Bigfoot, the Anti-Krantz, and the Iceman

Abstract

Far from the swashbuckling mountaineers of the Yeti hunts of Asia, in North America the model of the dedicated, obsessive, amateur manlike monster hunter took the form of Swiss-born, Canadian René Dahinden (1930–2001). The irascible and original Dahinden entered the quest for Sasquatch upon his arrival in the New World and developed a reputation for being coarse and abrupt with anyone he thought a fraud or a fool: which in the end formed a rather long list. He regularly discounted scientists, whom he variously referred to as boffins and deadheads. To his credit, with no scientific or research training—in fact little formal education at all—he launched himself into the Sasquatch fray and tirelessly tracked down and documented witnesses and went to the sites of alleged direct encounters. Like many amateurs he secretly yearned to be an academic and live the life of an erudite scholar, but felt hurt, embittered, frustrated, and resentful of those who did: especially when most of them dismissed him. He sacrificed his family life and stability in order to continue his chase and never looked back or showed much public regret. Not as sophisticated as Bernard Heuvelmans, as well published as Ivan Sanderson, or as skilled a writer as John Green, he pursued other monster hunters as tenaciously as he pursued monsters.