Every state has an official bird or tree, but only one state’s governor has declared a state monster. Washington state is home to some impressive forests, and it’s within these misty woods that a legend has grown about an apelike man known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch (sasq'ets means “hairy man” in the Halq'emeylem language of British Columbia). The myth of the Sasquatch began centuries ago with West Coast Indigenous peoples, and gained steam in the 19th century when British explorers (allegedly) discovered “Sasquatch prints” during explorations of the Columbia River. However, the modern legend really kicked into high gear in 1958, when a journalist for the Humboldt Times in northern California pondered if a set of mysterious footprints, mentioned by a reader, could be a relative “of the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas.” Almost a decade later, the famously grainy video shot in Bluff Creek, California — known as the Patterson-Gimlin film (named for its creators) — cemented the iconic status of this hirsute creature.