Ride Chair 2 at Mission Ridge in Washington and you’ll pass an 11-foot creature made of steel and old tire chains. In January it’s coated in rime and looks like a Yeti. By July the rusted chain shows through, and it’s Bigfoot walking the ridgeline.
That’s not my description. It’s how the ski area’s marketing and data systems manager, Matt Kung, put it to SKI Magazine this week. “He’s never been pinned down,” Kung said. “He goes wherever he wants.”
The SKI piece by Abby Price catalogs how hard Pacific Northwest ski country leans on Sasquatch. I read it as a content strategy story, and a good one.
The Bigfoot inventory
Here’s what the region has built around one legend, per SKI and local coverage:
| Place | What it did |
|---|---|
| Mission Ridge, WA | 11-ft steel-and-chain sculpture by Chair 2, installed 2019 |
| Sasquatch Mountain Resort, BC | Renamed from Hemlock in 2017; Sasquatch Triple Chair, a Bigfoot run |
| Big White, BC | A restaurant called Sasquatch Sushi |
| Espresso Chalet, on the way to Stevens Pass | Roadside coffee stand with a giant Sasquatch statue, a nod to Harry and the Hendersons |
Cliff Barackman, curator of the North American Bigfoot Center, told SKI that Bigfoot “almost functions as a regional mascot.” Nobody issued a brand guideline. The whole region just agreed.
Why a legend beats a logo
It’s a character, not a campaign. Campaigns end. A character shows up every season with something new to say. Mission Ridge’s sculpture literally changes costume between winter and summer, which hands the social team two seasonal posts a year without a shoot budget.
It keeps earning. The sculpture went up near Chair 2 in September 2019, built by a local artist crew from donated recycled chain. Three years later, the regional tourism office was still writing follow-up stories about it. How many of your 2019 posts are still generating coverage?
It’s a photo spot with a reason to exist. Every guest selfie with a Sasquatch is user-generated content you didn’t pay for, and it’s unmistakably your mountain.
The part most resorts would get wrong
Sasquatch Mountain didn’t pick a mascot off a shelf. When it dropped the Hemlock name, the 2017 announcement explained that “Sasquatch” is an anglicized form of the Sts’ailes word Sa:sq’ets, and that the mountain sits in Sts’ailes traditional territory. Inside operations manager Nikita Romane told SKI the resort chose “something that is uniquely tied to the Harrison and Fraser Valley region,” and that it works to respect the legend’s Indigenous origins.
That’s the difference between a brand and a costume. A legend borrowed from somewhere else reads as a gimmick. One that actually belongs to your valley reads as a story only you can tell, and if it comes from a living culture, you owe it accuracy and respect before you owe it a T-shirt.
Find your Sasquatch
Most mountains have one. A ghost in the old lodge. The patroller nobody beat to first chair for 30 years. A run named after a moose that refused to move. Here’s how I’d turn it into content:
- Pick something true to your place. Ask your oldest employees and the local historical society, not a brainstorm.
- Give it a physical home. A sculpture, a sign, a chair name. Content needs a location people can visit.
- Build a seasonal rhythm. First rime, first powder day, summer reveal. Same character, new frame.
- Make the photo spot obvious. Put it where people already stop, like a lift exit or a summit.
- Never fake it. No staged “sightings” sold as real. The wink is the charm; the hoax is the backlash.
The Northwest didn’t need a giant ad budget to own a mascot. It needed patience, a few welders and a legend with big feet to fill.
What story does your mountain already have that you’ve never put on camera?
