Bigfoot rises again at Deception Pass
Published 1:30 am Friday, May 8, 2026
On Whidbey Island, one of the tallest Bigfoot statues on the West Coast looms over the heads of vistors — tall enough to scare even the bravest toddler.
The newly installed 12-foot chainsaw-carved statue now stands outside Squatchy’s, a Washington state Sasquatch-themed store located at the entrance to Deception Pass State Park. Its original nine-foot-tall figure now lives inside the shop after its years outside took a toll on its hairline, said the store’s co-owner Scott Meaker.
“He was kind of being attacked by birds,” Meaker said. “They were pulling off his hair and using it for nests. And he was getting a little blonde on top.”
The answer was a weather-resistant replacement: an enormous cedar carving commissioned after the owner met a woodcarver at an expo in Skagit County. The resulting 12-foot sculpture weighs roughly 2,000 pounds.
The carving, created by chainsaw artist Kyle Christopherson, required scaffolding to complete. After enlisting someone to plant a 12-foot log in his front yard using a crane truck, the Washington-based artist used different-sized chainsaws to complete the cedar Bigfoot in less than a week. He finished the massive sculpture with a propane wood torch to seal it and give it a tan finish. The artist credits Whidbey local Steve Backus with inspiring him to get into wood carving.
“Chainsaw art is a fast and furious art,” Christopherson said. “A lot of people don’t understand what actually is entailed in flinging a saw around at high RPMs and trying not to cut any limbs off, you know?”
Meaker was completely impressed with how the sculpture came out.
“He’s beautiful,” the owner said. “He’s really cool looking.”
Unlike many exaggerated or cartoonish Sasquatch depictions, Meaker insisted the statue was designed with realism in mind. It is inviting tourists in, he said, to see Squatchy, a near-replica of what he believes he actually saw decades ago in Yosemite National Park when he was 16 years old.
“I know what Bigfoot looks like because I’ve seen Bigfoot in Yosemite National Park,” Meaker said. He recalled how he and his cousin, Sean, had pulled over alongside tourists watching wildlife in the park when they spotted something unusual moving across a distant valley with no trails.
“This figure that’s, you know, got to be 9, 10 feet tall, brown from head to toe,” he said, could only be a Sasquatch. “He was walking faster than I think I could run.”
While other visitors focused on bears and elk nearby, Meaker remembered, no one else seemed to notice the figure crossing the valley.
“I’m like, ‘Sean, why aren’t people looking at this?’ And he said, ‘because they know what they came here to see,’” Meaker said.
The experience stayed with Meaker long after it happened. He later studied biology at Western and still holds the belief that Bigfoot is real. That memory became the blueprint for the store’s Sasquatch displays.
The giant cedar statue draws travelers into a world built around mystery, folklore and Pacific Northwest identity.
“When people come to Washington State,” Meaker said, “one of the big things that they’re thinking is, ‘Oh, you know, this is the land of Sasquatch.’”
Inside the store are dozens of Sasquatch-themed items, locally made products and photo opportunities with the original Squatchy. Visitors range from excited children to equally enthusiastic adults.
“I think that whimsy and fantasy are important to people,” he said. “We’re all kind of children at heart.”
For him, “Cedar Squatchy” represents something larger than a roadside art. It represents the possibility that the natural world still contains unanswered questions. And now, towering above the road on Whidbey, that mystery has a new face.
Stop in at Squatchy’s from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day. Learn more about the store at Squatchys-Souvenir-Gifts.Square.Site/About-Us. Find more of Christopherson’s work at LegacyWoodCarvings.com.
