Vance Orchard spent more than three decades writing for the Walla Walla Union‑Bulletin, covering the people, places, and rhythms of eastern Washington. He was a storyteller by trade, a community man by instinct, and a chronicler of the land long before he ever wrote a word about Bigfoot.

His shift into Sasquatch reporting wasn’t a gimmick or a stunt. It was a natural extension of his beat. Orchard talked to ranchers, loggers, hunters, and families who lived deep in the foothills, the kind of people who didn’t seek attention and didn’t embellish their stories. When they told him about strange tracks, heavy footsteps, or encounters in the timber, he listened with the same seriousness he gave to any other local event.

That simple act, taking witnesses seriously, changed the trajectory of Bigfoot research in the Blue Mountains.