JavaBob’s Book Signing at the Bigfoot Discovery Museum
By Linda Martin – © 2009
Just published as of today… this video of JavaBob (Robert Schmalzbach) who was my friend and neighbor a few short years ago. He still owns the property next door but rarely comes here anymore, and when he does never bothers to contact me. I’m putting this video here to share with other local folks who might like to know he’s doing well and still looking for Bigfoot.
His book is Monsters Myths and Me: And now my eyes are open. The book signing was on September 19 in Felton, CA (Santa Cruz Mountains.)
For what it’s worth, I didn’t agree with everything he wrote about me in the book but once I got around to reading it I wasn’t too freaked out by what he wrote in there either. Memories vary from person to person… that’s a fact.
I was not nearly as impressed by ‘he whose name will not appear on my blog’ as JavaBob was and wondered why he would form a Bigfoot organization business with that person. I do believe his book explains his feelings and motivations, aside from mere financial objectives. Bob is a respectable person and I am glad he’s speaking out more and becoming more of a public figure now rather than staying in the shadows while that other person dominates the spotlight.
In the video he mentions that another Chamber of Commerce member suggested Bigfoot as a theme to market our economically destitute community — well, that was me. I started the Bigfoot research here but got left in the dust by “the guys” during the summer of 2005 … ending with my decision that I just couldn’t work with that other person; I lost faith in the other person’s ability to be objective and kind, especially towards a certain female person who had given him thousands of dollars for his Bigfoot research.
Of all the people in GABRO (Great American Bigfoot Research Organization) that came here to Happy Camp that summer I ended up liking Ruby Rubin and Elbert Yee. I was never on the other side of the debate, mainly because of quality of character issues. Elbert was simply a professional quality, kind hearted person who I could not help but respect. He was totally above board, totally honest. Ruby, though stressed, was doing what needed to be done and was treated rather shabbily… and that was the main reason I had to quit working for GABRO. After a while I couldn’t stand to hear the negative comments and complaints anymore. I got the impression there was no respect for most women in the organization – Peggy Marx being the one exception – and figured there was no place for me in this Bigfoot research team. Plus… one could not help but notice that the people who were supposed to be doing the research simply weren’t there most of the time, leaving a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, and I was not an experienced Bigfoot researcher at the time.
On top of all that, some of the things they wanted added to that video stream were just plain dumb and had nothing to do with Bigfoot research. Maybe the last straw was when I was asked to prepare a video of a bear and pretend it was a Bigfoot. We all knew there was absolutely no evidence of a Bigfoot being there that night – so what was the point of putting a bear on the Bigfoot video stream? I can’t respect someone who would act as if a fuzzy video of a bear’s butt was worth showing to people who wanted to see a Bigfoot. But then along came that disgusting hand – something I could not stand looking at – and they wanted that on the video stream and on the front page of their site. (I owned a web design business at the time and was doing their site updates.) It was about that time I was asking myself, “What am I doing here?” So I disconnected myself from the organization.
Okay, all those things combined – and you have a pretty good picture now why I couldn’t work with ‘he whose name will not appear on my blog’ and why I’ve wondered for the past four years why JavaBob, someone I actually respected, was doing so.
I always liked JavaBob. I was close to his precious daughter Janeen before she died suddenly in January 2006. I think I was the only person in town who couldn’t stop crying during her funeral… she was such a sweet and pure-hearted young woman. Even now I’m crying, just thinking about her. I miss Bob and Vicki, his wife, and wish she wasn’t so set against living here in Happy Camp.
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Eight: “Siskiyou County”
Book review by Linda Martin – © 2009
Reading group homepage for this book: Tribal Bigfoot
Re: Chapter Eight of Tribal Bigfoot by David Paulides, “Siskiyou County”:
Since I live here in Siskiyou County, I looked forward to reading this chapter of Tribal Bigfoot. It was short and didn’t contain as many sighting reports as the chapters on Trinity County, Del Norte County, and Humbolt County, and I had to wonder why David Paulides kept mentioning other Happy Camp area sightings he was aware of, but profiled only Lars Larson and Tara Hauki, both people I know in this community.
He mentioned that “There aren’t many towns in California more remote than Happy Camp.” (Pg. 212) Maybe it is just too remote for most people, but I call it home and so do about 1200 other people hereabouts.
There are only three Bigfoot reports in this chapter. The first was from a hunter, Darrell Whiteaker, who entered an area near the Marble Mountain Wilderness and found himself in a quiet zone, associated with possible Bigfoot habitation. The experience is that the forest becomes entirely quiet – no birds twittering, no squirrels running about in or out of the trees. Nothing… just silence. A theory is that Bigfoot may frighten all forest creatures so severely that they must be still for self-protection.
The second segment of this chapter concerned Lars Larson, a local prospector that came here to Happy Camp back in 1987. Everyone who has been here a while knows Lars. I was sorry to read this part: “He told me that several years ago there had been visitors in town claiming to be professional bigfoot researchers, and they told him they didn’t believe his cast was real; they stated it was a hoax. This made him very upset….”
I’d like to respond to that. First of all, everyone in Happy Camp accepted that the casting he made was probably a Bigfoot footprint, prior to the summer of 2005. Everyone I know of who has ever spoken of Lars respects him. Nobody here has any negative feelings toward him that I know of, and I have no reason to doubt his credibility. To me he seems like a very sweet but quiet older man who doesn’t hurt anyone and keeps to himself most of the time.
I just read about this episode in JavaBob’s book, Monsters Myths and Me: And now my eyes are open
Quoting from pages 32 and 33 of JavaBob’s book:
When I asked Lars what he thought might have made the print, he answered that he had absolutely no idea. He only knew he was not able to identify them.
I had asked Lars and the owner of the Moon Dragon, several days earlier, if they minded if I take the print and share it with the GABRO team to investigate. They both agreed and let me take it back to my business to share with the team.
Later, after the GABRO team arrived and I had my conversation with Tom, I went into the back room and brought Lars’ print out for Lee to see. [Lee Hickman, tracker.] Lee took about three minutes to identify the print. He explained to me; “…the print was most likely made by a small black bear. It was apparently walking down hill, probably after a rain, on soft wet soil. The bear print was elongated as it slid down the hill and pushed the soft dirt in front of it. This is not a Bigfoot print!” I was totally amazed by his explanation. It fit the story that Lars had shared with me … perfectly.
Later that day, I returned the print and shared this information with Lars. Lars was happy to finally get an answer he could be comfortable with. However, after Lars told the owner of the Moon Dragon about our findings, it got back to me that she was not quite as happy about the findings as Lars was. I never followed up to find out why.
On the other hand, I was impressed to see that not every unusual object was accepted by the GABRO team as a Bigfoot artifact.”
That’s how I remember it. I never talked to Lars about the pronouncement that his print was from a bear, but I clearly remember in 2005, Bob talking about this incident exactly as he reported it here. He too likes and respects Lars as much as the rest of us do, and none of us ever had any intention of calling his footprint casting a “hoax.” According to what we remember, Lars never said it was made by a Bigfoot. He always said he didn’t know what it was. It was everyone else in town (well, lots of us) that thought it was a Bigfoot footprint because of the size.
Now here is Marcie Stumpf’s article about the incident which I reprinted in Happy Camp News in 2003 with New Era publisher Maria McCracken’s permission:
By Marcie Stumpf
Edited for space
. . footprints of a size and shape consistent with those of the legendary Bigfoot were discovered on a claim belonging to THE NEW 49’ers, on Indian Creek, near Happy Camp California.
Lars Larson, a NEW 49’er who was mining on the claim, discovered several of the footprints which measured 17 inches long, and 11 inches wide. Three of the prints were in gravel, and were not distinct, but one was on solid ground, and Lars was able to make a plaster cast of the print.
Happy Camp is well known as “Bigfoot Country”. The first sighting of one of these elusive creatures was made on Thompson Creek, a nearby tributary of the Klamath River, in the 1860’s. A group of Chinese workers who were building a ditch to carry water to a hydraulic mine sighted one, and were so frightened they refused to return to the job.
. . . Lars reported that he searched the surrounding area thoroughly, but was unable to find any further evidence, such as broken branches, or tufts of hair, or any further footprints.
Bigfoot, if he is out there somewhere, still desires not to be seen, and he has many miles of forest where he can remain secluded. Some of us prefer it that way also.
I am not a great tracker but I have looked at and compared bear tracks and Bigfoot tracks. I have no opinion on this particular footprint casting because I’m no expert, but I wanted to make it clear that nobody here in Happy Camp doubts Lars Larson’s credibility, and nobody considers him any kind of hoaxer, as was stated in Tribal Bigfoot.
Possible Bigfoot Bedding
Okay, that’s one Happy Camp story… and the other one David Paulides researched for Tribal Bigfoot is about Tara Hauki. In case you’re not familiar with her sighting experiences, you can read them on her website, Sasquatch and Me, and on the BFRO site here. I met Tara when she came to JavaBobs Bigfoot Deli to tell us about her July 2005 experience. We all went to her home and looked over the property she lives on – and this was within a day or two of the sighting.
The one thing on the property that looked like it could possibly be Bigfoot evidence was the “bed” of broken horsetails that was found right next to the spring. This is the picture I took that day of this area. You can’t see the spring but it is at the back of the hollowed area under the leaves. The bedding doesn’t show well in this photo but it is the dried out area. This was the only indication that I had that possibly something could be unusual with the property. I didn’t know what else could have picked the horsetails and piled them there… and figured it had to be a human, or a Bigfoot. In Tribal Bigfoot David Paulides wrote, “The next day Tara went to the front of her house and looked for tracks. She found one footprint, 18 inches by seven and three-quarters inches.” This was after her first sighting according to Paulides. Well, I was there right after that sighting and don’t remember anything about a footprint in front of her house, and I wonder where that story comes from… or was there some kind of misunderstanding? The only footprint I know of related to this sighting was found weeks later on the hill nearby by Bigfoot researcher Rex Howdyshel.
The Happy Camp Footprint Cast of 2005 is the abnormally big one.
This was discovered on the hill by Rex Howdyshel and cast by Rob Shorey.
I was one of the first people Rex showed the print to before it was cast.
Poker Flat
After that I spent considerable time with Tara during 2005, and up until about April 2006. One of my favorite memories was our trip to Poker Flat, just the two of us. We had a good time that day. It gave me a chance to get to know her better and I appreciated her knowledge of the plants that grew there. Poker Flat is a mountain meadow campground quite a few miles into the forest at a high elevation, near the Siskiyou Wilderness. At one time that area was used as a stop over for mule trains. The picture on the left is of Poker Flat.
In his segment on Tara Hauki in this Siskiyou County chapter of Tribal Bigfoot, toward the end David Paulides mentioned caves on the hill Tara lives next to. I live on the other side of that hill. The cave system is actually a gold mine that operated on the hilltop many years back (see photo below). The entire top of the hillside was washed away by hydraulic mining and the “caves” are probably a drainage system. There used to be an opening in my backyard.
The old gold mine could have indeed provided a place for a Bigfoot to live. Entrances to the gold mine system have been blocked by the forest service now which I think is a great idea because otherwise children could be injured while trying to explore them. The last time I went there, mountain lion tracks were evident in the area of the mine entrance at the airport. We’ve still got mountain lions roaming around at night so I guess they’ve found another place to live.
…
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter One: “Historical Bigfoot”
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Two: “The Bigfoot Map Project”
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Three: “Associations”
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Four: “Extreme Sighting Locations”
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Five: “Santa Cruz County”
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Six: “Amador County”
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Seven: “Trinity County”
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Eight: “Siskiyou County”
Tribal Bigfoot – Comments on Chapter Nine: “Del Norte County”
…
August 19, 2008
Life in Bigfoot Country: Happy Camp, California
Because I live in a place where there have been many sightings, I am fortunate to be able to meet a lot of the Bigfoot researchers who come into town. During the next couple of weeks I’ll be writing about some of the Bigfoot research people I’ve met here over the last three years since I started this blog in 2005.
In the meantime I’ll tell you more about my small town, what I’m doing here, and how I decided to start a blog about Bigfoot.
Happy Camp, California
Bigfoot Country!
Klamath National Forest
Happy Camp is a very small town in the center of the Klamath National Forest. There were 1211 people living here during the year 2000 census. Even though I’ve lived in Happy Camp over eight years, I still don’t know everyone in town. Plus there are always new people moving in. I can’t keep up with them all.
During the summer we get lots of tourists. Mainly we get several hundred gold prospectors and their families. These are people who join the New 49ers gold prospecting club, of which I am a member. Though I love gold prospecting the membership is mainly used by my boyfriend, Bob.
The Happy Camp Post Office Bigfoot Statue
Most of the other tourists are rafting groups stopping off in Happy Camp for food and supplies.
We also have hundreds of firefighters here during the summer. Almost every summer there’s a fire nearby, and firefighters are stationed at the base camp at our local elementary school. Thanks to firefighters and rafting groups, the restaurant I work in can get very busy!
Bigfoot researchers visiting our area are few in number, but I still have been able to meet quite a few… mostly by way of pure luck since these meetings are usually unplanned. If you’re going to be in town, it wouldn’t hurt to send an email first.
Scotty’s Bigfoot Towing
I moved here in January 2000 because I wanted to raise my two youngest children in a rural area. When I pulled into town and saw the wooden Bigfoot statue in front of the post office, I was pleased. I’ve always wanted to see a Bigfoot, and I knew I was moving to the right place.
Around town many of the businesses are named after Bigfoot. There’s Scotty’s Bigfoot Towing, the Bigfoot Apartments (what’s left of them after the big fire), the Bigfoot Car Wash, the Bigfoot RV Park, and of course there was JavaBob’s Bigfoot Deli but that’s been closed now for about two years.
The Bigfoot Statue
and its creator, Cheryl Wainwright
at the sculpture’s dedication ceremony.
About a year after I moved here a local artist started a Bigfoot sculpture project. She invited every Happy Camp citizen to donate metal to be used in creating a large metal Bigfoot sculpture. It is placed prominently at the corner of Davis Road and Highway 96. That’s also the eastern edge of the Bigfoot Scenic Byway. The other end of the Byway is in Willow Creek, where the Bigfoot Museum is.
There’s another wooden Bigfoot statue in front of Evan’s Mercantile now too.
While we’re talking about artwork, I need to tell you that a local friend of mine, Dennis Day, created what we believe is the largest dreamcatcher in the world. It is on the other end of Davis Road, not far from the metal Bigfoot sculpture.
In 2001 I founded Happy Camp News – which I’ve now sold. The first story I did for the news was on the celebration we had for the grand opening of the Bigfoot Scenic Byway. That took place on April 1, 2001. I wonder if the Forest Service chose April Fool’s Day intentionally for that event. At the same time we celebrated and cut the ribbon over the highway, there was a similar celebration down the road in Willow Creek.
My daughter was
a Happy Camp
Bigfoot Princess
Willow Creek and Happy Camp also have twin Bigfoot celebrations. Willow Creek has Bigfoot Days and Happy Camp has the Bigfoot Jamboree. Each year we have princess and queen contests, raffles, music, vendors, and a parade. It is a lot of fun. There are contests for the kids, and often a Forest Service demonstration of rappelling from a helicopter. The Karuk Tribe sometimes does a salmon bake dinner.
The Bigfoot Scenic Byway
Highway 96 from
Happy Camp
to Willow Creek
With all this hoopla about Bigfoot in this little village of Happy Camp, I was curious about whether there was any true substance to the idea that there were Bigfoot in the forest near our town. During the Bigfoot Scenic Byway grand opening celebration a local Karuk (Native American) man gave a short speech about Bigfoot sightings here. Unfortunately he didn’t have much information to share. He said it started with a group of Chinese miners who had a sighting over 100 years ago near Thompson Creek. Soon enough I discovered that most of the people in town were totally clueless about sightings near here – so I wondered why people were naming their businesses after Bigfoot and making such a big deal over it.
Little Grider Creek
South West of Happy Camp
The next specific information I got about a local sighting was in 2003. A member of the Chamber of Commerce came to a board meeting (I was a member of the board of directors at the time). She said a local teenager had a sighting near Little Grider Creek but that he didn’t want to talk about it or be identified. It was another couple of years before I finally figured out who that teenager was, but I knew Little Grider Creek. It is less than a mile from my home, and on many occasions I’ve walked down there. Once I got in the creek and walked upstream for about a mile. I also had a habit of sitting on the rocks under the highway overpass, reading a book on a hot summer day or finding protection from a winter rainstorm. So to hear that a sighting took place there shook me up. That’s so close to home!
For details of this and other Bigfoot sightings near my home, see my Squidoo lens: Happy Camp Bigfoot Sightings.
In 2005 the Chamber of Commerce had a meeting with two women who were marketing specialists working on regional travel magazines. One suggestion one of the women shared was to choose a theme and direct most of our marketing efforts to that group. For an example, she suggested marketing Happy Camp to rafting companies and giving them reasons to want to stop here rather than float on by.
That got me to thinking. Happy Camp already had a theme. Bigfoot. Yes, Bigfoot businesses, Bigfoot statues, a Bigfoot Jamboree… and even Bigfoot footprints painted on the sidewalk in front of our hardware store. Yet nobody here wanted to talk about Bigfoot. Nobody knew about local sightings. Suddenly I knew I had to change that. I decided to do a Bigfoot research project to find out if this little town in the center of the Klamath National Forest had any reason to be claiming that Bigfoot lives in the area. That’s when I bought my domain name, BigfootSightings.Org. I also bought the domain, BigfootHunt.Com, but later discarded it because I don’t believe in hunting them… it brings up connotations of killing and I definitely don’t believe in killing Sasquatch.
My first blog posting here at Bigfoot Sightings happened in the spring of 2005. I think it was the very first Bigfoot themed blog, and I’d like to know if anyone knows of one that started before mine did. At the time I didn’t know much about Bigfoot but I was already into blogging. I’d been doing it since 2000. I unfortunately lost all my early Bigfoot Sightings postings in a site crash in 2006 or 7… but maybe that’s a good thing. I started over and am happy it happened.
In the last three years I’ve discovered that there have been many recent Bigfoot sightings around Happy Camp – so our theme of Bigfoot-mania is definitely valid. I’d love to get more reports of Bigfoot sightings around here but I’ve also discovered that most people who have sightings don’t like to talk about them.
The Eddy on Indian Creek
For those that do want to share, I’m willing to maintain anonymity while sharing the details with others. The sooner we find out about Happy Camp Bigfoot sightings, the sooner my partner and I can follow up. If we get a report within a few days of the sighting we can go look for footprints and other physical evidence.
Suggestion: If you come here during the summer, be prepared to jump into one of our many local swimming holes. There’s a lot of clean, cool streams here with areas worth swimming in. With all that available water, you can understand why the region is ideal for Bigfoot too.
Dr. Matthew Johnson of Grants Pass
speaking in Happy Camp
in September 2006
Happy Camp is only fifty miles from Bluff Creek where the famous Patterson-Gimlin film was taken. We’re also about thirty miles south of Oregon Caves where Dr. Matthew Johnson had his sighting in 2000. He came over the mountain to tell us about it once, and was a featured speaker at our Bigfoot Jamboree.
Any questions or comments about Happy Camp and local Bigfoot sightings will be welcome here.
March 15, 2007
Why Not Report It?
Around here (Happy Camp, California) people see Bigfoot but few report it. For a while, when JavaBob was in town, people would go to him and tell him about things they’d seen. He was a friendly deli owner everyone in town knew, and easy to talk to. But since he left last year there’s no central meeting place, and people aren’t talking. Why do you suppose that is? My guesses are (1) that they don’t want people to think of them as crazy; too many people, even locals, are verbally abusive toward people who say they’ve seen Bigfoot. And (2) they think they are protecting Bigfoot by not giving away the location of the one they saw. Am I missing any other important reasons here? All I’m asking for is a location to research. A new sighting here in the Klamath National Forest, or somewhere nearby, would give my partner and I a place to go look for recent footprints and other signs to verify what is reported as a Bigfoot sighting. But without a report, I’m having to rely entirely on my intuition.
