Portland museum presents Sasquatch through Indigenous cultural lens

If you didn’t get a chance to visit the High Desert Museum’s

“Sensing Sasquatch” exhibition

in Bend, a version of it is now on display in Portland.

The World Forestry Center’s new exhibition,

“Sasquatch: Ancestral Guardians,”

features stories and art from Native perspectives on the creature known in

modern pop culture

by the name “Bigfoot.” It was created in collaboration with the High Desert Museum, which hosted a similar exhibition last year.

“Indigenous peoples have long been in relationship with and shared stories about sacred forest protectors, often called Sasquatch and Bigfoot,” reads a description of the exhibit. “The works in this exhibition are made by Indigenous artists and honor generations of spiritual practices, storytelling, and tradition. Leave your preconceived notions behind and immerse yourself, not in the question of if Sasquatch exists, but rather, how are we existing with and honoring this non-human other.”

After the Bend exhibit closed in January, the artworks were re-curated for the World Forestry Center, with the addition of new stories about the forests of the Pacific Northwest, three new artworks, and two additional local Indigenous artists.

“Sasquatch: Ancestral Guardians” features work by Phillip Cash Cash, (Nez Perce, Cayuse), HollyAnna CougarTracks DeCoteau Littlebull (Yakama, Nez Perce, Cayuse, Cree), Charlene “Tillie” Moody (Warm Springs), Frank Buffalo Hyde (Nez Perce, Onondaga) and Rocky LaRock (Salish), Greg Archuleta (Grand Ronde) and Joe Scott (Siletz).

The World Forestry Center’s new exhibition, “Sasquatch: Ancestral Guardians,” features stories and art from Native perspectives on Bigfoot.

Courtesy of World Forestry Center

“We realize Sasquatch has morphed into a beloved Westernized pop culture icon,” Stephanie Stewart Bailey, experience developer for World Forestry Center, said in an announcement of the exhibit, “but when inside this gallery, we intentionally invite visitors to take part in a culturally informed experience, shaped by Indigenous knowledge, where Sasquatch is not a spectacle, but a sacred presence.”

“Sasquatch: Ancestral Guardians” opened May 30 and is on display through Jan. 4, 2026. Indigenous artists will host public programs around the exhibition, to be announced in the coming months.

The exhibition is on view on the second floor of World Forestry Center’s Discovery Museum, 4033 S.W. Canyon Road in Portland’s Washington Park. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Admission is $5-$8. For more information, visit

worldforestry.org/sasquatch

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