On Valentine’s Day, six years ago, I lost a friend; we all did, when the field of cryptozoology saw the death of a great man. Dr. Grover Krantz passed away, too young. (See his obituary here.)

I am happy to exclusively announce today a new, brief exhibit that honors, by coincidence, Krantz’s legacy this month.

From February 8th through February 29th, 2008, the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology (PHMA), Berkeley, California, has placed on display two Bigfoot casts, which had been donated by Grover Krantz to their collection.

The specific exhibit was curated by Marco Centin, Exhibit Designer, at PHMA.

The program in question is a small case exhibiting two Bigfoot footprint casts. These prints are from a set of two pairs in the Hearst Museum, along with a related handprint. According to Centin, the casts “are from physical anthropologist Grover Krantz from a track of 1,089 distinctive footprints found in the vicinity of Bossburg, Washington, in November 1969. This program is been presented in occasion of the celebration of Darwin’s birthday to offer an opportunity for reflection on museum collections, and on the difference between what is considered ‘evidence’ and ‘truth’ in science.”

Ira Jacknis, Research Anthropologist, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Sherrilyn Roush, Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Faculty, Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science, UC Berkeley, and David J. Daegling, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, offer a brief perspective on this subject, said Centin.

As further noted by Centin, about the source of the artifacts on exhibit:

[Dr. Grover Krantz] was one of the leading Bigfoot researchers as well as a prominent anthropologist and a renowned expert on Human Evolution. Although he is acknowledged as such in the exhibit, and as the donator of the casts, his point of view is neither challenged nor validated by any of the participants. The emphasis is placed instead on the epistemological aspects of ‘truth’ and ‘evidence’ rather than on the Bigfoot story itself.

This small exhibit is a diversion from our regular exhibit program and it is primarily intended to reach out to researchers and scholars within the University community, in particular UC Berkeley. We would like to use objects from our collection as pretexts for multidisciplinary conversations about museum artifacts and education in museums.

The two exhibition photographs (above), exclusively seen here, are credited to Marco Centin and the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley, California. They cannot be used elsewhere without the expressed permission of Centin and the PHMA.

For those Bigfoot researchers familiar with the two casts on exhibit, you will recognize them as the Bossburg examples.

Dr. Grover Krantz’s estate has given the rights to Bone Clones® to reproduce and sell these two casts. They are visible within the “The Bone Clones® Grover Krantz Collection,” (casts above) and also available from Skulls Unlimited (below).

For those who wish to enhance their cryptozoology collection with the Krantz casts, or with his reconstructions of the skulls of Gigantopithecus or Meganthropus, please refer to the two site links above.

For those in the Bay Area, please take advantage of this short-lived exhibit with a visit to the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley, in general.

Happy Valentine’s Day, and for a moment today, remember Dr. Grover Krantz.

It all seems very appropriate. The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology has a new Bigfoot exhibition highlighting part of Grover’s work to assist in stimulating thoughtful discussion, just as Grover enjoyed doing intellectually, when pondering everything from Homo erectus to Sasquatch.