POCATELLO — Upon entering the Westwood Mall, guests of the 2024 Bigfoot Rendezvous met face to face with a 10-foot-tall looming beast with long gray hair, fierce orange eyes and faint red lips curled into a snarl.
While this lumbering figure was only made of spray-painted Styrofoam, it represents what a chance encounter with the mythical Bigfoot might look like.
The legendary Sasquatch is a cryptid that has spurred the imaginations of humans since the mid-20th century. The hulking, hairy, bipedal hominid continues to captivate the masses and has become a cultural icon recognized across the globe.
Organized by Brandon Tennant, who owns the Pocatello-based screenprinting and production business, Falling Rock Productions, the 2024 Bigfoot Rendezvous brings Bigfoot adherents together in one place to listen to guest speakers, buy Sasquatch merchandise and find camaraderie with other true believers.
Patrons of the event, many with long and scraggly mountain man beards of their own, tooled around the rendezvous inspecting the various wares of vendors and discussing the legend in depth with organizations dedicated to Sasquatch research.
On one table, a forest green shirt printed with Sasquatch's face states “Bigfoot saw me, but nobody believes him.” On other tables, vendors showcase huge plaster molds of enormous footprints. All around, Bigfoot paraphernalia abounds — pins, patches, hats, artwork, miniature busts and even fuzzy stuffed toys.
Near the back of the venue, local Bigfoot expert Dr. Jeff Meldrum, a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University since 1993, signs copies of his books and engages with the curious cryptid-loving crowd.
At an adjacent table next to Meldrum stands Nico Spadafora — paleontologist, zoologist, founder of The Fossil Team and researcher at the North American Bigfoot Center, a museum located in Boring, Oregon.
In a chance encounter, Spadafora happened upon the Bigfoot center while driving around in Oregon and decided to check it out.
“My involvement in the Sasquatch research was very sudden," Spadafora said. "I was interested in the subject, but it was not my priority. I met the owners Cliff and Melissa Barackman. Cliff was specifically on the show, ‘Finding Bigfoot’ where he was one of the hosts and the museum just really sparked my interest. I thought (the museum) was really well put together (surrounding) the subject. I didn't know a whole lot about it. I thought it was a lot of hokey stuff because there's all that paranormal stuff out there. (But the museum) presented it in a very clear way that my science brain was like, ‘Hey, this is interesting.’”
Spadafora ended up becoming friends with the couple. Using his expertise as a tracker, he informed them if they ever found any bones, tracks or evidence that he could come in and give them a second opinion of their findings. Spadafora now works for the Barackmans and the research they do coincides with much of what Spadafora does professionally with fossils, research and paleontology.
“As a scientist and looking at this from the outside, it is very hard to look at as it tends to scare critical thinking away,” Spadafora said. “There tends to be a lot of TV fun with this subject. But when you actually look at the data and the research and apply it and get results, then that means there's something there. I am doing this because I am getting results and I am finding things. If this wasn't a real thing, I wouldn't be putting my neck on the line to be doing this.”
There has reportedly been over 10,000 Bigfoot sightings within the continental United States and the FBI even released its own files on the creature in 1977. Spadafora himself is no exception and during his time spent researching Sasquatch in the Mount Hood region of the Pacific Northwest voiced his involvement in tracking “at least four individuals” in that area and confirming his sighting of two potential Sasquatch.
Thanks in part to the efforts of professors like Meldrum, whose lab houses over 300 footprint casts attributed to relict hominoids around the globe, there is a level of tangibility and validity given to the true believers that postulate that Bigfoot is out there somewhere and perhaps it is not alone. The shadow of the ever-elusive Sasquatch continues to grow along with its legend.
The Bigfoot Rendezvous will continue from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday at the Westwood Mall.
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