No, it is not an April Fool's Day joke - there really is an Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance!  You can see for yourself in the following book of wacky laws:

Kevin Underhill, The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance and other Real Laws that Human beings have actually dreamed up, enacted, and sometimes even enforced, American Bar Association (2013).  Law Library stacks: K183 U53 2013.

A facsimile of Ordinance No. 69-01, adopted the 1st day of April, 1969, by Skamania County, Washington can be found on p. 271.

Indeed, Skamania County has a webpage up for your very own Sasquatch Seeking Fun!  It includes an Itinerary Overview that'll take you 368 steps up a sand ladder to view the crater of Mount St. Helens, and perhaps even see Sasquatch (insert image link)!  Don't forget to visit Ape Cave while you are there, so much excitement!

Before we go overboard, we need to get back to the basics of the book: a collection of very unusual laws that may or may not make you the life of the party.  For instance, the first written law code mentions beer.  The "Reform Edict of Urukagina (ca. 2350 B.C.) specifies beer shall be paid in compensation for burial services.

The levy of fines was common practice for both the Salian Franks and medieval Russians.  For the crime of battery, the fine depending on how hard you hit your victim in Salic law (Pactus Legis Salicae XVII, ca. 500).  If that doesn't make any sense, the Russian version reads, in part:

"If a person hits another with a stick, or a rod, or a fist, or a bowl, or a drinking horn, or the dull side of a sword, he is to pay twelve grivnas; if the offender is not hit back [by his victim], he must pay, and there the matter ends."  (Russkaia Pravda, arts. 4, 7, & 8, ca. 1050 A.D.)

This next one caught me off guard, according to 10 U.S.C. sec. 311, all able-bodied American males between the ages of 17 and under 45 are members of the militia, like it or not.  Worse yet, you can't even patent an atomic weapon (42 U.S.C. sec. 2181(a)).  Comparatively, it is a comfort to know that in California comic books must be less than 80 percent mayhem (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code sec. 16603).

Now, here's one for us librarians!  Willful noisemaking in a public library is a crime in Massachusetts (Mass. Gen. Laws sec. 272-41).

In Delaware, it is technically illegal to have a puppet show in a private home without a license (Del. Code tit. 28 sec. 901).  Georgia law dictates "No person shall operate or ride upon a motorcycle unless he shall wear some type of footwear in addition to or other than socks."  (Ga. Code sec. 40-6-311)  Where's the fun nowadays?

No clowning around, Pee-wee.

The movie Caddyshack could have never been made in Connecticut because it is against the law to hunt squirrels "or other fur-bearing animal" with dynamite. (p. 118)

Submitted by Eric Taylor, Evening Reference Librarian on June 1, 2025

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