On 1 April 1969 the county commissioners adopted an ordinance protecting sasquatch from being killed. Readers took the date for the joke it looked like, so, by the usual account, the local weekly printed the notice again with an affidavit of publication. Fifteen years later the county amended the law: the animal was declared an endangered species and the county a Sasquatch Refuge, on a finding that legend, purported recent findings and spoor supported its existence in the area. A neighbouring county passed its own resolution in 1992. The reason recorded for all of it was not zoology. It was that a sighting draws well-armed investigators and hunters who come to take a specimen, and the counties meant to protect the people who live there.
This is a hazard policy that had to name an animal for its own purposes. That is the animal's entire status on the record.
AI illustration · imagined scene, not an evidence photograph
File
CR-0067
Date
1 April 1969 → June 1992
Place
Skamania County, Washington, United States
Record
Residents of a forested county on the Columbia River
Evidence
Ordinance No. 69-01; Ordinance 1984-02; a neighbouring county's resolution
Agency
Skamania County Board of Commissioners; Whatcom County
Assessment
B · documented
The full file
On 1 April 1969 the Board of County Commissioners of Skamania County, a thinly populated and heavily forested county on the Washington bank of the Columbia River, adopted Ordinance No. 69-01. It made the killing of a creature it called "Sasquatch", "Yeti", "Bigfoot" or "Giant Hairy Ape" a felony. Fifteen years later the county rewrote the law, and in 1992 Whatcom County, at the other end of the state on the Canadian border, passed a resolution of its own. Nobody in this case reported seeing anything. What is on record is three governments writing down what they thought the sightings were doing to their counties.
What the counties enacted
The 1969 ordinance is a single page. Its preamble finds "evidence to indicate the possible existence" in the county of a nocturnal primate described as ape-like or a sub-species of Homo sapiens, supported by legend and by "purported recent sightings and spoor". Then it gives its reason: publicity about "real or imagined sightings" had brought an influx of scientific investigators and casual hunters, "many armed with lethal weapons", and the lack of any law on taking specimens "encourages laxity in the use of firearms". Premeditated, wilful and wanton slaying was to be a felony, punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and/or up to five years in the county jail. The board declared an emergency, so the ordinance took effect at once.
Ordinance No. 1984-2 partly repealed the 1969 law. Its preamble repeats the old findings almost word for word, then admits that a felony "may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority" of the board. It declares the creatures an endangered species and makes the whole county a "Sasquatch Refuge". Killing one with malice aforethought became a gross misdemeanour, punishable by a year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine, or both; without malice, a misdemeanour carrying a $500 fine and up to six months, or both. Insanity or diminished capacity "shall not be a defense". If the county coroner found the victim to have been humanoid, the prosecutor was to treat the case as a homicide.
Whatcom County's Resolution No. 92-043 was adopted unanimously on 9 June 1992, at the request of Al Magnussen of the Mount Baker Chamber of Commerce, who according to the council minutes wanted a sanctuary "with penalties". He did not get them. As quoted by Cascadia Daily News, the resolution says only that if such a creature exists it "is inadequately protected and in danger of death or injury".
The documents and where they are
The Skamania ordinances survive as signed and sealed scans, once published on the county's own website and now preserved by the Internet Archive. The county's ordinance disposition table lists 69-01 as "Sasquatch protection" and 1984-02 as "Sasquatch refuge", both "not codified": neither was ever placed in the county code, but neither is listed as repealed. The Whatcom resolution is held in that county's online document archive. Courthouse Libraries BC adds that because readers took the 1969 date for a joke, the Skamania County Pioneer printed the ordinance on 4 and 11 April, had it notarised on 12 April and reprinted it with an affidavit of publication. No copy of those issues or of the affidavit has been seen for this write-up.
What officials concluded
None of the three bodies claimed to know the animal existed; each legislated "if". In December 1977 the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency responsible for endangered species, issued a release on what it would do if Bigfoot were found. It cited Skamania's $10,000 fine, warned that crowds of would-be captors would threaten public safety as much as the animal, and quoted its associate director, Keith Schreiner: "I don't believe there are any of the things around to be discovered". In 2018 the county's prosecuting attorney, Adam Kick, told KOMO News that he was personally a sceptic and hoped people would hunt Bigfoot "with a camera rather than a gun".
The conventional explanation
The leading explanation is that these are firearms and public-order measures that had to name an animal in order to work. Its strength is that the documents say so themselves: both Skamania preambles give armed visitors as the reason, and the 1977 federal release saw the same danger. Local writing since gives the same reason; the county's chamber of commerce says the worry was that a seeker would shoot a bearded elk hunter. The explanation's weakness is that it does not account for everything on the paper. The Whatcom resolution came from a chamber of commerce and gives no safety reason in the parts quoted, and the Skamania chamber now offers the ordinance on a postcard. Promotion and local humour sit alongside the safety motive, and the documents do not say how much of each there was.
What remains disputed
Courthouse Libraries BC gives 2 April 1984 as the date the revision took effect. The signed document says it was reviewed on 2 April, set for public hearing on 16 April and passed into law on 16 April 1984. Some later press reports give the 1984 penalties for the 1969 law. Whether the 1969 felony was ever valid is doubted by the county's own 1984 wording. No prosecution under any of the three measures has been found. The affidavit story rests on one secondary source. The animal the laws protect has never been produced.
Sources
Skamania County Ordinance No. 69-01 — Skamania County Board of Commissioners, 1969 (county website scan, archived). The full 1969 text: preamble, felony, penalties and emergency clause.
Skamania County Ordinance No. 1984-2 — Skamania County Board of Commissioners, 1984 (county website scan, archived). The refuge, the reduced penalties, the jurisdiction admission, the defence and humanoid clauses, and the 2 and 16 April dates.
Sasquatch in BC Law(archived) — Courthouse Libraries BC, undated. Publication dates, notarisation and affidavit, the 1984 effective date it gives, and Resolution 92-043.
Corrected The full file: Whatcom County does not border Skamania County; the text now says it is at the other end of the state, on the Canadian border, not 'neighbouring'.
Corrected The full file: The Skamania chamber of commerce invites visitors to pick up the ordinance postcard and does not say it is sold; the text now says the chamber offers it.
Corrected The full file: The 1984 ordinance sets the gross misdemeanour penalty as a year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine, or both, not 'up to a year'; the text now follows the ordinance's wording for both penalties.
Corrected The 1969 ordinance is now described as protecting sasquatch from being killed, not quoted in a later paraphrase's words. The reprint with an affidavit of publication is now 'the usual account', no longer listed as evidence.
Added The full file, a long-form write-up with its sources, added.
INDEPENDENT FIELD ARCHIVE
