"I Didn't Believe in Bigfoot Until I Saw One: A Parksville Story"

Some experiences change you. For Chris Burger, former mayor of Parksville, that moment came on a dark night in Whiskey Creek in 1987. He wasn't looking for Bigfoot. He was just a young guy looking for a party.

"We were sitting in the vehicle, about to leave, when we caught something in the headlights," Chris remembers. What he saw next defied every rational explanation: a massive, hairy, ape-like creature standing at the edge of the pit, pushing trees apart with its long arms.

"All three of us just went silent," he says. "And then every hair on my neck stood up."

Chris is quick to point out they weren't drunk or high. They were dead sober. And all three witnesses saw the same thing: something huge, something impossible, something that terrified them enough to send them speeding away.

The next day, they returned to investigate. They found disturbances in the sand and broken vegetation, but nothing concrete. No prints, no proof. Just the lingering memory of what they'd seen.

Nearly 40 years later, Chris still thinks about that night. He's embraced it, actually—there's a giant Bigfoot statue in front of his Meadowood Store, and he sells Sasquatch merchandise to tourists and fellow believers.

What's fascinating is how this experience opened Chris's eyes to just how many people in this area have similar stories. Loggers, hikers, locals passing through—they've all seen something. And for many of them, like Chris, it changed everything. "How do you be a skeptic when you've experienced something like this?" he asks.

It's a fair question. Especially when you're talking to someone as credible and grounded as a former mayor and successful businessman who just happens to have seen Bigfoot.

Listen to Chris Burger's full story on The Pulse Community Podcast.

https://bit.ly/PulsePodcastEP12

https://thepulsecommunity.ca