Nestled in the remote corner of Southwest Virginia, this region captivates with its rugged landscapes, natural wonders, cultural attractions, and outdoor adventures.

Experiences you'll only find in the heart of Appalachia.

Adventure guides available at heartofappalachia.com.

[♪ ♪ ♪] - [Host Voice Over] On this episode of Life in Virginia's Appalachia, we explore things that go bump in the night.

For the people who live there, fables, folklore, and legends provide a guide to life.

Stories stretching back hundreds of years remind us to be kind, help our neighbors, and stay out of the woods after dark.

Appalachian lore speaks of an elusive entity that haunts the local forests, a large, hairy humanoid figure, often described as a distant cousin to Bigfoot.

In Appalachia, the creature is known as The Woodbooger.

But, unlike its more famous relative, this creature is shrouded in mystery.

The stories, passed down through the generations in the shadowy hollows and rugged ridges of Virginia, tales of the Woodbooger weave together elements of fear and fascination.

Locals whisper about strange sounds in the night, sudden movements just beyond the tree line, and the unmistakable feeling of being watched.

In the Appalachian Mountains, folklore isn't just a relic of the past; it's woven into the very fabric of life.

From the tales of the Mothman to the Virginia Devil Monkey and the Woodbooger, these stories reflect the fears, hopes, and connection we all have to the wild.

So, are the legends true?

We're about to head into the thick of the Appalachian forest to find out where the line between reality and myth [thunder claps] blurs in the shadow of the trees.

On April 4, 2009, a father and his son were riding ATVs through a creek when, suddenly, a large Bigfoot-like creature crossed their path.

The encounter was recorded on a cheap video camera and posted to YouTube.

The clip, called The Beast of Gum Hill, caught the attention of Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot.

A TV crew was sent to Northern Virginia in 2012 to film an episode.

The father estimated the Woodbooger to be seven feet tall and weigh 350 pounds.

- The Woodbooger, back in 2012, Animal Planet 'Finding Bigfoot' came to the area.

And they were on High Knob, doing their research and filming.

And when that episode aired, it caused a stir in the area that put Norton on the map of a Bigfoot in the area.

Well, what we found out, people were coming forward with their stories of hearing screams in the woods that they couldn't understand, they could hear wood hitting on trees, and even people have spotted what they think was the creature walking across the road or through the woods.

So that opened up that whole area.

I think it was the Woodbooger of Gum Hill that's what-- It was a video on YouTube.

And that sort of kicked them off to come to this area.

Um, and they actually went to that site, but they also stayed up here on the Knob.

And they actually set up all night, listening for the Woodbooger.

And I believe they even put some powdered sugar out on the ground to see if they could get the footprints of the Woodbooger.

But, like I say, it's brought a lot of people out that have heard the Woodbooger, they have seen likenesses of him in the mountains, and they have actually seen large footprints in the soil.

And people are serious about this.

They believe they've actually seen this character.

I, myself, have not.

Norton has taken a different approach.

As far as Bigfoot because we call it the Woodbooger.

I know there are some serious conventions -- ones down in the Gatlinburg area, the Bigfoot Festival or Bigfoot Gathering -- and they actually go into the woods and try to find the creature.

It's serious to them.

We, on the other hand, we want to do it for an entertainment purpose.

We want to bring people to our city to visit the Flag Rock, to get up on the mountain.

You'd be surprised how many people in Wise County just have not been on this mountain.

-Folklore is a... it's a living, organic kind of thing.

And you can study it, but it exists outside that.

To compare it to, say, literature.

The study of literature is kind of a self, it exists only within people who do it.

It's kind of an abstraction or esoteric, in a way.

But folklore doesn't care whether people study it or not.

It's something that goes on.

And I know one of your reasons for interested in the Appalachian region is its perceived, at least, that folklore is more present, and active, and influential.

And it's safe to say that it is more so than in places where faster-paced, and people are more diverse, and they don't share the same traditions, and therefore they're more easily replaced.

It's easy to-- you see more options for a way to achieve the same purpose.

For example, entertain yourself and others.

Folklore itself is very broad.

It's sort of like putting those two together, sort of like saying, “What's in your kitchen and what's on that shelf?” You know, it's one thing, but it's a pretty big shelf.

So, I'll try to give you a definition of folklore as a textbook definition and then say something about storytelling, too.

Folklore, as an academic discipline, is much broader than what the term "folklore" suggests.

There's a connotation to folklore, based on the two parts to "folk," which most people think refers to somebody, not me.

"I'm not folk."

Folk is... can be...

It can be a positive connotation, as the folk are more authentic, and the lifestyle that they live is simpler, slower-paced, and somehow better.

As a sort of nostalgia, and it's something that we'll go and observe, and appreciate, and buy something; something that's marketable, maybe even.

"Lore" also has a sort of narrow idea.

We think of lore as something that's spoken or written, and often, we put with it "ancient."

And we think it's obscure, and that nobody really knows about it unless they need some secret code or something like that in a movie.

-Back in 2014, the city of Norton declared this area a Woodbooger sanctuary.

And with that, we had our first festival that year, and there were close to 900 people showed up to that festival.

And it was a hit.

So, we decided to do that every October.

And what we would do is we would have characters along their trails here, that would have guided through the trails and tell them a little bit of the story about Flag Rock and how we got here.

The characters say, "Yeah, I've seen him right over here," or "I've heard this over here."

And the kids and adults both loved it.

It was about a 20-or 30-minute walk, and they loved it.

We had entertainment up there.

We were roasting marshmallows.

We had food vendors, music, everything.

It was pretty the first year, very popular.

We had folks from the Carolinas, Kentucky, and Tennessee show up and it developed a following after the following years.

2019, we did have to stop.

That was our last one because COVID started 2020 But, in the year 2014, when we declared the city a sanctuary for the Woodbooger, we did a private fundraiser.

And we raised enough money to purchase the statue, as you see behind me here, The Woodbooger statue.

And we also purchased some plaques.

That gives a little bit of history of the Woodbooger, how it came to be, and then the list that was sponsored there.

This park is so unique in our area because, within five minutes of downtown, you can be in the middle of the woods.

And they have no idea [indistinct] -So, everyone is a member of some of the folk in some way, which means that everyone has folklore.

And lore is broader than just what we say, although that's what we often think of like storytelling.

But folklore actually encompasses not only oral culture, which includes everything as short as... things that aren't even oral.

They make a noise, like snapping your fingers or clicking your tongue.

It has survived here more for a couple of reasons.

One, I would suggest, is that it was more homogeneous to begin with.

So in Appalachia, we began with a culture that hasn't had as much.

It certainly had more influence.

It's not... People have these ideas about this purely Anglo-Saxon thing, which is really ridiculous.

Because for one thing, every people who came into the U.S. and crossed the U.S. before trains and railroads passed through this region.

Some of them stayed.

They had influences.

In parts of Appalachia that were more industrialized.

For instance, the coalfields, you have Eastern Europeans, you have Southern Europeans, and still, you have strong community cells.

But, compared to urban places, where populations have shifted and been more-- less stable, then there is a broader, more widely recognized folk way of doing things.

And then because... there isn't as much movement in and out, we are farther away from urban areas.

Then we haven't been presented with as many alternatives.

The impact of storytelling here is... it's not as intense and essential as it once was, when no one had a television, and you could not sit down in front of that television and be entertained.

[Woodbooger growls] -[Host Voice Over] Creatures known as Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and the Woodbooger have been a part of North American folklore for centuries.

Indigenous tribes across the continent had their own stories of a large, hairy creature living in the wilderness.

In the Appalachian region, these tales date back to the early settlers, who often spoke of encounters with a giant being that moved silently through the forests.

The term "Bigfoot" gained popularity in the late 1950s, but documented sightings in the Appalachians go all the way back to 1818 near the Greenbrier River in West Virginia.

A man reported seeing a large, human-like figure crossing a river, leaving behind enormous footprints.

The sightings sent waves of curiosity and fear through the settlers.

Through the years, reports of Bigfoot sightings continued.

By the 1970s, a surge of interest in cryptids, creatures whose existence is not scientifically proven, swept across the nation.

The Appalachian region became a hotbed for enthusiasts and researchers, as the locals shared their stories of strange sounds, fleeting glimpses, and the mysterious footprints.

Skeptics argue that these sightings can often be explained as misidentification or hoaxes, but the allure of Bigfoot persists.

The idea of a hidden creature roaming the woods captures our imagination and taps into our primal instincts.

The rise of social media has transformed the way people share their encounters.

Online communities dedicated to Bigfoot research have flourished, with members sharing photographs, videos, and personal stories, breathing new life into the legend and encouraging people to explore the Appalachian Mountains in search of evidence.

Because, whether you believe in the creature or not, our folklore shapes the way we see the world.

-One of our last, I believe it was 2018 or 2019, I want to tell you a funny story that happened during one of our festivals.

Of course, on our trails, we have different characters along, and at the very end of the trail, there was the Woodbooger that would make an appearance before they got off the trail and back to where all the activities were.

Well, we had characters on the trail.

We had a couple other smaller Woodbooger shaking trees in the woods and such.

And then the main Woodbooger character was near the end.

Well, it's a big, heavy costume, and it was very warm that October evening.

And I told the gentleman that was wearing the costume, "Please stay hydrated.

Take care of yourself, because you're going to get overheated," and such as that.

Well, the groups are coming by so fast, he did not have time to take a break in between and to drink water, Gatorade, or whatever.

Well, he passed out right in the middle of the trail.

He laid down, and he was out cold, and the group walked up on him, and a little boy took a stick and poked him.

He said, "I think he's dead."

So one of the guides came off the mountain.

They said, "Joe, Eddie's laying down up there, in the middle of the trail, and we can't get him revived."

So I hollered over at the rescue.

I said, "Get your Stokes up there and get Eddie down here and find out what's going on."

Well, they went up there, and they were trying to do an assessment, but he had the costume.

So they took some scissors, and they cut this very expensive costume off of Eddie to get to his vitals and get that.

Well, a kid saw that, and he came running out of the woods, saying, "They've killed the Woodbooger, and they're up there skinning him right now."

So, and [laughs] So, they did an assessment on him.

They took him to the local hospital.

He gets on a helicopter, goes to the Tri-Cities, and they check him out, and he was just dehydrated.

They pumped him with fluids, and he came back, and he was just fine.

But it was so funny when the kid came running out of the woods, saying, "They killed the Woodbooger, and they're up there skinning him out."

That's something that we'll always remember of this festival.

One of those things... [laughs] -Urban legends are interesting in that people change them to make them sound like they're real.

Have you heard of the Mothman?

Yeah, so that's a whole thing we could go off on, is folk legends.

What purpose do they serve?

You know, another thing that legends and stories can do is reinforce not only social codes but beliefs that you already have.

And, in that sense, that's a negative, can be a negative use of stories, because it's like saying, that I only listen to the news channel that tells the news the way I want to hear it.

Then I will believe the legends that reinforce something that I already want to believe.

And one of your questions later talks about misconceptions of folklore.

And one of those misconceptions is that folklore is thought to be benevolent and just cute, or this cottage industry or something, that it doesn't really affect their lives in a way that's really important, and especially that it can't have a negative impact.

It's benign, and that's not true.

So it's a means of preserving local history, and it's a means of actually giving people something to be proud about, even if it's something that's... to be known, I guess, for anything.

By some measures, it's better to be utterly forgotten.

And there are people who really believe that.

I hope I don't.

-[Joseph Fawbush] It has impacted businesses downtown.

One thing that one business, in particular, is our local hardware.

They jumped on board, and they started producing Woodbooger T-shirts, and they started that after the series aired.

And, believe it or not, that was one of their major incomes for the year.

-Yeah, it all started, I think it was 2011.

Animal Planet came to town, and they filmed an episode of "Finding Bigfoot."

And it was a three-part episode.

They filmed one up here on our mountain and another one in South Hill.

One of the people they interviewed said their grandmother called it the Woodbooger.

And so my brother came up with the idea.

He said, "Let's get some T-shirts."

So we bought 60 T-shirts, and we sold out in the one day.

So we bought 60 more, and we sold out the next day.

And it worked out great because our friend runs the print shop.

So we bought all our shirts local.

Helped him out, helped us out, and we kept selling and selling and selling.

And one day, he said, "You know, boys, this is going to quit one of these days."

He said, "You know, because we were buying 200, 300 shirts at a time."

And he said, "You're going to get stuck."

And after about three years, he said, "I don't know what I'm talking about."

He said, "Y'all just buy all you want."

So literally, one year, we made almost $50,000 in shirts, you know.

And I wish my dad would have been here because he would have never believed it.

Not me personally, but I'm like most people, you know, very few people have seen him, but everybody's got a friend that has.

So, you know, I've never seen one myself, but, you know, we sell a lot of shirts, and that's good.

[laughs] We pushed it for years, and the city got on board.

Now we have festivals.

We've got a restaurant named The Woodbooger, and it's just become a big thing for us.

-Hello.

My name is Rafael Madrigal.

I'm one of the co-owners of Woodburger Grill here in Northern Virginia.

Yeah, we opened in 2016, August 2016.

We've been open for eight years now.

We have a big menu.

We have pastas, we have steaks, ribs, barbecue.

We have burgers, sandwiches.

2016, we was going to open.

Woodbooger was coming up to the area.

You know, they put a big statue in the High Knob and they called it the Woodbooger.

So that's where the name came from that.

Yes, we get a lot of people out of state.

You know, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee.

They always stop by, and they're excited to eat here, you know.

And they always ask me if I ever saw a Woodbooger.

I was like, "No, never have."

[chuckles] -[Joseph Fawbush] I just want to invite everybody to come to our small, little community here.

We're very proud to be a city of Norton, and we -- our asset -- We used to be a coal-producing economy, and with the downturn in that, we turned our focus to outdoor recreation.

And what better place to have a recreation than a forest in your backyard, five minutes from your downtown?

And we have been working very hard.

We have a destination center at the bottom of the mountain that people can visit.

We are working on a trail from it all the way up to the observation tower to look out and see four or five states from up there.

We are working on a sidewalk from downtown to the destination center, and we hope to have the Woodbooger Festival in October 2025.

And look for social media.

Woodbooger is on the Facebook page, and we try to keep that up to date.

And we will let everyone know the date that is set, yes.

[♪ ♪ ♪] Nestled in the remote corner of Southwest Virginia, this region captivates with its rugged landscapes, natural wonders, cultural attractions, and outdoor adventures.

Experiences you'll only find in the heart of Appalachia.

Adventure guides available at heartofappalachia.com.