Searching For Bigfoot: Winter 2006 Bigfoot Expedition Diary

Bigfoot In East Glacier, Montana

March 2006

One of our most memorable stops was in East Glacier, Montana. East Glacier is in the heart of the Blackfeet Indian reservation. The Blackfeet Reservation is located in Northwest Montana, just east of Glacier National Park. At first we were a little bit apprehensive about staying on the reservation because we know that the Blackfeet have a long standing reputation as a fierce and powerful warrior nation. The Blackfeet, sometimes called the Blackfoot, are one of the largest Algonquian tribes and one of the most powerful on the northwest Plains region. More accurately, they are called "Siksikawa" (pronounced "sick-sick-uh"), which literally means "black foot".

The Blackfeet are made up of three tribes; the Siksika, the Blood, and the Piikani (whose name was later corrupted to Piegan). The Piikani are mainly based in Montana now, with the other two tribes mostly in the Alberta area of Canada.

Fortunately, as soon as we arrived and were met by our hosts, Bruce and Donna Schildt, along with Bruce’s father-in-law, Simon Whitford, our apprehension began to fade. Not only were the Schildt family just about the warmest and kindest family we had met to date, but as we soon found out, the entire community was just as kind, open, and welcoming. In no time, we were meeting people that will remain in our hearts as dear friends for the rest of our lives.

From left to right are Donna Schildt, Tim McMillen , Tom Biscardi, Bruce Schildt, Mountain Pat Heaton, JavaBob , and the two Schildt children Toni and Bruce.
It was the children who first found the foot prints that sent us to Montana.

The actual reservation is over 1.5-million acres and includes most of Glacier County. It is home to an estimated 7,500 members of the Blackfeet Nation, or about half of the total enrollment of some 15 thousand members.

The largest town close to East Glacier is Browning, business center of the reservation and the site of several tribal offices and businesses.

The entire area around East Glacier is extremely scenic and vast, with wide open country in every direction and truly breath taking views of the Rocky Mountains. East Glacier has an Amtrak station right in its center and easily accessible by train. Kalispell is only 79 miles away straight down US Highway 2.

Once settled in at our motel, we began our investigation by interviewing the Schildt family who had called us out there. Bruce Schildt and his children had discovered a series of footprints near a remote lake near his home by Kiowa Camp. The footprints appeared to come down to the lake over a small ridge, circled around near the shore of the lake, then went back leading towards the tree line in the distance. Bruce agreed to bring us to the prints and let us see them for ourselves. We made arrangements to meet, the following morning at Bruce’s home.

When we woke up, the weather was clear, with light winds. It was a balmy 26 degrees F., one of the warmest days of our visit! We gathered our gear and headed off towards the Kiowa Camp area to meet with Bruce. There we met Bruce, his wife Donna, two of his children Bruce and Toni, and his father-in-law Simon Whitford. After joining up with the Schildts, we attempted to drive as close to the lake as possible. Unfortunately, we had not anticipated the heavy snow drifts that had accumulated over the previous several days and we soon found that it would not be an easy trek to the site. We had to do some serious four wheeling to even get close to our destination. After leaving the main road, it took us about two hours of slipping and sliding to travel the mile or so we needed to travel to get our equipment close enough to the lake to walk the rest of the way in. Once there, we were amazed to see the footprints Bruce had seen six weeks earlier, still preserved in the frozen mud. We took several pictures and searched the area for any additional signs of activity.

Here is the truck driving out towards the lake where the tracks were found

We made a decision to attempt to salvage the prints by thawing out the area and casting the print with plaster. The hope being, that once we were able to remove the accumulated snow and ice, and get down to the earth below, we might be able to find enough detail to qualify this print as an actual print from a creature and not some other animal. We would need to come back again the following day to continue our investigation. We decided to go back to town and see if we could get more information from the town’s people we might meet.

This is just one of the tracks found at the lake site. Tom Biscardi is marking the area.
The ground under the print is frozen soft mud.
We had hoped to be able to cast this print.

We headed back to Browning in the hopes of getting more sites to investigate. To our amazement and surprise, people began to stop us on the street to share their stories of Bigfoot sightings and encounters! One sighting we were told about had happened just days prior to our arriving, people had seen the creature crossing a highway nearby. There were tracks through the snow, on both sides of the highway indicating the direction the creature had come, and the direction it was going. We heard many stories about the “Emwitapi”, the name the Blackfeet people give to the creature. Our decision was to check out the most current sighting first, so off we went back to check out the site of the crossing. We found a place on the Highway, amongst a thicket of trees, which had been carefully marked on both sides of the highway with ribbons. We could still see distorted tracks in the snow leading out of the trees on one side of the highway and into the trees on the other. We followed the tracks as far as we could, but lost them under the newer snow. The team decided it may be wise to set up some trip cameras on both sides of the highway and check them in a couple of days.

This is the area where creature crossed the road. Notice the distorted tracks in the snow.

By now it was very dark and we headed back to see the Schildt family. Donna Schildt had invited us to their home for dinner. After a wonderful, home cooked meal, we headed back to the Motel for a little sleep. Early the following morning, we headed back out to the tracks by the lake. We brought along the equipment we would need to thaw the mud and attempt to get a casting. Some of the team stayed to work on the prints and the rest went out to try to rent some ATVs to help us get farther back into the country to check out some caves we had heard about the day before.

Back in town we met a man who belonged to a club of ATV riders. His name was Tony Little Plume. Tony introduced us to some of his club members and they offered to take us back up into the hills in the next day or so if we wanted to go then. Tony shared a story with us about his experience with Bigfoot. It seems that several years ago, Tony’s cousin came to visit Tony on the reservation. His cousin was raised in the city and was not fully aware of the “old ways” of his family in Browning. Tony asked his cousin what he might like to do while on the reservation for the summer and his cousin told him he wanted to go hunting, hunting for a big bull elk. Tony then arranged to take his cousin into the hills around Kiowa Camp to hunt. On the way to the place that Tony expected the elk to pass, they came upon a dead cow. The cow had apparently died some time earlier and was now being eaten by a black bear. The cousin decided to attempt to shoot the bear. Tony instructed him that in the old ways, it would not be acceptable to shoot a bear in this manner. The cousin told Tony that he was not brought up in the “old way” and still wanted to shoot the bear. Tony did prevail and the cousin did not shoot the bear. The two men went on to try and intercept the heard of elk so that they might shoot a bull elk. As luck would have it they were unable to intercept the heard, and did not find any bull elks to hunt. On the way back to the truck, they passed the cow carcass again. They could see that there was a bear behind it, still eating. This time, before Tony could stop him, the cousin took a shot. His shot missed the bear, but the bear stood up. They could see that it was no longer the black bear eating there, but a large grizzly bear! This huge bear stood straight up and put his nose in the air. After a quick sniff, the bear knew exactly where the two men were and charged directly at them! The men where about 200 yards away from their pickup truck and made a run for it. The bear was quickly gaining on them and it soon became clear it would overtake them before they could reach the truck parked just down the next hill. Suddenly, there came a loud and frightening scream from the hill on the other side of the truck. It was a scream that neither man had ever heard before! The bear, also heard the scream and stopped in its tracks, turned around, and ran away. The two men were able to get to their truck and return home safely. The following day, Tony got a call from an elder in the tribe. The elder asked him what he had done. Tony was truthful and explained how the cousin had shot at a bear and the story that followed. The elder chastised Tony and forbade him from going back to that area to hunt.

I do not know if the story is an actual event or a parable made up to instruct our team of the way the Blackfeet people feel about the animals they live with. To instruct us to be respectful of the animals out here and to understand that they believe that “Emwitapi” is considered a protector of the people. In either case, I went away with a greater understanding and respect for the people we had met and their understanding of the animals that shared the land with them. Tony knew we had no plans to harm this, or any other creature out there, and we are only there to learn and document what we find.

It was time to go and meet the rest of the team back at the lake. We drove back out there to see if they had any luck with thawing and casting the six week old prints in the mud. Unfortunately, they did not. The prints were just too slushy and muddy to be any use to us and we were not able to make any clean casts at the site. We cleaned up the area and headed deeper into the mountains to look for caves or abandoned mines near the tree line. We could see several, but due to the ice and snow, we were unable to get closer than several miles.

It was clear to us by the trace evidence and the multitude of encounters we were told about, that there is something in these hills. Unfortunately, it was also clear to us that we did not have the equipment we would need to travel deep enough into this inhospitable terrain, in the middle of winter, to get close enough to the most promising areas. We were tantalizingly close, but we knew we needed to revisit our plans if we expected to be productive.

We decided to head back to a paved road and pickup and check our trip cameras. The trip cameras did not show any unusual images and we headed back to our Motel to make additional plans. At the motel, Tom received a message about a creature held up in a cave in Oregon. We were still at a standstill in Montana and had a decision to make. Tom had calls in to make arrangements for the use of a helicopter, snowmobiles, and some ATVs, but the people who could help us wouldn’t be available for another day or so. We made the decision to head to Oregon and check out the creature in the cave, with the understanding that we would come back to Montana as soon as the snow began to melt slightly and we could arrange to get the use of more formidable transportation for our monitoring equipment. We packed up and headed west.

While in the truck and about three hours out, we got the call from Montana. We would have the use of a helicopter and the rest of the equipment we would require, but not until April of this year. We are currently making plans to return then. In the mean time, Oregon, here we come!

See more photos from Montana Photos March 2006 From Blackfeet Tribe ...

Next stop Searching For Bigfoot In Grants Pass, Oregon ...

Visit some of the other locations of JavaBob's Winter 2006 Expedition Diary :