Scout camp’s Arrowmen familiar with Bigfoot

LITTLE ROCK — Last week’s column about bigfoot along the Buffalo River evidently touched a statewide nerve.

I received 87 e-mails and 14 letters from those who claim to have spotted a sasquatch or sasquatch-esque cryptid bipedal apelike humanoid creature lurking in the woods or swamps of Arkansas.

Here are just a couple.

Dear Otus,

Every Boy Scout who attended summer camp at Camp Orr (which is 10 miles downstream from Ponca) since it opened in the 1950s knows the Buffalo River monster is named “Smokey Joe.” I’m shocked a sharp news cat like you has not sniffed out that connection to this year’s bigfoot search group at Steele Creek.

Anthony Allan Pine Bluff

And this one from Bubba Crabtree in Fouke.

Dear Mr. Cat,

I don’t read your newspaper, but someone showed me a copy. Any mention of bigfoot in Arkansas without mentioning the Fouke Monster is bogus.

First, allow me say that it was wholly a pleasure to hear from both of you. Although I would admonish my reader from the Queen City of Jefferson County that it’s always bad form to admit being shocked by anything a dead cat does or does not do.

Secondly, if I may be so bold as to suggest that while I pride myself on being a “sharp news cat,” I am far from omniscient. I rely upon my far-ranging network of conscientious readers to supply me with the latest information so that I may be a symbiotic conduit to the thousands who turn to this space each Saturday for the latest in information vital to the conductivity of their daily lives.

It is just such a reader who has gone the extra mile by supplying me with the only known photograph of the legendary Smokey Joe.

My deepest personal gratitude goes to L’Aine Ramsay-Bridgforth of Rison for sending along the accompanying photo taken by her father at Boy Scout Camp Orr Adventure Base near Jasper in June 1971.

L’Aine acknowledges that the picture is an enlarged copy of a still photo made from frame 352 of a film from her father’s old Kodak Instamatic M2 Super 8mm camera and less than perfectly focused. She notes it shows the 7-foot creature stalking the riverbank near the eastern end of Scouter’s Island not far from where Shop Creek empties into the river.

She said her father, the late Patterson Gimlin of Sorrells, had been a Camp Orr staff member (aquatics) between 1970 and 1974 and had spotted Smokey Joe several times - once on the Uncle Frank Lewis Trail on the western side of the camp, twice bathing in Twin Falls and once across the river heading up rugged Clemmon’s Hollow (where Patterson suspected the creature lived).

Camp Orr is extremely isolated. The steep and treacherous dirt road down into the valley wherein the camp lies is accessible only by pack mules supplied by Kyle’s Landing Canoe and Mule Rental some six miles up river.

Since 1953, Scouts have been dropped off high on the ridge at the volunteer fire department building at Mount Sherman and trekked down to the camp for their week of summer adventures.

Each camp session ends with a huge bonfire and a mysterious indoctrination ritual known to the cognoscente as the “Order of the Arrow.” Evidently, it involves secret ceremonies, handshakes and passwords, arcane chanting, special insignia and maybe even visions and the dark arts.

Initiates are called “Arrowmen” and given Indian names such as Sasq’ets or Enkoodabooaoo.

At the end of the ceremony, one designated Arrowman of the Vigil will rise before the gathered and relate the horrific tale of Smokey Joe.

The legend’s details are sketchy since all Scouts are sworn to lifelong secrecy. But it’s evidently a bloodcurdling cautionary tale of terror and primal horror designed to keep the youths from wandering off into the woods where Smokey Joe lies in wait.

Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that Fouke’s Legend of Boggy Creek most likely deals with a rogue Shug Monkey or Moehau and not a sasquatch.

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Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. E-mail:

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