July 2007 Oregon

In the early 2000’s I worked for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Oregon as the General Manager of one of their companies. I am an enrolled member of the Lower Eastern Cherokee Nation of SC and am a descendant of the Nansemond tribe of VA. While working for the tribe here I ended up serving on the Veterans Honor guard and chairing their Veterans Powwow for five years. The first year I chaired the event was the first year the Powwow was held at the Uyxat Powwow grounds located at the base of Forth Yamhill National park. When we were laying out and setting up for the second year a Tribal Elder and I were down at the grounds when we saw a disturbance in the woods bordering the grounds on the East. There was a small opening in the tree line but not something you could see over. There was a noise in the woods and then we saw a large fir tree shaking like crazy before it snapped off and fell over with a thud. We both looked at each other and then the elder said, “hunh, an unhappy bear”. I said, “I think it’s skookum man Uncle”. He just kind of smiled sideways at me and we went on about our business. Skookum man is the Chinook jargon name used in this area for Sasquatch, it means “big man”. We had several Tipis set up on the west side of the grounds and, as was customary, members of the committee would stay in them during the Powwow. Our Daughter and a friend of hers, another tribal member, were staying in our tipi there on the grounds. On Thursday night they got up about midnight and had to use the bathroom. The porta-potties were set up on the East side and so they had to walk across the arena to get to them. Back then we used a big top style tent to shade the dancers and visitors and they walked under it. Halfway across they stopped and saw to their left, about 40 feet away, a large figure. It was just standing there, and they felt it was facing them looking at them. They described it as 8 to 10 feet in height with very broad shoulders. They were frightened and ran back to the tipi. They told me the next morning that they had seen a shadow man in the arena last night but, after listening to the description and having had my experience a few days earlier, I knew it was Skookum.



C. Michael Tinney