The Yeti Expo and Mountain Laurel Christmas event will be held on Saturday, December 11. The day is billed as “a great small town classic Christmas including vendors, food, and live music.” The event starts at 2pm and will continue until 6pm.
A host of vendors and crafters will display their goods at the old Fisher Building – next to the Sutton Fire Station, and the Sutton Community Building. Mountain Laurel Country store which will be converted into a winter wonderland will also offer a treasure trove of gift giving merchandise.
The Sutton Volunteer Fire Department will have food available for those who get hungry between shopping and listening to live music at the Community Building.
It’s a classic small-town Christmas with the opportunity to meet Bigfoot, Yeti, and Santa Claus.
In addition, Louis Petolicchio, of Sutton, will be on hand with his new book, just released, which recounts the historic experiences people have had in North America with the “wild man,” or more commonly known today as Bigfoot.
Petolicchio, who works with The West Virginia Bigfoot Museum, began to research the historical aspects of Bigfoot when he realized old newspaper accounts, some going back almost 200 years, had been reporting on large hairy creatures encountered in the mountains or woodlands of the continent. Those accounts have now been compiled into a single edition titled “The Wild Man of North America.”
“What we would call ‘Bigfoot’ today, they were calling a ‘wild man,’ which makes sense because the word ‘Bigfoot’ did not come into being until the 1950’s and the word ‘Sasquatch’ was not coined until the 1930’s,” he said. “But stories of these animals have been reported in American newspapers since almost the beginning of the country, some of which have been good and some of which have been hostile.”
Petolicchio noted that what he found intriguing was that after reviewing the newspaper reports he has concluded that there have actually been three different creatures encountered in the North America wilds. He said the first was Bigfoot, which is large, powerful, ape-like, generally reclusive but curious. The second, he said, would best be described as a “feral human” or someone who is hermit-like but will behave in an erratic and sometimes violent manner.
“It is the third group which I find the most curious,” he said. “I refer to them simple as a ‘Lost Hominid’ because I don’t know what else to call them.”
Petolicchio said the purpose of the book is not intended to resolve any debate as to whether Bigfoot exits, but to share the old newspaper accounts of what people had been experiencing from across the continent for the last couple of hundred years and allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
Copies of “The Wild Man of North America” are available at The West Virginia Bigfoot Museum in Sutton, or directly from the printer, Lulu.com.
