Mid-day Saturday is quiet at the festival and we have our choice of two fun sounding local gatherings to attend, a Moose Festival in Indian Lake or the Sasquatch Festival in Whitehall.  Sasquatch wins out and just 30 minutes north in Whitehall we find the Sasquatch Festival. Who would miss a thing like that.  There are true believers; some giving a series of talks on the history of sasquatch, sightings, scientific investigations, investigative methods and more.  Others have booths exhibiting plaster cast of footprints and swatches of hair as proof.  You can buy state map stickers indicating every state where there have been “verified” sightings.  It’s a lot of states.  A few followers combine bigfoot with other non-worldly sightings and unexplainable phenomena…they are all aliens don’t you see.  Kent is excited to see that they include Mothman, the Point Pleasant WV legend, as a peer of Sasquatch.  They even have t-shirts!

On down the row of booths we find the more routine festival folks.  Local clubs and organizations with food booths.  The guys in the cub scout booth had bigfoot on their shirts in the middle of their club logo.   Artisans offering crafts of every type; candles, clothes, jewelry, lawn ornaments, home decor and more plus additional food offerings.  Many booths give a nod to the guest of honor offering bigfoot themed items in their collection of wares.  New this year, a beer garden.  Oddest festival-y thing offered here?  A   guy has a box truck with a target in it set up as a mobile axe throwing booth!  There is a bit of everything and it is great fun.  We depart with a couple shirts and some delicious local food.  Regrettably, we will miss the Sasquatch calling contest. We need to get back to the balloon festival to catch the evening launch.

We are going to have to go back to Whitehall one day.  Not so much for the Sasquatch fervor but to tour a marvelous castle perched above town.  A group of locals bought it for back taxes in near ruins, restored it, are maintaining it and offering tours.  The group had a booth at the festival and an enthusiastic 60 something docent sold me on having to see it.  Not sure when but I plan one day to have tea in their castle, Skene Manor.

For now, we are moving on to Fish Creek Pond campground near Saranac Lake in the Adirondack State Park.