- As a fun loving human person, I'll admit, I wanna believe that Bigfoot exists, but does Bigfoot exist here in Minnesota?

To find out, "Minnesota Historia" traveled to Grand Rapids for the fifth annual Minnesota Bigfoot Conference.

- This is the biggest Bigfoot conference, I guess you could say, within the Midwest now, - Because if there's one place you're sure to spot a Bigfoot, it's in a hotel conference room.

Look, we had to start somewhere, okay?

Welcome to "Minnesota Historia."

I'm Haley, your guide to Bigfoot in Minnesota.

(playful music) Before we get started, does everyone here know what a Bigfoot is?

Big creature, very hairy, walks around in the woods, but not like a bear or a lumberjack.

Halfway between apes and humans.

Might be the missing link.

Yeah, just like this.

We really nailed it.

This is Mike Quast.

He literally wrote the book on Bigfoot in Minnesota, and he assures me, Bigfoot is everywhere.

- You know, the more you study the subject, you start to find out that it's a really a worldwide thing.

- The term Bigfoot was coined in Northern California.

You can also find them in British Columbia, where they're called Sasquatch.

- They are literally (laughing) all over this world.

Tibet has the Yeti, Australia has the Yowie.

Vietnam has rock apes.

Florida has skunk apes.

- What's the booger?

- [Jen] Wood Booger.

- Wood booger, yeah.

In one of the states, is it Iowa?

- [Jen] The South?

- Yeah.

- They call it booger.

- They call Bigfoot Wood Booger in the south.

- The wood booger lives in the state of Virginia.

So why not Minnesota?

This is Abe Del Rio, founder of the Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team, which organizes this conference.

- Yeah, Minnesota is a great state for Bigfoot research.

Oh my gosh, absolutely.

We got everything that, you know, Bigfoot needs.

We've got food, we got water, we got shelter, animals galore.

It'd be from rodents to reptiles to amphibians, ungulates.

Oh my gosh, yeah.

Minnesota has everything that a Bigfoot needs to sustain itself.

Traditionally, people think of Bigfoot, and they have their eyes on the Pacific Northwest because of the Patterson-Gimlin film that was taken back in '67.

But we know that they're here in Minnesota.

- Well, if you look at a map of Minnesota, the entire upper third is pretty much one solid forest with just small towns dotted here and there.

The terrain of Minnesota makes it an ideal habitat for Sasquatch.

- Here's the thing we tell people, where a bear would wanna survive, everything that a bear would need, (graphics popping) we're assuming Bigfoot needs too.

- That whatever a black bear could live on, a Bigfoot could live on.

So if it could support that large predator, it could support that large predator.

(playful music) - Minnesota might be home to Bigfoot, but it is definitely home to a very trailblazing group of Bigfoot hunters.

- Well, I know people call it Bigfoot hunting, but we're not actually out there hunting it.

(laughing) We're just searching for it.

- I might argue you are squatching for it or she-squatching for it.

- SHE-Squatchers is a first all female bigfoot team in the Midwest.

We started in 2015 after I interviewed Loren Coleman, the cryptozoologist, who has the International Cryptozoology Museum in the state of Maine.

- Cryptozoology is the study of animals whose very existence is in dispute, but you're currently watching a Bigfoot documentary.

I suddenly feel like I'm over-explaining all this.

- Loren thought that the recipe for success in getting close to or interacting with Bigfoot would be to send women into the woods without men, dogs, or guns.

So he challenged me to do this, and I decided, yeah, we're gonna try this.

I'll get some ladies together and we're gonna go check this out.

And we had an encounter our very first time out.

And we're just out there and rocks are getting thrown at us.

I didn't even know that Bigfoot were known for doing that.

So as soon as I had my first encounter, I went home, told Jena, my best friend, that this is what happened over the weekend.

And she was so mad at me.

- So I said, why didn't you call me?

So she got on board immediately at that point.

- And I'm like, I don't know anything about Bigfoot, but you know what, it's all about the adventure.

(upbeat music) - As an adventure-loving human person myself, I'm almost ready to board this Bigfoot in Minnesota train.

But as a historian, I'm gonna need some historical context.

- Well, yeah, it's very, very deep in Minnesota history.

- If you look at Native American lore that goes centuries back without really even a clear beginning.

- I'm like actually an enrolled tribal member at the Red Lake band of Chippewa Indians in northern Minnesota.

Bigfoot is actually part of the Seven Sacred Teachings of the Grandfathers.

Each one of them is represented by an animal that embodies that particular teaching.

Love is represented by the eagle and so on.

But honesty is represented by Bigfoot and that teaching is as old as old can be.

They use animals that they were real to them.

So it wasn't like Bigfoot was a mythological creature.

It was a real creature that they were using to represent this.

In the Ojibwe language, Sabe, which means honesty, is one of the names that's given to Bigfoot.

So it's gichi sabe, which is big honesty or great big honesty or misabe, you know, but it's always a different variation of sabe.

- That's some good historical evidence.

But has anyone checked in with a 19th century lumberjack to see what they think?

- Huh?

- These, these sightings go back to the 1800s when we start logging this area.

They would see those, they used to just call them pine apes, 'cause they'd see them in the woods and they would flush them away from what they were doing and they'd go about their business.

- Oh, I like calling them pine apes.

Why didn't we keep that?

Minnesota needs its own name for Bigfoot.

We asked Joel Sturgis if he had any ideas for us.

- I don't know.

We'll have to come up with something.

We'll have to put heads together like a frost squatch or something.

(laughing) - Speaking of frost squatches, Minnesota also lent its name to one of the most famous Bigfoot encounters of all time in the 1960s.

- We got the Iceman, the Minnesota Iceman.

- I don't wanna brag, but I actually honeymooned at the Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas, where I saw the Minnesota Iceman, - The Minnesota Iceman, it was allegedly shot in the Whiteface Reservoir area, which is just north of Duluth.

They shot it, they brought it back to a army base around the Duluth area, and they put it in a big freezer, took all the stuff in the freezer and filled the freezer with ice, and it was encased in a block of ice.

And that's how we got the Minnesota Iceman.

- I love this story, because it's both violent and takes place in Minnesota.

But you should know there are many other versions of this story.

In one, he came from Siberia.

In another, he was owned by actor Jimmy Stewart.

It's complicated.

- And it was on display going from fair to carnivals and stuff like that.

However, the ice started to melt and people said they, you can smell.

Yeah.

So it wasn't a pretty scene.

Frank Hansen, who was the owner of that, went into hiding and came back out with a fake one.

Why he did that, we have no idea, but there's at least two of them.

- Well, one of them is at the Museum of the Weird.

Meanwhile, our furry friend's profile continued to grow.

(playful music) - There was an emergence of documentary filmmaking going on in the '70s that was making people think that, well, maybe it wouldn't be such a crazy thing for me to share the sighting that I had.

- Sightings are now so common in Minnesota, Bigfoot has established legal residence.

- Well, a few years ago, you know, they started having the annual Remer Bigfoot Festival and calling the town, The Home of Bigfoot.

- They even trademarked it.

Clever.

- I tend to think that almost any town in that region could make the same claim, but I think they're, they just happen to be the ones that did it.

- The next time I'm near Remer or Black Duck or Sturgeon Lake, or any of the other places where Bigfoot sightings have been reported, what should I be looking for?

- Well, number one, of course, keep an open mind.

- So open.

- Find out where there's been recent activity.

You wanna look for woods, cover, water.

- Woods, cover, water.

- Those three things, woods, cover, water.

- Just start slow, walk through the woods.

- I just wanna tell people that there's more than the little box your house is.

I mean, to get outside.

- Leave my house.

- You're not gonna have anything happen if you're at home, (laughing) right?

- And there you have it.

When it comes to finally finding our furry friend, I'm rooting for my home state to get this job done because I believe in Bigfoot, and I'd like to think that he or she believes in me.

(upbeat music) Thanks for watching "Minnesota Historia," your guide to all things quirky in Minnesota history.

Check out some of our other episodes where we go even further and deeper into the quirky, soft underbelly of this very weird state.

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