WORDS & PHOTOS by ALLISON JOYCE
At the annual Western North Carolina Bigfoot Festival, photographer Allison Joyce captured the love, creativity, and passion of Bigfoot believers from across the country.
June 27, 2023
It was warm and gray in Marion, North Carolina, the weekend I witnessed multiple Bigfoot sightings. One was dressed as Evel Knievel and riding a skateboard through town, another strummed his guitar, and one was competing in a beauty pageant. They were all in good company as 20,000 to 30,000 Bigfoot enthusiasts gathered in the small mountain town for the annual Western North Carolina Bigfoot Festival. The weekend activities included sharing stories of personal encounters with Bigfoot, competing in a Bigfoot calling contest, buying souvenirs, and communing with other believers.
Before my father told me about the festival, I didn’t know much about the creatures described by film director Bob Gimlin as “big forest people.” I definitely didn't consider myself to be a believer, but when I began to learn about the history of sightings of the cryptid all over the world, my skepticism began to melt away.
A woman steps up her Bigfoot game during the annual Bigfoot Festival in Marion, North Carolina.
My previous exposure to Bigfoot was limited to hearing about sightings in the Pacific Northwest and southeastern Canada. I hadn't realized Bigfoot was also popular in North Carolina, the state I call home. Bigfoot sightings have been officially reported 106 times in North Carolina, with the earliest reported sighting in 1968, according to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. The most famous sighting in the U.S., however, goes back to October 20, 1967, after filmmakers and Bigfoot enthusiasts Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed 59.5 seconds of a 6-foot-plus hairy figure crossing their frame along the banks of Bluff Creek in northern California’s Six Rivers National Forest.
One campy cryptid shows his musical side as Bigfoot fans enjoy some hairy camaraderie.
The legends and stories of wild humanoid creatures stalking forests and mountains are as old as time and span the globe. In the U.S., the cryptids are known as Sasquatch and Bigfoot; Indigenous tribes in North America called them Tsiatko and Oh-Mah. In parts of Asia, they are known as Yeti, Yeren, and Orang Mawas. All are described as tall, large, smelly, hairy, half human and half ape.
Frequent exposure to commercial use of the Bigfoot image guarantees fascination with the mysterious creature. The Expedition Everest ride at Disney World’s Animal Kingdom features a Yeti who rips up the tracks from the ride. Commercials for both Progressive car insurance and Kokanee beer have utilized Bigfoot. The U.S. Forest Service uses Bigfoot in comedic environmental protection campaigns, and Bigfoot has also been featured or referenced in television shows such as “The Powerpuff Girls,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Yellowstone,” “The Simpsons,” and “iCarly.” In the spring of 2020, fire safety officials in Oregon began a forest fire safety campaign called “Safer With Sasquatch.” During the pandemic, Bigfoot was lauded as a hero and symbol in social distancing campaigns. And let us not forget that millions of people have purchased Yeti ramblers, coolers, and more!
Bigfoot iterations abounded during the event, which featured speakers holding forth on Marion’s “official animal.”
In Marion, Bigfoot was first named the “official animal” of the city during the Bigfoot Festival, back in 2019. This year, Mayor Steve Little reiterated the proclamation onstage to kick off the event. It seems fitting since Marion is named after Brigadier General Francis Marion, a Revolutionary War hero whose “talent in guerrilla warfare earned him the nickname ‘Swamp Fox,’” according to the city’s website. Much like Bigfoot, Marion and his men used the dense swamps and forests of Carolina to their advantage.
The festival boasted more than 185 vendor booths featuring a variety of Bigfoot-themed souvenirs, a ghost tour of downtown Marion, a beauty pageant, a Bigfoot calling contest, live music, and speaker events featuring Bigfoot scholars.
True believers scored a Bigfoot cutout from one of the many vendors at the festival.
Christian MacLeod, known as the “Cryptid Guy,” gave a talk during the festival about the history of Bigfoot, answered questions, discussed his experiences in searching for him, and shared stories of people who contacted him for advice about their own encounters. He wears around his neck a replica tooth from a scan of the jawbone of Gigantopithecus, a genus of giant extinct apes — estimated to have been almost 10 feet tall — that roamed around what’s now China roughly 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. The tooth is significant, MacLeod said, because it is proof an animal that large has walked our Earth.
After two days of covering this festival and hearing the speakers talk about their experiences as well as the history of Bigfoot and folklore that dates back hundreds of years, I couldn’t help but doubt my initial skepticism. Who doesn’t want to believe that there may be some undiscovered species out there?
Allison Joyce is a multi-award-winning American photojournalist and unit stills photographer currently based in Wilmington, North Carolina. From 2013 to 2021, Allison was based in Bangladesh, India, and Thailand, where she covered South Asia and Southeast Asia extensively. Her work ranges from news coverage of conflict and humanitarian crises to documenting everyday life and developing long-term projects on gender issues, human rights, and climate change. Allison is a Pulitzer Center grantee. She was nominated for the World Press Photo's Joop Swart Masterclass, and her work has been recognized by POYI, South Asian Journalists Association, Amnesty Media Awards, and the NYPPA.
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