The Washington State Capital Museum, housed in a 1920s mansion a few blocks south of the statehouse, is about to launch an exhibit that's a little different from the Native American art and historic photos that are its more typical fare.

Bigfoot.

Yup, the museum will be exhibiting plaster casts of purported sasquatch footprints,
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a mock-up of a skull of a prehistoric giant ape,
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and Indian art -- this is a stone carving on loan from the Maryhill Museum -- that is suggestive of a very large ape-like creature living in the region's old-growth forests.
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On Saturday, the museum is bringing in several researchers: Idaho State University anatomy and anthropology professor Jeffrey Meldrum, naturalist and Bigfoot author Robert Michael Pyle, and Peter Ryrne, who has led Bigfoot searches in Nepal and the Pacific Northwest, including a 1990 search here using helicopters with infrared sensors and appealing to the public with a 1-800-BIGFOOT number. (Don't call. The number now belongs to a telephone paging company.)

The exhibit opens Saturday at 11 a.m. Appearances:
1-2 p.m.: Mascot Squatch, from the Seattle Supersonics.
2-3 p.m.: Quinault Tribe storytelling
2-3:30 p.m. Book signing and chat with Byrne, Meldrum and Pyle.
3:30-4: Presentation by Byrne.
4 -5 p.m.: Presentation by Meldrum.
7-8 p.m.: Presentation by Pyle.

Musuem admission's $2; events are free and open to the public.

(Hat tip: Olyblog.)

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