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Rockin Rhonda & The Blues Band: Here come Peter, here comes Dave. Oh, listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So spin. Laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat. Here at Dave, you're on the mic so right. Join the ride, it's gonna feel just right.

Peter McCully: Hey there. Welcome to the Pulse Community podcast. This is where we present the people and stories of Central Vancouver Island. Ladies and gentlemen, that voice belongs to a man who went out the other day to shop for some camo pants, but he couldn't find any. It's Dave Graham. 

Dave Graham: And he is a fellow who was addicted to the hokey pokey, but he turned himself around. 

Peter McCully: It's Peter McCully. The volunteers at the Nanoose Place Community Center, which sees nearly a thousand people a week come through its doors, have begun a fundraising campaign to help fund a new septic system and other upgrades, and so we'll be chatting. 

Trish Widdershoven: My current list is almost 700, 000 worth of repairs that need to be done to the hall in the last year, courtesy of the Community Work Fund through the RDN. They gave us money and we were able to fix the roof, put a new stove in the kitchen because it was 32 years old. We upgraded the sound system last year and then the Rotary Club of Parkville stepped up to the plate when I asked them last year and we've just finished in December putting a new roof on the daycare building.

Dave Graham: Have you ever seen anything you couldn't explain? Former Parksville Mayor Chris Berger has. Stay with us to hear his story about seeing Bigfoot. Yes, you heard me. I said Chris Berger. 

Chris Burger: That has affected me ever since. And so much so that if you look at our business, the first thing you'll see when you come to my store is a giant Bigfoot statue out in front of it. And it's a bit of an ode to this area, because this area, as I mentioned, is a hotbed of these sorts of sightings. And even in my store, there's another giant Bigfoot, and I sell all kinds of Bigfoot merch now, and different things, because I've just grasped onto it. Because it did form a part of my experience.

Peter McCully: Well, Dave, I'm looking forward to this interview you had with Chris Berger. There has been chatter about Sasquatches, Yetis, Bigfeet, Bigfoots, for many years in Urban Myths, so I'm really glued to my chair here waiting.

Dave Graham:  Closest I can get to Bigfoot is I was once in a low budget movie that was shot right here in the Mid Island region and it involved a Bigfoot as the bad guy. It meant a lot of looking frightened while running through the woods, as I recall. The movie was called Squatch, but don't bother looking. I don't think it ever got to the point of actually being released anywhere. Glamorous movie world aside. I have put in a lot of hours in the bush over the last quarter of a century or so, and I have never once seen a single giant, hairy, smelly, ominous. Mind you, nor have I ever seen a cougar. 

Peter McCully: Dave, we encourage our listeners to do a little search and they don't have to move. Each week we have a clue for the location of the Pulse Community podcast, Tickle Trunk. Identify the location for a chance to win a 25 smile card from Thrifty Foods. 

Dave Graham: Did you know a cougar can sprint at up to 70 kilometers an hour?

Peter McCully: That's nice, Dave. Let me tell you about our next clue to help you find the trunk. This place was in the news recently, opened 30 years ago. It's the most used indoor recreation facility in the area, and it is now in need of some work. 

Dave Graham: Yeah, a lot of work, about 30 million dollars worth. This is where you will find the Tickle Trunk. Email your answer to contest at thepulsecommunity. ca 

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX, Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996, marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally. As well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both RE/MAX International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay. ca. 

Peter McCully: This past week there was a 3.8 magnitude earthquake off of Vancouver Island that rattled folks in Victoria. So a reminder that if you'd like to know more about earthquakes in general, and earthquakes on Vancouver Island in particular, to listen to episode 9 of the Pulse podcast, when we chatted with seismologist Taimi Mulder. 

Dave Graham: One of Canada's longest lasting musical groups is calling it quits. Yep, after about 50 years, they're just giving up. Actually, it has been over 50 years since they began to release singles under the name 

Peter McCully: They're calling their last time on the road the Farewell to Friends Tour, and it'll be in Parksville July 12th as part of the Parksville Beach Festival. We'll have a conversation with the group's frontman, Bill Henderson, on a future episode of the Pulse Community Podcast.

Dave Graham: In the world of podcasting, one of the most popular categories is true crime, and one of the most popular true crime podcasts is produced just down the road from here, well, in a matter of speaking. Former CBC producer Laura Palmer produces her Island Crime podcast from her home in Port Alberni and we'll be talking to her sometime soon. But right now, we have someone ready to speak about an important community hub in the noose. Marilyn? 

Ian Lindsay & Associates: In the green room is Trish Wittershoven of Nanoose, who is the fundraising chair for NANOOS Place. The campaign hopes to raise funds to replace the septic system, replace exterior doors among other improvements.

Peter McCully: Thanks for joining us today, Trish. It's been a while since we chatted. It has been. Thanks for having me. For folks who may not be aware, Nanoose Place is a community center that was built in the 1990s as a gathering place and a hub for the community. How many people does the building serve? 

Trish Widdershoven: Well, we have over a hundred different user groups. We figure that about a thousand people a week walk through the door, about 52, 000 people a year. 

Peter McCully: And what kind of activities go on there? 

Trish Widdershoven: Just about everything. Golf, fitness, yoga, tai chi, pickleball, of course, floor curling, carpet bowling, canasta, all kinds of social events. The Seniors Society is a little over 200 people in a new senior group, and they have their own room, and then they use the main hall. And then we have lots of special interest groups. We have Christchurch, Oceanside, and RC Racing, which is the little race car. They take over the whole hall. Bingo players on Wednesday night, and they're very serious. We have almost a hundred of them. Alcoholics in Honour, Jewish Society. Quilters, all kinds of art leisure groups, painting groups, sing alongs, and ballroom dancers, and then the Nanoose Bay Knitwits, which are a knitting group. They're kind of fun. Bonsai Club meets there. There's just about everything. 

Peter McCully: Are we talking about one building or is there actually more than one building? 

Trish Widdershoven: There is also after school care in the main building plus in 1996, they moved what used to be Dots Cafe from over in the Red Gap, which is a 1972 double wide modular that got moved from there across the road to us and became the daycare center. So it's the only commercially operated daycare in the news. There are private daycares for sure in the news. It's one of those 10 a day daycare programs. 

Peter McCully: I understand the building was originally built mainly by the Lions Club, and it's independent of the government for any funding annually. 

Trish Widdershoven: That's correct. The Nanoose Bay Lions Club was kind of the spearheader. George Holme was, at that time, part of the Lions Club, probably president, I think, and they saw a need for community gathering space because the only thing that was being used at that time was the old Nanoose Elementary School on the other side of the highway, so they found grants and they got the land donated I don't have the history exactly as to who it was. It may have been Jack Bagley because of Jack Bagley Field, but it may have been somebody else. But the actual land, the hall, and the daycare center was donated as a legacy piece by someone, and it was given to the RDN, but it has a covenant on it that says it can only be used as a recreation hall or school type activities like the daycare center for children, for youth, for seniors in the community.

Peter McCully: Trish, who runs and maintains the building? 

Trish Widdershoven: We do, and the Royal We is the Nanoose Bay Activities and Recreation Society. It's a not for profit. We call ourselves NBAR for short. So it's a volunteer board of nine people. And we have one part time staff who works from 9 to 12, basically Monday to Friday. Then we have a kind of an on call security guy and we have an on call guy who does repairs and maintenance. There's no government funding, other than the RDN gives us the lease for a dollar a year, and we don't pay any tax. 

Peter McCully: The COVID years must have been hard on your group, because I know that anybody that owned a hall or a rental facility, such as Nanoose Place, had a rough go, because there just wasn't anything happening publicly.

Trish Widdershoven: No, there was nothing happening and in fact our staff member at the time laughed at the position because she knew we didn't have any money to pay her. And then the volunteers kind of just managed it for the first year, thank goodness for Chesapeake Shores because they rented the parking lot. They painted a room and used part of the hall.

They put their sign up and we became Chesapeake Shores Community Hall for one show or two. You know, they did a few things and they certainly their income kind of kept a light on the first year of COVID for sure. And basically the first 18 months, people were feeling comfortable coming back. 

Peter McCully: You mentioned all these activities that happened in Nanoose Place. After looking at your website, I realized that folks can go in and rent it for wedding receptions or what have you. 

Trish Widdershoven: That's right. But yeah, you can have a wedding there. We have voting. The RDN rents it for town halls. In fact, the Fairgrounds Community Association is renting it to talk about taxes in the news and referendum for the polls. So it's a community space for meetings as well. The other thing is that the Pie Factory, which I'm sure lots of people know about locally, uses the commercial kitchen four days a week. But on weekends, people can rent the kitchen. There's a lady that comes in sometimes and makes perogies and sells them in markets and that sort of thing. Because it's a commercial certified kitchen, you can come and rent it. 

Peter McCully: Now the reason we're chatting today, Trish, is because you've undertaken a fundraising campaign for the news place for some very much needed work that has to be done on the building. 

Trish Widdershoven: Because it's a 1992 build. A lot of these local community halls, I found out because I'm on a liaison group of community halls locally, a lot of these not for profit societies were told when they first started in the late 80s, early 90s, you're not for profit, you're not allowed to keep any money.

They literally took that. Literally, unfortunately, so they didn't save any money, so they didn't put any money aside into contingency reserves to do any repairs or maintenance. And this is the true of the Errington Hall, the Bradley Center, Lighthouse Community Center and us that I know of, we're all kind of of the same interpretation of the tax law.

They didn't save any money, so then when the building started to need repair, there's no money set aside. So right now we are urgently in need of our new septic system, which is gonna cost us $120,000, of which we have not very much money saved. That's why I am talking to you today and why we're on this major fundraising push.

My current list is almost $700,000 worth of repairs that need to be done to the hall in the last year, courtesy of the community work fund funneled through the RDN. They gave us money and we were able to fix the roof, put a new stove in the kitchen, because it was 32 years old. We upgraded the sound system last year.

And then the Rotary Club of Parksville stepped up to the plate when I asked them last year and we've just finished in December putting a new roof on the daycare building. My thing was, let's get the building envelope sealed up, and then we'll work on everything else as we can. We realized that we've got six exterior doors that are failed.

One has been replaced. The front doors are about to be replaced with handicapped access. Of course, the building didn't need or have in 1992, but for SEPTIC right now, it's a big push. It failed and backed up. We had a consultant come in who was just in the process of drafting a new design plan for it. But he said it failed, we will hopefully limp you through until next fall, but once the rains start next fall, he doesn't think the system will run.

And we'll either have to go to Pumpkin Hall, start putting porta potties outside, or we've got to replace the skeptics. That means we're going to have to cut programs with the failed skeptics. One thing I did want to acknowledge was that Parks and Local Outcomes Foundation gave us money last year to put a sign on the building, which we're hoping will be on by the end of February.

They also appreciated the fact that we have this big building with no sign on it and people don't know what it is, so now it's going to say Community Center. 

Peter McCully: Having said all that, you also have another campaign running side by side with the New Noose Place campaign, which is the George Holmes campaign.

Very popular guy in New Noose in his day. 

Trish Widdershoven: He was, yes, and he's a wonderful man. We are calling it the George Holme Legacy Campaign. It's just running from December until June. And we're, our goal is to try and raise 25, 000. The men. have a plaque and his honour in the hall, because I think without him, my guess is the hall wouldn't be what it is today. And in fact, the hall was actually added on to, we think in around 1996, we realized that we needed storage in the back. So they actually added a 20 by 30 extension onto the back of one corner of the hall, and it's just a storage room. And he was definitely instrumental in. Fundraising for that as well. And so we're trying to honor the legacy of all the work that he did to make sure that it happened and that it stayed operating. He was a great guy and he did a lot for the community. He did a lot for the whole of the region. He was chair of the RDN for 12 or 13 years. We're trying to honor that and his family agreed that this would be a good thing to do. A lady wanted to donate in his honor and I went, well, if we're going to do that, why don't we make it something that really truly honored the work that he did. 

Peter McCully: How can folks donate? And I guess they can also become a member of the society as well. 

Trish Widdershoven: That's right. And in fact, membership has its benefits. You can be part of the decision making. You don't have to be an induced resident to be a member. Membership is inexpensive. It's 10 a year. You get voting privileges, of course, at the AGM. You can decide or say you want a program or you want us to focus on something else. Come through an AGM and talk to us, and all our board meetings are open anyway.

The other thing is that a whole bunch of local businesses in Nanoose have said, okay, if you're a member and you come and you show your membership card, we'll give you a discount. Nanoose Bay Cafe, Pacific Moon Rising Restaurant, Ricky's Restaurant, The Rusted Rake, I'll give discounts. All of that's actually up on our website, which is Nanoose place.org. And if you go to that website, We've got a donate now link. It's also got all the activities that are in the hall, how to reach us, all the membership benefits, because as businesses change or people hear about that, we are getting more businesses are coming and saying, oh, well, I'd like to be part of that program as well.

Also, whenever we apply for grants. They want to know how many members do you have, how much of your community is actually represented in your membership. So it's a very important thing to have membership for us because then we can get or apply for more government grants. 

Peter McCully: If folks wanted to volunteer in some form, would they contact you?

Trish Widdershoven: That's probably the easiest thing, and there are some people who don't want to do online donations for all kinds of reasons, and I understand that. We will come and pick up a check. We will come and pick up a donation. All they have to do is reach out to me by email. It's probably the easiest thing, and that's madronatrish@gmail.com.

Peter McCully: Thanks for your time today, and best of luck, Trish, with the fundraising campaign for Nanoose Place. 

Trish Widdershoven: Thank you so much for your time, Peter. I really appreciate you taking the time to hear what we have to say. 

Dave Graham: Trish Widershoven and her growing list of needs for maintenance and repair, but what else can they do, fix it or lose it? they call the Nanoose Place the heartbeat of the community. It is a critical component and we wish them well. 

Peter McCully: $120,000 for a septic system, a half million bucks over the next five years to get everything done. It's probably doable, but not without community support and engagement, and that's what we're all about here at the Pulse Podcast. We welcome story ideas, community events, news tips, comments, all that good stuff. Bookmark the PulseCommunity. ca website on your browser. That makes it easier to catch the latest Peter and Dave Podcast, as well as contests, municipal notices, and community events. Hey, maybe you have your own Bigfoot story to tell. Stay tuned. 

Oceanside CWeed: Oceanside Cweed. That little pot shop is Parksville's first licensed cannabis store. Since April 2022, Cweed is under new ownership. With a product expert at the helm, that includes two decades of retail mastery and seven years in the cannabis industry, Cweed is a legacy in the making, with cannabis products regulated by Health Canada. Community minded Cweed is a member of the Parksville Chamber of Commerce, the Parksville Downtown Business Association, and the Retail Cannabis Council of British Columbia. Those 19 plus can drop by the store at 154 Middleton Avenue next to Tablet Pharmacy. Open Monday to Friday, 9am to 8pm. Weekends and holidays, 9am to 7pm. Visit the online store at cweedoceanside.ca. 

Dave Graham: Hey, Peter. Yes, Dave. Have you ever seen anything you can't explain?

Peter McCully:  I personally have not seen anything exciting I couldn't explain. However, my wife Barb has another story. On multiple occasions, she has seen ghosts. And I can remember in particular, we were running a Small place on Saltspring Island. And Barb, on more than one occasion, woke up saying someone was in the room. And on another occasion, saw someone passing through the living room. Other family members said they saw a ghost in the house as well. I did not.  

Dave Graham: Wow, Weird. I've never seen one. I'm open to the possibility. Interesting. My story takes us back to 1977, thereabouts, Orillia, Ontario.I'm still in high school, living at home. Got up one morning. Dad was in the kitchen, all very familiar and routine. Let me just add that my father at the time was a bank manager, a pretty steady, consistent type, not prone to dabbling in anything like what I'm about to say. As I walk into the kitchen, Dad is having his breakfast of peanut butter on toast. And he casually mentions that he spent about 20 minutes that morning watching something out the kitchen window that he couldn't explain. Then he went on to describe an unidentified flying object, bright and shiny and hovering, just hanging there in the sky. He said he watched it for as long as he could, it didn't move anywhere and he had to get ready for work. So there I was sleeping while my dad was watching a UFO and he didn't think to wake me? That's as close as I can get to having an inexplicable experience, second hand. Can't believe he didn't wake me up.

Peter McCully: We have a first hand account of a strange incident that took place in the Mid Island region. Marilyn, if you please. 

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Chris Burger of the Meadowood Store is in the green room. The store is located at a well known hot spot for Sasquatch activity in Parksville Qualicum Beach. The nearby ridge has a long history of sightings and encounters dating back to the turn of the century. Recently, there have been sightings at the nearby creek. 

Dave Graham: Chris Burger is in the house in a matter of speaking. You and I got together many a time on the radio, sir. Welcome to the podcast. 

Chris Burger: Missed those days. Thank you very much. I'd be here. 

Dave Graham: You agreed to come on to talk about an experience you had in which you saw something. This thing in question has not yet been accepted by science.

And I want to get to the thing in just a sec. But first, I think we need to establish sort of your bona fides, as some might say. You are what most would be considered a credible witness. You served as mayor of Parksville, you are a successful member of the business community with the Meadowood store among your interests.You're a private pilot, a responsible husband, father and citizen. And yet here we are about to talk about something that has not yet been accepted by general science. Before we identify this item in question, let's just back up. When did this event occur? 

Chris Burger: Oh my goodness. It was quite a number of years ago now.I know exactly when it was. 1987. I don't know how many years has that been. That's a lot. 40 years almost. I was a young guy back then. Much younger than I am now, obviously. And I had an experience that really defied explanation. And I was with two other individuals as well. And since then, I've been a believer of this mysterious thing we haven't mentioned yet.

Dave Graham: Where did this take place? 

Chris Burger: This was right in Whiskey Creek, which is very close to where I am now with our businesses here in Meadowood. It's part of an area here that has a long history of these sorts of encounters. 

Dave Graham: You were with two friends. What were you doing? 

Chris Burger: Way back in the day, you have to remember, there's no cell phones back then or any sort of quick communication per se. We were essentially Still at that sort of just recently graduated high school level. And we were looking for a party. Back in those days, we used to have pit parties. Essentially, we drove out to this pit that's in Whiskey Creek. It actually no longer exists, but at that time, you could access it right from the Alberni Highway.

It was close in proximity to the entrance of the Little Qualicum Falls Park. So we went there in the hopes of finding, as often would be the case, a bunch of teenagers and people partying, as we did back in those days. Of course, when we got there, there was absolutely no one there, just ourselves. We had pulled in, and we were sitting in the sort of middle of this little pit area, and we were just about to leave, obviously to move to the next possible location, when we caught something in the headlights of the vehicle that we were in.

So it's dark. This is at night time, I think it was around the 10 ish time frame, and it was, yeah, pitch black. Otherwise clear, no rain or fog or anything? It was absolutely clear. It was a nice evening per se. Again, it was an ideal time to have a pit party, which of course wasn't happening at this location.

We were sitting there and we look over to the edge of the pit and you have to envision that there were sandy banks, as you might expect in a pit, and the banks were covered with alder trees, small sort of alder trees. Up to 20 feet high, or even less. At first, we just saw what looked like a set of eyes.

We've expected it would be some sort of creature, like an animal. Bear, or even a deer, or what have you. I turned the car a little bit to put the lights more directly on where we spotted this sort of glint. When I did that, We saw something, all three of us, that defied our explanation at first, and it was really odd.

I'll never forget it. It's really an odd sensation feeling, because when we turned the headlights, here was this thing, and it was standing at the edge of the pit, and it had pushed atop a couple of the alder trees apart, and it was looking at us, up from where we were, and it was looking down toward the vehicle.

This thing was an ape. It was like a giant ape. With long hair, I remember that distinctly, hanging from the arms, because its arms were spread out, and it was looking at us, and How far away were you? Oh, I would say, maybe 60 to 100 feet, somewhere in that range, in the center of the small pit area, and it was on the edge.

It defied my brain's understanding at first, and it was really interesting, because my compadres that were with me at the time, one fellow in the other front, and then one in the back. They spotted this too. We were all anticipating seeing a deer or something like that. And. All three of us were just silent for, it felt like a long time, it was probably just a few seconds.

And then, all of a sudden, every hair on my neck stood up as I was starting to contemplate what it is we were looking at. All three of us, almost at the same time, just got really frightened, I guess, for lack of a better word. It was like, holy crap, what is going on here? What are we looking at? And just instinctively, I threw it into reverse, and we hauled out of there.

And I remember, as I was backing up the car, I remember the tree snapping shut because this creature at the same time was turning and heading out as well. And so we both. Left the area. We raced down the highway to a place that used to be called the trading post, which was in a General Whiskey Creek area down from where this area was.

And we stopped, caught our breath, so to speak. We were very distraught at this point. We really were freaked out. We didn't dare go back, obviously, because we were just way too scared. But the next day we did go back. In the daytime, obviously, to see if we could find any sort of evidence, like prints or something like that.

We found the area, very easily, where we had seen this, and we did explore, and there was definitely a disturbance, but because it was so sandy, there wasn't anything really defined that you could say was this or that, but something had been there, something large, and it had moved up the bank, and it had made a big disturbance there.

Dave Graham: When you were there, you say it was large, could you get a sense of its height? 

Chris Burger: Oh, massive. It's hard to say the exact height because it was impossible to tell how far up the bank it was standing, but just by virtue of the size of the head and the arms, I would say eight or nine feet. Big. Really big. It's burned into my brain. Now, of course, even my own wife is a bit skeptical. Because I only told a few people this at the time, because of course, most people just think you're a kook and oh, you must've been drunk or you must've been smoking some wacky tobacco or something like that. We were dead sober. There was no party. We were looking to actually start to have some fun. And instead we had this encounter. 

Dave Graham: You called it an ape. Its other name, I guess, most popularly would be Bigfoot. 

Chris Burger: Or Sasquatch. Sasquatch. Yeah, absolutely. The Great Ape, as I think Dr. Bindernagel would have called it. Absolutely. It was a bonafide Sasquatch, like you've heard about and seen various videos of. The whole nine yards. 

Dave Graham: You were in a car though, so you couldn't smell anything, you couldn't hear anything. Any other evidence or any other thing that you witnessed?

Chris Burger:  It's interesting. So, you're right. I didn't remember a smell or anything like that. There was no sound per se, and we were in the car, we never got out of the car.

We just looked through the windshield at what this thing was. And the encounter itself didn't last a very long time. Like, we were out of there pretty quick, because it just scared us. Your brain doesn't know how to interpret something like that at first. At first, we were just like, dead silent, and then all of us, almost at the same time, let's go, let's get out of here.

It really instilled a fear, an actual fear, like something I've rarely ever felt since. That type of thing where, you know, your hairs just stand up and you just know that there's just something not right about this. There was no other direct evidence other than what I've just mentioned. Although this area specifically has had other.

Encounters and sightings before, and it's quite famous for it. Anything recent? I had a report as recently as two weeks ago, and a picture was sent of some prints down at our river, which is nearby, that were very odd, very large, almost like somebody's walking around barefoot, but again, it's winter time.

And even though this is a popular swimming kind of area in the summer, there's no one really down there during the winter. I can't see why somebody would be barefoot down there, but it's just speculation. There's no hard evidence per se, but that was just a couple of weeks ago. If you go a little further back in time, this area has got a lot of history with respect to wild man.

The original loggers in the Horn Lake area, there was a lot of logging operations going on here at the turn of the century. And they wrote in their journals, and you can find the history on it, of the wild man of Horn Lake that was often spotted, big hairy dude, running around in the bush. Back then, of course, there was a lot of bush.

So that was the earliest kind of encounters that I've been able to find. Since then, there have been all sorts of sightings. We have a ridge behind us, uh, called Wesley Ridge, and, uh, there is several different sightings along that ridge. There was a story on the local media. This is going back again, quite a few years now, of a big hairy beast crossing the Alberni highway and people actually were driving on the way to port and they reported it and there was a story about it.

That was just a matter of a few hundred yards from where we had our encounter. Interestingly enough, and it wasn't something that I had prompted, I was talking about Bigfoot sightings in Sasquatch, if we use the term we use here. In the area and this fellow said, Oh, I had a strange encounter a long time ago with a girlfriend and he started to report same pit that we were in and he was actually there with his girlfriend trying to be romantic, if you will, in a pickup truck.

In the middle of the night, similar kind of circumstance and all of a sudden rocks started hitting the truck from coming out of the bush in that area. And that really got me interested because I hadn't told him about my encounter and yet he's alluding to the exact same location and something very odd happening.

He said the same thing. He said we suddenly got very scared and we just roared out of there and never went back. 

Dave Graham: How has it changed you and your view of the world and the environment, the unknown, the known, all of that stuff? 

Chris Burger: Oh, it's not good. When you see something like this, I can't disbelieve my eyes or my friend's eyes because we all saw the same thing.

It wasn't like I was on a bad mushroom trip and I'm hallucinating here. This was something very real. How do you be a skeptic when you've experienced something like this? That has affected me ever since. And so much so that if you look at our business, the first thing you'll see when you come to my store is a giant Bigfoot statue out in front of it.

And it's a bit of an ode to this area, because this area, as I mentioned, is a hotbed of these sorts of sightings. And even in my store, there's another giant Bigfoot, and I sell all kinds of Bigfoot merch now, and different things, because I've just grasped onto it. Because it did form a part of my experience.

It's actually been very interesting, because of that, I have people visiting our store from all over the place. Other folks that have either had experiences like I have. Or, essentially, our believers want to hear about what's going on in the area and what's been happening and so forth and so on. How do you 

Dave Graham: reconcile your knowledge of what you saw with the lack of evidence?

Chris Burger: Here's my personal belief. I believe that this thing, and I don't think there's many left, I actually think that it's going extinct. I think it's called Pythicus Giganticus. It's a bipedal ape that likely came over with the first people here through the land bridge that we've all heard about, our First Nations folks.

And likely lived alongside with them for a long time, but I don't think that there are populations sufficient to warrant their continuation. Essentially, odd one here and there, and it's going extinct. That's what my belief is. I know there's others that think differently, but that seems to fit in. And what I saw did very much look like an ape.

Somewhat human, but very much like an ape. The face is quite hairy, so I can't give it specific features, but It was certainly not a bear. The arms really struck me because of how long they were and they just stretched out and you could see the biceps and quads, everything there. We probably won't see any, if any of these ever again.

I think that 99 percent of people who see things are likely misidentifying a black bear or something like that. Because the mind, of course, when you get to BC, hear about all this Sasquatch lore, you're looking for it. I think that We'll probably see less and less of this. You mentioned, uh, that I do some flying, but interestingly, where I am and where Whiskey Creek is, is at the edge of an amazing expanse.

And if you fly over it, you can literally cross the entire island and there's nothing. There's just valley after valley. It's a big island of just logging roads. Logging activity, but no permanent civilization, no habitation other than wildlife. And certainly within that range, it's conceivable that something could certainly have eluded us for a very long time.

And when I say eluded, it's not like it isn't spotted. If you go to the reportings on Vancouver Island, sightings reportings, Lots of credible folks talking about seeing things out on those logging roads. So a lot of them are loggers and people working in the forestry industry. There's a whole history of these sorts of sightings.

Every once in a while you spot something moving out of way. But if it's a creature that's adept at avoiding us, maybe has learned that over generations, good luck. Good luck finding it. I do a lot of hiking. I go out into the forest quite often. We pick mushrooms. We do all that. I seldom ever find any evidence of anything.

It's the bush that we have here pretty much erases anything pretty quickly. So it doesn't surprise me that we haven't walked up and found a whole bunch of bones or anything like that. In my 30 years of being on the, I've never found trigger bones or I've never found a bear skull or anything like that.

It just doesn't happen. Would you care to have another encounter? Oh, I would love to. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think I'd be as scared now as I was back then, but yeah, I think that would be awesome. I still hold out hope it's always possible. I had a skeptic come to visit me. I call him a skeptic. He's a friend of mine, but didn't believe me.

So we went down into the Creek area. This is behind where we live and it's another area that's connected to these areas I just mentioned. You're very familiar with the tree knocking, which is one of the behaviors that is often cited with Sasquatch. And so we went down to this area, my little four by four, and this is in a rainy night in the winter, actually, it wasn't in summer time, again at night.

We started knocking on some trees just to placate him, right? And lo and behold, something was not cheap out in the bush. And boy did that ever scare him. He did not like that. I thought it was fantastic. Because again, what, what would be out there on a rainy night in the wintertime, uh, other than some kind of creature like this?

Or another Sasquatch Hunter. I can feel it. I can feel people shaking their heads right now. Going, I had no idea Chris was that much of a kook. It's a problem because a lot of people are very skeptical and I understand it because it's one of these things where there is a lot of fakery going around with it and a lot of people trying to profit on it.

You can say I'm profiting on it because I'm selling merch. I can understand why there's this lore, but for a brief time, I also worked for several First Nations on the island here as a consult. I took the opportunity to talk with some of the elders about this particular topic. It took a while for them to even accept me because I was an outsider, but eventually they started to open up.

For those folks, this is not Lore at all. This is a bonafide fact. They talk about these creatures as someone who's cohabitated with them for generations and generations, which is again the sort of line of what I believe. In their respect, it's a very common thing to see a Sasquatch and to pay respect to it.

They actually pay a lot of respect to this creature. They don't try to take advantage of it or exploit it or never want to harm it. They actually see it as an important part of their lore and about their history. I think that we're probably past the time of seeing a lot of this other than people making misidentifications because logic does dictate that unless you have very large populations, they can't sustain themselves.

They will obviously go extinct. 

Dave Graham: Any other thoughts or comments about the experience? 

Chris Burger: I would just tell folks to just keep an open mind and keep your eyes open and understand that we live in a very empty place outside of Victoria in the middle part of the island. It's pretty much empty out there and it's massive forests that are almost impenetrable.

And certainly I think there's the possibility and obviously I know for a fact since I saw something personally. But for those that are still skeptical, to keep an open mind, because there very well could be something hidden out there that we just haven't discovered yet. New species are still being discovered today, in lots of places in the world.

Even today, I still hold out hope that finally we can answer this once and for all, and obviously, you know, by finding something or something that is just incontrovertible, that obviously we have to accept it. And carry on, there's some very famous people like the late Dr. Bindernagel, these are biologists, folks with degrees who collected all kinds of evidence, secondary evidence, everything from hair to obviously many footprints and things like that, many different sightings.

And I do think there is quite a bit of evidence out there. It's just, we don't have the body yet. We don't have the actual creature laying there. Hopefully no one kills them. Again, I've never found a bear carcass. I've never found a cougar carcass in many decades of hiking around the bush as so many of us do.

Dave Graham: Thanks so much for being on the program. 

Chris Burger: Thank you very much. 

Peter McCully: Chris Burger, putting it out there, letting the world know he had an encounter of the kind that might raise an eyebrow or two. Fair enough. 

Dave Graham: I do not for a moment doubt that he is recounting an experience to the best of his ability. And, you know, a part of me wants to also have that kind of experience. But the fact that many people with similar stories say it was the worst thing to ever happen in their lives because it was so horribly frightening, I'm not so sure I'm up for that. 

Peter McCully: So you haven't been abducted by aliens or seen a UFO or a Bigfoot. Maybe I should say Sasquatch. 

Dave Graham: No Bigfoot sightings.

Can't say for sure about the alien abductions, uh, but I can tell you this. I did find the bones of a bear once, near Horn Lake on an old logging road, under a mat of grass. I was walking along, could feel some strange contours under my feet, so I dug in a little bit, found the bones. Now I'm using common sense here to guess they were bear bones.

I didn't find the head. I pulled out one bone from the ground. I think it had to be a bear. It was as long as my forearm, way bigger. It was a massive bone. I eventually gave it to a blacksmith, Dave Kasperick at Red Cod Forge. He asked about how and where it was found so that he could pass the story on in honor of the bear.

I like to think that maybe it became the handle for a very fine blade. But now that I think about it, maybe it was from a cow. 

Peter McCully:  If you have a story about seeing something strange and unexplainable, tell us about it. You'll find a Speak to Us link in the story notes and on the contact page on our website, thepulsecommunity.ca. Punch that button and tell us your story. We might just use it on a future edition of the Pulse Community Podcast. 

Dave Graham: And yes, we have stories for kids, too. How about Skookum Kid Stories, including the adventures of Dave and the Mellow Submarine? This week, listen as Dave and the crew of the Mellow Submarine help some Brant geese navigate ice to make it safely to Parksville Beach in The Great Brant Geese Migration, featuring Gregory the Goose. Our other story series features Peter and Gracie the Eskimo Dog, narrated by Peter McCully. 

Peter McCully: The most recent tale features Peter and Gracie meeting another playmate with an Eskimo dog and enjoying a snow day in Coombs. It's Peter and Gracie meet Debbie and Zeke. But wait, there's more. If you have ideas for our original Skookum Kid Stories, let us know. Maybe you'll be in a story too. Look for the links through our main website,  thepulsecommunity. ca.

Windsor Plywood French Creek: The Pulse Community Podcast is brought to you in part by Windsor Plywood in French Creek, specializing in hard to source interior and exterior home finishing products, including flooring, doors and moldings, and exterior project materials such as yellow cedar. Windsor Plywood French Creek carries high quality, responsibly sourced products and are committed to providing outstanding value and personalized, one on one service to all of our customers, homeowners, do it yourselfers, renovators, builders, designers, craftsmen and contractors. Regardless of the type or size of your project, Windsor can help you bring your vision to life, from start to finish. Let Windsor Plywood and French Creek help you with your renovation, new build, or building project. Visit them online, or call 752 3122.

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX, Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996. Marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally. As well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both RE/MAX International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay. ca 

Dave Graham: So Peter, we emphasize the fact that the Pulse Community Podcast is all about the people and stories of Mid Vancouver Island, but we got to participate in a project recently with some other storytellers. You're talking about the Flying Phil thing? Yes, with a local video and content creation company, Pancake Productions.

Peter McCully: They invited community members to the Village Theater in Qualicum Beach to share some stories and memories of a community icon. 

Dave Graham: Phil St. Luke, also known as Mr. Parksville, he was famous in the community just by his presence walking the streets of the town and stopping into various businesses to say hi. Almost everyone knew him, it seemed, and it became a thing for motorists to beep their horns when they drove by. 

Peter McCully: Phil led parades and won a pile of medals competing in the Special Olympics. He helped with all kinds of fundraising and community projects. And we wanted to acknowledge and thank Joanna and Mark Osborne of Pancake Productions for putting this project together to honor Phil. And allowing us to participate. 

Dave Graham: Yeah, no guarantee we won't end up on the  cutting room floor.

Peter McCully: Well, you do have a face for radio. So what do you say, Dave? Is it time to go see Mabel in the cafeteria? 

Dave Graham: Oh yeah, we should go now to beat the rush. Last time I was there, Mabel met me at the entrance and said she was really busy. Would I mind waiting a bit? 

Peter McCully:Really? 

Dave Graham: Yeah, so I told Mabel I don't mind waiting. Okay. She handed me a tray and said take these drinks to table seven. 

Rockin Rhonda & The Blues Band: Here come Peter, here comes Dave. Oh, listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So spin. Laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat. Here at Dave, you're on the mic so right. Join the ride, it's gonna feel just right.