The Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute – Roxbury MA

I’m a scientific person but more so I’m always in need of whimsy so when we found out there was a Bigfoot Research Institute we just had to give it a good poke.

The challenges to get there were the usual, as my brother says, “Boston isn’t made for cars.” And it isn’t. All the roads were made from old indigenous trails through the woods and probably game trails as well making them a delightfully confusing rats nest of pure chaos. Add to that afternoon traffic, volatile drivers, and teenagers popping wheeling on their bikes while weaving between cars and you end up with me swearing profusely, which let me tell you is not normal. I’m a very chill driver most days but Boston… this Bigfoot better be good!

I found a parking lot a little up the street and we ambled to the address given. I don’t recall if there was even a sign saying what it was. There was however a sign saying ring the bell to deliver packages. Are we delivering a package?

We rung the bell and we’re welcomed in shyly at first. We walked in and found ourselves somewhere strange, again. There was a standing desk, some books for sale around it, and not much in the way of bigfoot except a big stuffed one in the corner and a disorganized pile of random child-oriented bigfoot stuff in a collection of drawers. Confused, someone else came out and started to explain.

The Bigfoot Research Institute was really just a gimmick to use as a storefront and get people through the door but really this place was a creative writing organization (826 Boston) trying to inspire local youths. The books were books all the students had written. And the bigfoot stuff? The gimmick was really to be a spot for kids to gear up to become bigfoot hunters. It used to be something more to see with games and other interactive activities including a phone booth looking thing the kids could sit in as a narrator told them all the places they may go while blowing fans and AC on them for cold climates, etc. It was cute! We were told it was in disarray but if we came back in a year or two it’d be back to it’s former glory.

They also told us other chapters of their organization had completely different gimmicks and handed us a passport in case we may want to see them spread across the country and the world. I don’t get the feeling many adults go through their doors, they were very happy to see us and said if I ever wanted to there are remote volunteering opportunities. I may consider it!

Since we were here… might as well see what those books were about. I bought a book of poetry and my fellow bewildered traveler got a cookbook. The staff, now numbering three, happily burbled to us about their students and what they were working on saying that one of their previous alumni grew up to be Amanda Gorman the youngest inaugural poet in US history.

I read the book of poetry (How We May Appear; Gen Z’s Reflection on Equality through Poems, Essays, and Narratives) and it was pretty powerful to hear from so many diverse young minds, granted I also found it more than a bit heartbreaking. This generation coming up knows there’s not much of a future for them and they’re expressing it in lines like, “When I’m asked what I want to be when I grow up I always answer, ‘alive.'” I sincerely hope our societal climate starts changing. It’s a tragedy to all when brilliant minds are permanently stuck in poverty and exhaustion, unable to reach their potential because somewhere along the way this country forgot what community was and adopted an everyone for themselves take on public policies.

I admit driving to this place was more of a challenge than I appreciated and the bigfoot part of it was a bit of a flop but I’m happy we found this place, talked to some really kind people, and got to hear from a portion of society I rarely get to hear (being childless as I am.)

Anyway, if any of this interests you or you know a kid in the Boston area who could use a little encouragement to keep writing you can find their website at 826 Boston.

October 16, 2024 0

Cryptozoology Convention 2024 Portland Maine

I really hadn’t intended to go to any more conventions but when I brought this one up to my usual travel companion he thought it’d be a fun vacation so off we went to the boonies of Maine to see what was up in the big weird world of cryptozoology.

We got the two-day VIP tickets – because if you’re going to make a vacation of it you might as well! We showed up a little early and had to kill some time wandering for a bit while the hosts tried to figure out how to admit people. Some of the vendors were already set up so we tried walking around and looking at their goods first. There was a lovely wire artist at the door with all sorts of really cool pieces. I asked her how long it took to make them and she said about two days on the smaller ones. I wanted to give her encouragement but I knew whatever she was asking for these was too rich for my blood and instead of being insulting I never asked what they were going for. She was the only vendor that I think made no sales because of this and I felt that. I’ve been that table that’s misfitted for the venue and has goods too fine for whatever is going on. It sucks.

Next to her we found a crochet artist with all sorts of cryptid plushies and dear god were they adorable. Ended up with a tiny mothman keychain from this vendor. I figured those would go like hotcakes. Another artist had the center of the room and was doing caricatures – presumably of patrons with their favorite cryptid. The examples he had on display were rather cute, he even included one with a lot of muppets which had Nigel from Farscape hidden on there as well. I had to laugh. The rest of the room contained A LOT of the more usual items – stickers, car decals, DVDs of bigfoot documentaries, and sooo many books. My thing is to be supportive of local authors so I held myself together to say I’d be back tomorrow for some books and whew, did I ever. Came back with a haul! On all sorts of cool topics, some on hauntings and new places to go others on cryptids and weird happenings.

However the most fun was probably the reptile rescue who was letting people pet their animal ambassadors. They had a few decently big snakes, still growing for sure, a grumpy tortoise (who I could really empathize with) a skink, and a tegu. We took turns holding them all. The snakes were CRUISING, the skink was so relaxed he was limp as a ragdoll which kinda freaked me out a little bit, and the tegu, oh my god the tegu… I wanted to steal. She just burrowed into my sweater giving me a huge bear hug and FELL ASLEEP on me. God damn I love giant cuddly lizards. I’ve wanted one since I was a teenager but you know… their enclosure requirements must be enormous! This one was already maybe 1/3rd to half the size she’d be some day and that was plenty big enough! Plus the laws keep changing from state to state. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to see tegus here because of that.

After passing my lizard back to the next person we went on our way. There’d be a pizza dinner with a celebrity in the field at every table. We ended up with a comic book writer. I wish I remembered his name but I guess he did a bunch of Scooby Doos and some other neat things. He seemed very pleasant as did the couple who sat across from us who had come up here all the way from Pennsylvania! They had matching septum piercings which I thought was unique and also bought one of the mothman plushies. So we bonded on that as we ate our pizza. They had ordered 57 boxes and 32 liters of soda. I was accused of counting them but no, I was just eavesdropping when I came across this factoid.

The big event however was a viewing of Big Fur which was a documentary about the creation of the hyper realistic bigfoot sitting in the corner. This is what set the gears off in my head. I had NO IDEA there was a whole subset of taxidermists who are now doing mock mounts of extinct or otherwise undocumented animals like this bigfoot but with real fur from other animals. This particular bigfoot was made with the hair from highland cattle and the artist who created him also did a mock panda bear that looked SO REAL. Like I would think it absolutely was a panda if I didn’t know better. The reason this was inspiring to me is because I have been telling myself for years that I have enough hobbies and I do not need to get into taxidermy and be one of those weirdos lugging off dead raccoons found on the highway…. but the idea of making completely different animals out of those pelts?! You could make a goddamn unicorn! Or a snallygaster…

The rest of the audience seemed more emotionally invested in the surprise romantic aspect of the film which involved a rather messy love… square… Triangle was not the right option. Honestly, I felt that was it’s own thing and felt weird to be included but you know.. you do you. The director talked about it a little bit and we had fun with it.

The next day there was more vendors and a ton of lectures that ranged from the silly to the serious. I had no idea that loggers were… off their nuts. The amount of bizarre cryptids in logger lore is insane. Now I had loggers in my family back in the day and I feel like a lot of these are drunken big fish kinda stories but still – what the hell were these men on?! And the names of these things! I wish I could remmeber them – they would have put Dr Suess to shame.

Another lecture told us all about cougar sightings in Somerset county and how someone in Connecticut had run one over that had wandered here from thousands of miles away. I have heard stories of big cats my entire life and just thought it was a fact cougars lived here. Apparently not. The state of Maine does not recognize a current breeding population and they are therefore cryptids. The department of wildlife states cougars were functionally extinct from hunting in Maine in the late 1800’s with the last being shot in the 1930’s.

By the time the HP Lovecraft guy came up, who I’d seen before, the heat in the room and my lack of sleep previous was conspiring to land me in a coma. I may have nodded off for most of that one despite trying not to — to the point of going cross eyed.

Luckily there was an intermission where we could go out and eat at a taco truck parked outside. I tried their veggie tacos and they were the bomb. And the people were so sweet. I got a lot of compliments on my hair, pants, and purse, and was tracked down twice to see if I was the owner of the sunglasses left were I was sitting on the grass – but the sunglasses were there before me.

As we went back in we were treated to another lecture from the guy hosting the event who was telling us the cryptozoology museum was moving from its current spot to a new much larger home in Bangor and that this was also the last convention to be held in Portland for the same reason.

One of the last speakers was my favorite, it was the woman who runs a blog called Cryptozoology Facts. She seemed delightfully neaurospicy and informed everyone she was nervous but she did a good job telling us about all the bonkers cryptids she had come across and the fact her favorites were all seen only once and included a winged clam. I had to agree with her the sheer weirdness of that one would make it a favorite for me too. We’d talk to her a little bit afterwards as she offered a gift to anyone who liked and reposted her FaceBook post on the event. It was a bigfoot magnet which will now be going on my fridge…

Anyway, we had an awesome time – learned a ton about local folklore and mythology, got to speculate on what’s actually out there, and met some pretty nifty people. All and all it was a great time to be had by all and I came home with sooo many books it’s a bit ridiculous but at least they’re all signed!

May 8, 2024 0

Freetown Fall River State Forest – Assonet MA

It’s funny, when you travel around like I do trying to hit different places every time you leave the house it pretty much ensures that someday you’ll forget where you have been and end up there again during one of those hazy deja vu moments I have become so familiar with. That was the case with the Freetown Fall River Forest. It had long been a source of fascination considering it is supposed to be the epicenter of all the weird happenings in the Bridgewater Triangle. I mean there are stories about this forest that include fairy lights, full ghostly apparitions, murders, UFO’s, bigfoot, a liberal dose of satanic panic and even the delightfully strange assortment of pukwugies – which are little anthropomorphic porcupine type creatures that shoot poisoned darts and lure people into the woods never to be seen again. They are from indigenous traditions in the area and as such are unique little cryptids.

I had a feeling I’d been here before but there wasn’t a Catching Marbles entry on it. Weird. Still, I suggested it as a place to go check out with a new travel companion who was here to meet me for a signed copy of my book. Sounded good to me so off I went…

Driving into the parking lot I remembered this place clearly. I had visited the previous autumn. We spent a few hours wandering the woods with a nonsensical trail map that neither one of us could make sense of, got lost, and eventually made our way back to the car. HMMMM. Perhaps this time would go better.

This time the park actually had quite a few other cars in it and I realized the weird parking lot actually went around corners and expanded a lot farther than I had thought. Even more interesting was a splash pad that was running with delighted children zooming through it. Still I parked near the entrance and after meeting with my hiking buddy we set off in the same direction I’d gone once before to what I now know is Bent Rim Trail. Mind you Bent Rim Trail is more of a road than a trail – no cars were allowed but we did see some cyclists.

We walked on Bent Rim Trail for awhile until we hit what looked like an actual non-road trail and we decided to try that one. There was no signs or markers but clearly this was a trail. I’d come hoping to find something weird, my friend had come hoping to find some cool plants to satiate her own special interests in biology. We were up for a brisk hike in the heat but luckily it wasn’t too bad beneath all these trees and the path was flat and easy to navigate. A few parts had rocky bits to scramble around but even that wasn’t bad. Unless you’re on a bike. Sadly, there wasn’t much in the way of plant diversity. It just seemed to be miles and miles of blueberry bushes. Although even that was kind of cool as many had blueberries on them.

Other than that the trail was pretty much a lot of the same. It was however very quiet and despite the parking lot being full of cars we didn’t hear any other people and didn’t see any either on the trip out. We continued down the path crossed the road trail twice before eventually hitting an actual road. The park is on 55,000 acres soooo how we managed to walk out of the park I don’t know. Getting back would be a challenge as we tried to get our phones to give us any clue whatsoever as to which direction we should take back. I was starting to see why this place had such a reputation for being a great hiding spot for bodies and ghost stories. Getting lost here is hideously easy and there is an odd sense you’re the only ones out here even if that’s not really true.

I have seen photos of this park that show water features and cool things. I don’t know where those are, only that we didn’t pass any. All we passed were several people walking dogs and a family taking a bike ride together who I sheepishly asked for directions from. We’d hoofed it at least four miles by that point and it was starting to get a bit dark so it was best to find the car soon. Luckily they told us vaguely where we were and how to get back. There were grid markers here and there reading numbers and letters… which would have been helpful IF THEY WERE ON ANY MAPS. Alas no.

We did end up back in the parking lot, somehow at the far side, where there was a random statue greeting people shirtless and proud. Bit weird choice but OK. Annoyingly we also found the trail maps on a bulletin board nearby which I had missed coming in, although I don’t think they would have helped much. In the meanwhile we both had a great time happily burbling about anything and everything under the sun and getting our exercise in! All and all a lovely time, even if it was super confusing and looked all the same. I can’t say I saw any bigfoot, ghosts, or UFOs but maybe you have to come at night for that?

August 21, 2022 0

The International Cryptozoology Museum & Other Random Sights of Portland Maine

On Saturday night I had gone to pick up my friend Katherine at Old Orchard Beach. She’d attended a wedding earlier that day and invited me to have dinner with a bunch of the wedding guests and various friends. I figured why not. I drove in around six o’clock and the town was BUZZING. I had been here off season before, when all the rides are shut down and the whole town is a deserted vision of the apocalypse… but on season? WOW. There were so many people!! And noise! Shops bustled, bars boomed, restaurant were full, and the rides were whirring. Parking was a nightmare and I had to be guided into a spot by a sweet old lady – thankfully and coincidentally it was right next to her hotel!

Anyway, dinner was lively with a wonderful bunch of very sweet and passionate people who were very kind in welcoming me into the group. At some point conversation meandered into what Katherine and my plans were for the next day. We were planning on going on an adventure but where to… I suggested the cryptozoology museum which got this reply, “That place is just two big rooms and one guy following you around them because he REALLY BELIEVES in Bigfoot.” Both Katherine and I agreed that this less than raging endorsement made it all the more tempting so the next morning, after having a good bye breakfast with the same group of people, we left for Portland.

Portland is a sweet little port city, not nearly as much of a tourist town as Old Orchard Beach. I had enjoyed walking its streets before but now it was nice to return to a different portion of the city. My GPS led me to where the International Cryptozoology Museum used to be, but not knowing this I placed the Prius in a nearby parking garage and we started to walk. Portland is a city of very mixed architecture – some which appeared very Dutch, some which looked like Lego bricks, and others which seemed more relevant to Maine. I took a few snaps here and there. Katherine kept herself entertained finding ninja’d stickers posted throughout the city reading fiercely critical liberal sentiments. The graffiti seemed almost sweet and added another layer of entertainment but where was this bigfoot museum?? Nowhere to be seen. We stopped in a used bookstore instead and oddly it had a map to the new location of the cryptozoology museum which was a seven minute car ride. So off we went to reclaim the car… only to find the parking garage would not let us out. I tried paying for my ticket but the machine kept spitting out my card, not telling me why, and asking me to re-insert the ticket. I was at a loss but with no one behind me I backed out of the toll lane, parked again, and found a machine inside to pay. With this new pre-paid ticket the toll gate actually worked. FWEW!

After driving to the shore we parked in another lot we thought was close by not knowing if we’d find anywhere closer. Parking mistake #2. We ended up walking and walking and walking. We found a greyhound station. Was it in the greyhound station?? No. More walking, across the tracks, we finally found a set of buildings with a food truck parked out front… a deep fried peanut butter and jelly food truck…. “After we go through the museum we should eat there.” “Agreed!”

We spent way longer than we should have continuing to walk around all these unmarked buildings to find nothing. It was getting annoying so we circled back to the food truck and finally found Bigfoot standing around the side of that building, guarding a chicken shack and a brewery. It was a scene that was just so Maine.

We both went in and it’s a two level (but still two room) museum filled with just the most goddamn bizarre things… The bottom floor was for sea monsters and various beasts which was capped off with a five foot tall plastic ninja turtle for no reason I could see. In the display cases there were Fiji mermaids, labelled as hoaxes, but smattered aside things like a GI Joe standing next to a stuffed beaver with a plate reading, “Do giant beavers still exist?” It was completely mental. We were both getting quite a kick out of this place and I was so happy to experience it with a friend instead of going alone as I had planned a few months back.

Upstairs Bigfoot stood with all his associated kin including a display case full of baby dolls which had wads of hair glued to them… baby big foot? And why did I find the red-headed one all the creepier?? There were casts of footprints, random artifacts, and things I think were clearly sold to a shmuck on ebay for shits and giggles like a random rusted out light fixture from some town which had a cryptid incident. Whhhhhy? Just why! Here too was a whole wall dedicated to the museum’s founder. Little cultish – still funny. Totally worth the trip… if you’re a little off in the head like we are.

PS the deep fried S’moares from the food truck, made with New England Fluff, was to die for!

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SIGHTS OF PORTLAND:

INTERNATIONAL CRYPTOZOOLOGY MUSEUM

August 22, 2017 3