NORTHFIELD — As a five-year-old girl camping in Ettersburg, Calif., Desiree Smelcer saw something she’ll never forget.
While in her tent late at night, Smelcer saw a strange figure squatting next to the fire.
“It had a stick and was poking at the fire,” she said. “It looked like a human, except really furry.”
The next day, her parents observed unusual footprints around the fire. Using sign language, they described the creature as “bear no toes,” which Smelcer later learned was the sign for “Bigfoot.”
Smelcer shared details from her encounter while speaking before about 20 local residents during her presentation Saturday afternoon at Dickinson Memorial Library, titled “Understanding Bigfoot: History and Culture.”
Since her initial encounter in 1979 or 1980, Smelcer said she’s seen Bigfoot a second time, in February 2010.
While driving along Highway 101 in Humboldt County, Calif. where she grew up, at around 1 or 2 a.m., Smelcer noticed a creature squatting on the side of the road. She pulled over not far from the creature to get a good look at it before driving away.
“‘I just saw what I thought I saw,’” Smelcer remembers thinking later. “‘I just saw what I thought I saw when I was five.’”
“I know this thing exists,” she continued. “It’s not a bear or a mountain lion that I saw.”
Given her two encounters, Smelcer said she was inspired to research Bigfoot.
“I wanted to understand what I saw,” she said.
She found that Bigfoot sightings are “not just a modern phenomenon,” but have been going on for a long time. Smelcer explained a series of oral tales shared by Native Americans about Bigfoot, which is referred to by many different names translated to mean “wild man,” “boss of the woods,” “giant,” “stone giant” and “giant monster.”
For example, the Micmac tribe of eastern Canada described what they called the “Great Chenoo” which had great strength and made a “noise like a roaring lion.”
Reading through newspaper clippings and historic journals, Smelcer found an account in the Boston Daily Times from Robert Lincoln, who in 1839, described an eight- to nine-foot tall, athletic, powerful beast which was exhibited in New York. Vermont governor Jonas Galusha made it part of his 1813 campaign to “rid the state of ‘slippery skin,” another name for the creature.
Norma Parda, a local independent Bigfoot researcher, attended Smelcer’s presentation and spoke of alleged encounters in western Massachusetts that she’s investigated, in particular a sighting on Mount Tom several years ago where Parda found unusual tracks. The tracks, she said, were 52 inches apart from toe to heel.
One attendee, Mary Mayshark-Stavely of Northfield, said she found Smelcer’s presentation very interesting, especially coming from California herself, like Smelcer.
“I’m a skeptic, but I’m fascinated at the same time,” she said.