If you’ve never heard of a Sasquatch, where have you been? How about Bigfoot? It’s a fact: here in northeastern New York we have a documented robust and healthy population. Apparently. I know this because a guest at my table the other night explained that the Sasquatch is probably, might be, could be, a new humanoid. A very elusive humanoid. This was news to me as I passed the potatoes.

The fact that I didn’t know he fancies himself an expert on Sasquatch culture was supposed to make me fall over myself asking questions. But why bother. Two hours later, I too was an expert on the northeastern New York version of the Sasquatch. Bigfoot to amateurs. And, if there is a Sasquatch reading this, for godsake, go hide.

The whole ‘hunt the Sasquatch’ thing is over on the edge but enough aficionados with night vision and camo are convinced that it’s safe to go thrashing around in the woods at midnight hollering and waving around two-way radios that you do not have to worry about being discovered. Why? Because you do not exist. I too have seen Pottersville and I can tell you that running across the road in a gorilla suit at night in front of oncoming traffic is never a sane idea.

People seem to need something weird and odd and a little scary to get lost in. Real life is too bizarre. Not everyone has decided to go whaling with Moby Dick or buy a second home in Narnia. Most of us putter through life looking for the highs among the lows. The lows seem to be winning these days so going Bigfoot wrangling makes cowpokes of us all.

But fear not. In the Town of Whitehall, NY, the self-described Bigfoot capital of the Northeast, a law was passed in 2000 declaring the town and its surroundings to be “protected habitat” and banning the “willful harming” of a Sasquatch. But that doesn’t mean the town doesn’t know a good thing when it sees it (or doesn’t see it).

The town heartily welcomes you to stop by and try to Spot a Sasquatch. If that doesn’t work out, c’mon back in September when the town braces for an influx of believers for the annual Sasquatch Festival & Calling Contest: September 24 in Whitehall, NY.

Listen up: before you go to Whitehall, you have homework. With over 113 sightings in the area each year, New York leads the nation in the number of reports of Sasquatch encounters. As if the sightings and the festival and the tales of scary encounters aren’t enough to keep you up at night peeking out the window, there’s an episode of Monster Quest: Bigfoot in New York (S2, ep.12) to wet your whistle for the Bigfoot calling contest.

See you there. Maybe…