SALT LAKE CITY — Have you ever seen a larger-than-life figure walking through your neck of the woods? A new Provo exhibit seeks to explore Sasquatch sightings in Utah.
Tales of the mysterious and unexplainable can be found throughout the Beehive State.
“This involves Bigfoot, lake monsters, ghost lore, lost love traditions,” said local folklorist Danny B. Stewart.
Stewart says he collected 400 pieces of original folklore on his own throughout the years.
“I get great satisfaction when I find a new story, because I know I’ve found something that I can preserve,” Stewart said.
It’s what inspired another local, Logan Wolf, to trace the steps of the Sasquatch and create a historical timeline for Bigfoot in Utah.
“I’m not a Bigfoot hunter by any means,” said Wolf. “I mean we’ve got so many great state and national parks, I think you get removed from civilization and your mind just begins to kind of wander,” Wolf said.
The exhibit wanders - from a “See-atch” spirit found by the indigenous.
“I was in contact with the Southern Ute nation, and it’s not Bigfoot or Sasquatch - but it is Bigfoot-esque,” said Wolf.
Dozens of sightings over the past five decades. Wolf tells me there are more stories he’s dug up than he can fit in the Provo library - each tale of the elusive creature captivating Utahn minds.
One such instance in Provo’s foothills in 2019 earned its spot on Wolf’s wall of selected sightings. A FOX 13 News report on the sighting at the time amassed 1.6 million views on YouTube.
Whether they’re real or not is a question that doesn’t concern these experts.
“I don’t care if any of this is true - I mean, I do,” said Stewart. “Of course we’d all love Bigfoot to be true.”
“The idea of reality, I think, lies a lot more squarely in our experiences,” said Andrew Kosorok, who spoke on a panel Friday evening that was tied to the installation.
They say it’s those feelings that stay with someone who sees a sasquatch that connect us as a community.
“We tell these stories over and over again and we pass them down generation to generation,” Stewart said.
Oral history that Logan Wolf put to paper, to help leave a big footprint on our collective culture.
“My posture with this is not to come down hard one way or the other - just let people see the stories and the timeline and come to their own conclusions,” Wolf said.
The Bigfoot in Utah exhibit is only around for this weekend.
If you're interested in seeing Wolf’s exploration of the unknown, you can find it on the second floor of the Provo City Library through Saturday.
