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A lot of folks ask me "What's up with the fairy and witch art...and especially the Sasquatch art???"
Since childhood, I have always been enamored with the magical side of life and often able to sense & see things others apparently can not, and I try to capture them in art. The Sasquatch art came from a very real experience I've never forgotten and only learned more about as an adult, that validated "for me", what I'd experienced. I'll share that experience below...
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When I was 15 years old in the mid-1970's, my family was camping at a place called "Lake of the Woods" in Klamath County, Oregon. It's my understanding now that there is more than one place in Oregon called "Lake of the Woods". The one we were at was, as mentioned, in Klamath County, Winema National Forest, Highway 140, off a road called Dead Indian Rd. (that name makes me cringe!), and had a great view of Mt. McLoughlin. The campground was at the south end of the lake...Lake of the Woods Resort. You can view it at www.lakeofthewoodsresort.com
The campground, which allowed tent camping at that time, was heavily forested right down to about 30 feet from the lake edge. On some sides of the lake, (looking across the lake to the west) it appeared trees came right to the very edge of, and into the lake. There were no campsites on that side, it looked wild and not part of the developed recreation area.
We were there for a week. Being a bookworm and artist, I would often wander off during the days when I wasn't swimming, hiking or biking with my younger brother or parents, and find a quiet place in the trees to sit and read, or sketch, just enjoy my solitude, soak up forest ambiance. I was never too far from the designated campground sites as to cause my parents worry, and was probably within earshot if I were to have screamed, but I was definitely out of their sight and away from the campground proper. Back then I don't think parents were quite as paranoid about their kids' whereabouts as they are today, and my parents knew and had taught me to be pretty safety and wilderness savvy. I recall my entire childhood was spent family- camping all over Upstate NY, then when we moved west to CA, we camped in CA, OR. I always loved disappearing into forest fringes to feel that undeniable exhilaration of being alone to bask in my favorite environment! It felt magical to me and still does. But nowadays, my antennae is significantly sharper to sounds, signs, and feelings...I never go into forests alone anymore....
One particular day there on our trip, I was off into the woods at the furthest end of the campground just before it merged with wild forest that came right to the lake edge, tree roots growing into lake water. I was about 60 feet up from the water's edge, leaning on a huge Douglas fir tree, sitting on a beach towel reading, when an extremely powerful feeling of being watched overcame me, like instantly! I looked all around me, seeing if there was someone there. My brother? The forest floor was covered in soft pine needles, then sand on the beach, so it would have been easy for someone or something to approach and not be readily heard or noticed right away. If not my brother, I suspected it might be the older boy from a nearby campsite who had shown annoying interest in me and I thought I'd made it clear I was not interested. I continued to sit there after not seeing anyone, observing, listening. But the feeling of being watched intensified to the point I felt goosebumps in very warm weather, and my hair stood on end at the back of my neck, even a wave of nausea. I trusted my gut. I gathered my things and quickly hiked back to our campsite, looking behind frequently all the way to see if I was being stalked. On the way back, I passed by and saw the annoying boy at his family's campsite, helping his father pitch an additional tent, so it was not him lurking around me in the trees. When I got back to our campsite, my brother was busy fiddling with re-stringing line on his fishing rod, so it had not been him lurking either. I decided I wouldn't mention my experience to my parents as I knew they'd admonish me for going too far away and possibly then restrict where I could go. But the awful feeling I'd just had was enough to teach me to not go so far again to the far end of the campground where it turned to non-campground forest and wilderness beyond. "Something" caused me to feel what I felt! I've always been a very sensitive, in-tune individual and I trusted that I wasn't *imagining* what I'd felt...
That very same night, like every night there, we were all exhausted from a day of being on the water rafting, swimming, hiking, and just being outdoors. Sitting around the campfire at night we'd all start nodding off by 8:00 or 9:00 pm and go to our sleeping bags in our big tent...
I don't know precisely what time it was because we didn't have a clock in our tent, and it was before cellphones were in-use to check time, but it was well into the night, I'm guessing around 2:00 a.m., when the rest of the campground was dead silent, late-night partyers had finally gone to sleep for the night as well. I was awakened by a long, drawn-out scream in the night that sounded like someone in agony or fear, and seemed to echo forever. My eyes flew open upon hearing it and I felt instant heart-racing terror. I literally felt paralyzed in my sleeping bag, scared to death realizing I physically COULD NOT move! Again, I got goosebumps and felt the hair on the back of my neck arise despite being warm in my sleeping bag. I initially tried to clear my mind, discern if I was having a very realistic nightmare, or if what I had heard was actually happening in real time. I laid there frozen, waiting to see if the rest of my family heard it and woke up, too. All I could move were my eyeballs, which I'm sure were bugging out by then. I strained to listen for anything. No one else awoke. My dad was snoring, and my mother and brother made no sounds of being awakened like me. Then it happened again, only this time the scream sounded more like a whoop, long and drawn out with the sound lilting up at the end, and unnaturally loud for any human to make. Directionally, it sounded like the whoop was coming from across the lake, which is about 3/4 of a mile wide. After a long pause, I heard it again one more time but that time it sounded fainter, like whatever was making the sound was moving farther away. Shortly after that, I heard a very loud sound that I can only describe as what I imagine would be two metal ship hulls scraping against each other in passing; incredibly loud, metallic, and lasted about 10 seconds. I continued to lay there motionless, frozen-stuck, listening hard. As the screams moved further away, I felt my body UN-freeze and I was able to move again, but I laid there waiting for the unknown, and I eventually fell back to sleep, exhausted I think from sheer terror! Nothing I'd ever heard before sounded LIKE THAT! NOTHING, not the metal sound, no animal, and I'd been camping literally my whole life traipsing through woods. I knew what bears, wolves and cougars sound like. This was none of those. If it had been a human, I couldn't imagine any human with the lung capacity to scream or whoop so long and loud! The metal sound defied logic to me as we were surrounded by miles of national forest, no factories or industry anywhere nearby, to my knowledge.
In the morning, my family got up and acted like they always did, re-starting a campfire, going about breakfast-making routines. I was last to awaken and I asked them if they heard anything during the night. Nope, they didn't. Which shocked me because it was so incredibly loud & creepy to me! I proceeded to describe to them all that I had heard and how it made me feel, the sensation of being frozen-in-place against my will, and that grating metal sound. They'd heard nothing! This left me speechless and questioning my own sanity. Fortunately, I had a family that listened and respected what I said, took it as something that really happened "to me". My brother did tease me a bit the rest of the camping trip, but he did ask a lot of questions and I caught him scanning the furthest side of the lake shore often to see if he saw anything. I convinced myself I had to have dreamed it all...
There were just a few days left of our camping trip and I never heard or felt anything again. I no longer wandered off into the woods too far from our campsite. I thought about it a LOT on the trip home to San Diego, but since my family never experienced what I did, there wasn't anyone to talk with about it. I didn't even share with my best friend when I got home, despite our habit as teen besties sharing everything with each other; I thought I'd sound like a stark-raving lunatic. I really started to believe I dreamed the experience. Computers and forums were not around yet then so there were no gathering places to speak of these things or share & compare. So yeah, it was a pretty isolating, mind-questioning experience. One I've carried with me for a long time.... Some years later as a 19 year old, a friend and I drove up to meet my parents there at the same campground, and I no experiences whatsoever during that stay, but it was in the back of my mind the whole time.
More years later, my soon-to-be-husband and I were on a road trip up coastal Hwy 101, final destination was to visit a friend in Bend, Oregon. We had no plans to deviate from our travel itinerary we'd mapped out. But as we neared southern Oregon, I felt the most unexplainable compulsion to go see Lake of the Woods again. I suggested we go, under the guise of wanting to re-scope out an old family favorite camping spot for our own future camping trip planning. I wasn't ready to share with my fiance yet what had happened to me there as a kid. I was still not certain in my own head what had happened to me! Mind you, this was still PRE-INTERNET days, and I'd not spoken to another soul yet about it (other than my family, the day after), or come to any conclusions validated by others' sharings, yet-to-be-written books, or audio recordings. Fiance was game, so we veered right and followed good old Thomas Brothers map directions.
It was weird, recognizing the way, ..."Dead Indian Rd. "suddenly started making me feel butterflies in my gut and a general uneasy feeling for no reasonable reason. Not like *me* to feel that way. We arrived in the early afternoon. I recognized our old campsite, just feet from the lake edge and looked at the lake through memory-eyes again, staring at Mt. McLoughlin towering in the distance. I wanted to hike down the beach to "the spot" at the forest edge that so many years ago had scared me off. I found the exact tree I'd leaned on, stood there, head tilted back, smelling the pines, feeling the breeze, just feeling the atmosphere… remembering. No strange vibes ensued. No conversation, no explanation. After a spell of just feeling, I was ready to leave. "You're ready to leave already?" he asked. "Yep!" Not sure what I may have been expecting to "feel", maybe relieved that there was nothing to feel, I guess...which confirmed I probably had dreamed or imagined it all from the start...rrright? We gathered resort brochures at the general store on the way out for reservation contact info., and left. We haven't been back since...yet. But I think about it, a lot. Feels like a persistent "calling" to go back. I've often wondered if others who have experienced encounters feel the same type "calling" to return to the scene???
Since then, with the advent of computers, internet, and a multitude of Sasquatch forums, I’ll never forget when I first heard "whoop" audio recordings! I INSTANTANEOUSLY was mentally back in that sleeping bag as a 15-year-old, wide awake, frozen-still, listening in the night with goosebumps and my neck hairs standing up. And every time I hear new published audio recordings to this day, it triggers the same reaction in me. It's a "when you know it, you know it" experience. Only others who've experienced anything like it, can validate your experience, affirm it DID HAPPEN. And that's the thing, even if you didn't SEE a Sasquatch face-to-face, just recognizing or even just suspecting what you just experienced leaves such a potent, never-ending memory burned into your brain--I got raised hairs on my neck again, just typing and telling this! And I'm YEARS/DECADES older now.
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After what happened that long ago camping trip, both in the afternoon feeling watched and frightened away from the forest, as well as the events of that same night, the screams, the paralysis, the metal scraping sound, I can't say as I would deliberately seek out an encounter as so many do. Now in hindsight, along with what I've heard shared by SO many others it's caused me to re-review SO MANY incidences I've felt or thought to be strange from all my forest wanderings, before and since: times I've hiked alone and felt watched, followed, raised neck-hairs, or nausea...now wondering if I had been in the presence of forest beings but just didn't recognize it at the time? And why was "I" the only one in my family to hear the screams that night and be paralyzed? Was I somehow targeted? Can they do that individually? So many questions… Yet reading and hearing so many others with similar encounters confirmed I was not alone.
I know this isn't as dramatic a story as so many others. I only "heard" what I heard, "felt" what I felt. No face-to-face eye-witness sighting. But I guess I just wanted to emphasize that while we all can readily find the negative with the internet, there's also so many worlds opened up because of it--especially with what so many have now been able to share about Sasquatch beings and our experiences. We no longer have to question our own truths because there *is* so much relatable validation out there from people with nothing to gain by telling their story, most wish to remain anonymous. Funny how another person's encounter can breathe life back into my own memories and I'm instantly there again! It also becomes a helluva ride re-reviewing so many things that have happened in life with FRESH EYES as to what it may have *really* been. And yeah, are people tagged "for life", even in the most mild or benign of encounters? This is all very much in the forefront of my mind as my husband and I research rural areas to retire to, buy property. What we may be getting ourselves into, …or attract?
Since all of that occurred, my own family, (we had three kids), would vacation annually at Lake Tahoe, CA, the west side, always renting a house right at the edge of DNR forest, adjacent to the Rubicon Trail. It was experiences my husband and one of our sons had there, that eventually fully opened up the conversation between my now-husband and I re: Sasquatch existence. And mind you, THAT conversation only saw the light of day a year ago (after 42 years married). That's how long it can take for even the closest of relationships to fully acknowledge-as-real and accept these forest beings exist.... But that's another set of encounters for another time.
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With all the shared experiences I have read and heard told, I have absolutely no doubts and am 100% certain these forest beings exist, and it's just a matter of time before EVERYBODY knows the truth.
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~Carol
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