Highway 96, known as the scenic Bigfoot Highway, meanders north of Willow Creek. RICHARD STENGER / Redwoods.info

 

Every summer seems to spawn an animal- related news story that sparks as much media interest as the Brangelina twins.

Last summer, it was Delta and Dawn, the wayward whales who ended up in the Port of Sacramento and circled for weeks before finding their way back to the sea.

This summer, the "discovery" of a Bigfoot carcass in Georgia made headlines and drew paparazzi to a Palo Alto lab where, to media drumrolls, the block of ice into which the creature had been frozen was melted to reveal … a rubber gorilla suit.

But the summertime tale hasn't ended. Not quite, not yet.

Turns out Bigfoot lives – and loves – in Humboldt County.

Yes, siree. And there's a YouTube video to prove it.

"We made it on a lark and it took off immediately," Humboldt County Convention & Visitors Bureau spokesman Richard Stenger says of the 2.5-minute clip, titled "Bigfoot Reunion in the Redwoods" that drew more than 100,000 hits in the first week it was posted.

The video is a fitting tribute to a myth that was born 50 years ago in the Siskiyou Mountains, where a man from Willow Creek discovered the first set of footprints purportedly made by a humanlike creature as yet unknown to science. A fuzzy video followed, turning Bigfoot into what Stenger likens to "a virtual Loch Ness monster."

The YouTube clip might be the cleverest bit of tourism marketing ever to emanate from a county best known for its misty redwood forests, untamed rivers, elusive pot growers and dying lumber industry.

"We've been planning some Bigfoot marketing because this year is the 50th anniversary of the legend," Stenger said. "We have an annual Bigfoot Days celebration over Labor Day each year in Willow Creek, and we wanted to figure out a way to honor that."

While tourism officials were scratching their heads, trying to come up with an idea, the Georgia Bigfoot story came along to provide inspiration. About the same time, a YouTube video titled "Christian the Lion," about the reunion of a hand-raised lion cub with his handlers, caught fire across the Internet, drawing more than 12 million viewers to date.

The two scenarios seemed made for, well, mating.

"We found out the folks at the Blue Lake Casino near Arcata had a Bigfoot suit from Horrordome.com – it was the same suit the Georgia guys had used. And everybody was talking about the lion. So the producers thought. well, why don't we do a parody?"

The video was shot in one day in the Humboldt County redwoods.

"We promote ourselves as redwood country," Stenger said, "and this was a way to showcase our eye candy."

Split-screen imaging made it possible to shoot the clip using a single gorilla suit shared between a 6-foot-5 actor playing Bigfoot and a petite woman taking the role of his mate. The story line closely parodies the lion video, right down to the dramatic gestures and music.

As viewers learn, Bigfoot discoverers Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin in 1967 found a young Sasquatch and brought it home. "A local ranger allowed them to exercise the Sasquatch, now named Bigfoot, in the Redwood Park grounds, but he quickly became too big for their apartment," the on-screen legend reads.

What to do but reintroduce him to the forest?

The two men come back a year later but are warned that Bigfoot, now completely wild, will not remember them.

But … well, he does, and the results are hilarious.

Oddly, Stenger said, about a third of the people who have viewed the video so far happen to live in Slovakia.

Such is the power of the Internet.

Copyright © The Sacramento Bee

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

The videos: Go to YouTube.com and search "Christian the Lion" and "Bigfoot Reunion in the Redwoods" to see the featured videos.

Bigfoot Days: Saturday through Labor Day in Willow Creek, north of Eureka on Highway 299 in Humboldt County. Parade, live music and appearances by Bigfoot experts.

What else: Willow Creek-China Flat Museum, 38949 Highway 299, Willow Creek; (530) 629-2653, www.bigfootcountry.net; features the largest selection of Bigfoot curios in existence, including plaster casts, photos, maps – even a Bigfoot tendon.

Cinnabar Sam's, 19 Willow Way in Willow Creek, is one place to sip a glass of Bigfoot red; (530) 629-3437.

More information: Humboldt County Convention & Visitors Bureau, (800) 346-3482, www.redwoods.info.

Willow Creek Chamber of Commerce, (800) 628-5156, www.willowcreekchamber.com.