Alleged hoaxes and reality

These first three photographs are Sasquatch footprints found and cast in the Bluff Creek area during the 1960's, note how none of them match in details to the lower photographs of Ray Wallace's wooden feet.

It has always been very interesting to me how claims of hoaxing have cast such a shadow over the footprints found in the Bluff Creek area for more than a decade in the late 1950's to the late 1960's. I interviewed Al Hodgson in 2005 for my book "Notes From the Field, Tracking North America's Sasquatch". Al said he knew Ray Wallace well, Wallace a contractor in that region who had projects going on there in those days. Al told me that Ray enjoyed a joke as much as the next person but had not done what he was later accused of. Later after thousands of footprints were discovered in the area on newly constructed roads into the Bluff Creek area, did Wallace start saying he made the prints. He claimed to have carved wooden feet to make the tracks. However, his wooden feet do not match the details of the six different Sasquatch tracks that turned up in the region. The photo's here are a couple of his wooden feet held by his nephew Dale. He also did not mention how he could make perfect lines of tracks in this rickety looking contraption for thousands of prints without ever making any mistakes!

Rene' Dahinden showed me photographs of alleged Sasquatch footprints from Bluff Creek he knew to be faked, those look similar to Wallace's wooden feet, but the majority of footprints found in that area were legitemate, and very different from those Wallace much later claimed he made. Al Hodgson said that Wallace was not even in the Bluff Creek area most of the time as he was in other areas trying hard to get more contracts to keep his crews working, it seems hardly worth such efforts to make a hoax spanding more than a decade when your trying to make a living, what would he have had to gain by it? I have seen plenty of footprints elsewhere since Ray Wallace's death, they look just like the real tracks from Bluff Creek, how is this explained? The simplest answer is that Ray Wallace did not make the tracks and was later trying to cash in on the attention he was unable to when the mysterious footprints were being discovered. I believe he felt left out and tried to discredit what was real, and being discovered while his crews worked that region.

Many people had problems with Rene', I know this very well as he was my mentor and good friend for 25 years. Rene' was actually a very likeable and friendly man. Those who disliked him were most often those he proved wrong about their assertions about Sasquatch's or evidence that had been faked. Today those who profess dislike for this giant of the issue of the sasquatch do so because it undermines their blatant disregard for what was proved hoaxed materials and their support of this hoaxed material. Rene' will long be remembered for his comittment to absolute pure data collected regarding the Sasquatch and exposing hoaxes. He was a purist, and simply could not tolerate anything that was not one hundred percent authentic. The issue as a whole was much better with Rene' Dahinden involved, it got worldwide attention solely because of his efforts which he began in the 1950's. new investigators to the issue should aspire to be like this great man, the issue would gain credibility much quicker if more people emulated him and his work. Rene' will ultimately be known as the "Father of the Sasquatch Issue".