ states and the quest for the perfect citizen is as relevant today as it has ever been.
Today’s materialist scientific model of reality, that views statistical predictions as the final word on any subject, has sapped all the magical potential out of the everyday. It’s the very mundane environment around the Bigfoot Center that acts as Trojan horse for the weird and mysterious subject material, hopefully integrating it slowly into consensus reality. If any truck stop could house such anomalies, what’s to say the dark corners of your attic or basement aren’t masking any number of cryptids, aliens, ghouls, or apparitions.
Erik Davis points out in his book, High Weirdness, that the rebellious youth of the 1960s grew up on the sci-fi movies and horror comics of the 1950s, and these ingrained stories foster a new a cultural imagination, pointing toward all the different amazing possibilities for the way we could live. Maybe one day, generations of Americans will remember what the natives once practiced, that we are not omniscient, that there are mysteries and natural workings we may never understand the roots or the consequences of.
Unlike other unconfirmed mysteries, like UFO’s or Extrasensory perception (ESP), Bigfoot feels as if it should remain a mystery. What a crime it would be to break the spell, subjecting each piece of the unknown to DNA sequencing and the bright lights of an autopsy table, all in search of some wonderful new dandruff shampoo or some other banal modern convenience.
So, if you’re in the area of Boring, Oregon, stop by the North American Bigfoot Center, check out the exhibits and buy some trinkets. If not, next time you’re near a wooded area at night, stop and focus on the pitch-black space between the trees. Did you see something move? Maybe hear a twig snap? Let yourself believe for just a second. Let the hairs rise up on your arms and a shiver run down your spine. That feeling represents a neurological pathway in the brain with connections throughout your whole body. We’ll call this pathway “IS IT POSSIBLE?” This exercise will strengthen the pathway and your ability to experience wonder in the world. With enough work, “IS IT POSSIBLE?” can become a daily mode of living, an important part of our daily world view once again, making us stop and take a second glance toward the dark unknown between the trees. Is this invitation to the weird a step toward integrating our wild side? A step toward our ‘natural’ state?
Ian Blumberg-Enge
Ian Blumberg-Enge is a model agnostic anarchist, writer, and utopian kook. His work is focused on the intersection of mysticism and anarchism. He is co-author, with Peter J. Carrol, of Interview with a Wizard, published by Mandrake of Oxford.