The Last Witness: Forty Years With Bigfoot

I’ve cared for the same Bigfoot since 1984. What he finally showed me about why his kind fears humans will stay with me until my last breath. Some will think I’ve lost my mind for sharing this, but after forty years of silence, someone needs to know the truth before we’re both gone and the story dies with us.

I’m in my seventies now, living alone in a remote cabin in the Pacific Northwest mountains, the same place where it all began. My husband passed away in the early 1980s, leaving me with this property and a lifetime of memories. I was raised in these mountains, learned to hunt and survive from my father. Solitude never frightened me. I made a living through gardening, woodworking, and the peace of a simple life.

Winter came hard in 1984. A storm dumped three feet of snow in two days, cutting me off from the outside world. On the third night, I heard something outside—heavy, deliberate movement near my woodshed. The next morning, I found massive tracks in the snow, 17 inches long, five distinct toes, leading from the treeline to my woodshed and back into the forest.

I followed the tracks with my rifle slung over my shoulder, more for comfort than protection. About a hundred yards into the trees, I found him: a massive creature, eight feet tall, collapsed in the snow, covered in dark fur matted with ice and blood. His left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. He was dying.

His eyes opened when I was about twenty feet away—dark, intelligent eyes, filled with fear and resignation. He didn’t threaten me; he was too weak. We stared at each other for long minutes. I saw not an animal, but a person, someone who understood he was at my mercy.

Back at the cabin, I struggled with what to do. Every logical part of me said to leave it alone, let nature take its course. But I kept seeing those eyes, the quiet acceptance of death. I thought of my late husband, who always helped injured creatures. He would have helped this one without hesitation.

So I made my choice—not because it was logical or safe, but because it was right. I gathered blankets, food, and hot broth and trekked out to him. I left food at a distance, then closer, until I draped a blanket over his shoulders. He trembled from cold and pain, but didn’t resist.

That first day, I sat nearby, talking to him about the cabin, my husband, the mountains. His eyes followed me, sometimes tilting his head as if trying to understand. I promised I’d return in the morning.

Over the next weeks, I brought food, fresh blankets, and supplies. He ate slowly at first, then with more trust. He was male, probably middle-aged, with graying fur. His hands were huge but dexterous, his face a blend of human and ape, with eyes that were unmistakably aware.

After the first week, I tried to help his leg. He tensed but let me splint it. It had healed wrong, but I could stabilize it and hope. I built a shelter around him, and once, when I struggled with a heavy branch, he helped me. That was the first time we worked together, and I realized this was more than helping an injured animal.

Spring came slowly, and he started moving again, limping but able to walk. What surprised me was that he didn’t leave. Even when he could travel, he stayed near my property—by choice. He’d found companionship, maybe the first safe companionship since losing his family.

He began leaving gifts for me—interesting stones, smoothed wood, wild strawberries. He was reciprocating, communicating in the only way he knew. Over months and years, we developed a routine: morning and evening feedings, quiet encounters in the forest. He learned my footsteps; I learned his body language.

The mid-80s became the 90s, and our relationship deepened. He chose my company over solitude. He helped me sometimes, moving heavy logs or clearing branches after storms. He kept a respectful distance from the cabin, a boundary I appreciated.

I learned his preferences: apples, salmon, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and meat. He was meticulous about cleanliness, often washing food in the stream. He had favorite spots in the forest—a rock overlooking a valley, a grove of old cedars. Sometimes he was playful, stacking rocks or floating leaves in the stream.

The seasons became markers in our relationship. Spring meant fresh greens and salmon; summer brought berries and long days; fall was for preparation; winter was a reminder of how it all began. I talked to him more than to any human, about everything and nothing. He listened, and maybe my voice comforted him as much as his presence comforted me.

Everything changed in the late 90s. One autumn, I found him agitated, pacing and making low sounds. He led me to an old hunting camp with fresh signs—tire tracks, bootprints, shell casings, and claw marks on trees. He was showing me that humans had been in his territory, armed and dangerous. Over weeks, he showed me more places: old trap sites, torn-up forest, areas he avoided.

He’d lived this way for years, always aware of humans and avoiding contact. The only reason he let me help him was because he’d been too injured to run. Even then, he was afraid.

One spring, fifteen years after I first found him, he led me deep into the mountains to a hidden waterfall. Behind it was a cave—a burial site. Inside were bones, not animal but huge, human-shaped. Skulls with brow ridges, arm bones for something eight or nine feet tall. Seven skeletons, arranged with care and reverence.

Some bones showed bullet holes, shattered ribs, fractures from firearms. These were his family, others like him who hadn’t survived encounters with humans. He told me his story through drawings—his family living peacefully, then hunted by armed men. He’d been young, shot in the leg, escaped, and survived alone ever since.

In the cave, he showed me a bundle of newspaper clippings: headlines about Bigfoot hunts, bounties, government seizures, trophy hunters. It was evidence of systematic hunting and organized expeditions to eliminate his kind. Over decades, he’d collected proof of what had been done.

He showed me more burial sites—some ancient, some recent. Arrow points embedded in vertebrae, stone axe marks, evidence that humans had hunted his kind for centuries. I realized I was witnessing the aftermath of a genocide, a species eliminated while the world did not know or care.

He showed me current threats: new logging roads, trail cameras, development encroaching on wilderness, shrinking his territory and options. Every year, more people came, more cameras, more danger. I became more protective, posting no trespassing signs, chasing off hunters.

By the early 2000s, both of us were aging. He moved slower, I made fewer trips into the forest, and we adapted our routine. When I had a stroke three years ago, he cared for me, leaving food at my door, standing guard at night. The caretaker roles had reversed.

Last spring, he took me back to the cave and showed me he’d prepared a space for himself. He knew he was the last one, possibly the last anywhere. When he died, his species would die with him—thousands of years of existence ending in silence.

His fear of humans wasn’t paranoia; it was learned from decades of violence. His hiding was survival. His loneliness was because there was no one else left.

I’m 73 now. He’s old, too. Some days he barely moves, picking at food. Other days are better, and we sit together in silence. I’ve kept his secret my entire life, never tried to prove what I knew, never took photos. I protected him because it was the only way to keep him safe.

But now, as the end approaches, I realize that when we’re both gone, no one will know. His species will vanish without record or understanding. The burden of this knowledge is heavy. I’ve watched the world celebrate conservation and protect endangered species, while knowing a species died in silence.

I’ve prepared maps and notes about the burial sites, hidden for someone to find someday. My property is part of a conservation trust, so his home will be safe for a while. It’s not much, but it’s all I can do.

Sometimes I think about other places—Canada, Russia, the Himalayas—hoping his kind didn’t go completely extinct. But hope isn’t knowledge.

What I do know is that one of them trusted me. He let me into his life, shared his history and grief. In return, I kept him safe, gave him companionship in his final years, and now I’m telling his story so someone will remember.

We’re both waiting for the final chapter, but until then, I’ll keep bringing food, he’ll keep leaving gifts, and we’ll sit together in the forest we both love—two unlikely friends at the end of the world.

That’s the truth about why they fear us. Not because they’re monsters and we’re heroes, but because we’re the monsters, and they knew it long before I did.