Skamania County Reminds Visitors the Sasquatch Has Had Legal Protection Since 1969
The ordinance is real. Officials would like tourists to sit with what that implies.
By Dot Klickitat · Gorge Patrol ·
STEVENSON — Skamania County issued its annual summer advisory Thursday reminding visitors that harming a Sasquatch has been illegal within county lines since 1969, under an ordinance that — officials stressed, slowly and clearly — is real, remains in force, and was passed for a reason.
“People laugh at the ordinance,” a county commissioner said from the courthouse steps. “The board that passed it did not laugh. Think about that.”
The advisory asks hikers on Cape Horn and Dog Mountain to give any large, dignified figure “the same respectful distance you would give an elk, or a judge.”
Asked what prompted the 1969 board to act, the commissioner said the minutes of that meeting are sealed, adding that this, too, was for a reason.
Tourists, officials noted, enjoy no equivalent protection.
Skamania County's 1969 Sasquatch-protection ordinance is, in fact, real law. This paper regards it as settled precedent and, frankly, as scripture.