Photos: (L) Actual photo, (R) Artists' rendering
                                                          
My own encounter was with the famous "Minnesota Iceman", which was on display on the midway of the county fair my brother and I attended in 1968. This being was something truly rare and not a hoax I am sure of this. I saw this exhibit once again in 1988 and the creature this time did not look the same at all, but was billed as the same. A waist of $5.00 to see the darn thing. 
Over the years my interest in this mystery has taken me to many places; my Lakota-Sioux relatives told me stories of the "Tonka Man" (Buffalo Man), when I was a little boy and it lived lived near them along the Mississippi River near Red Wing. My aunt even claimed to see one when she was a little girl in 1937. It was on the river near a elderberry tree. The creature was eating berries when she and her friend came upon it. It turned looked at them and walked slowly into the woods.
She said it had a dark red face and big nose; and a talleywacker (a penis). I had to ask my mom what was ( I was so embarrassed). She later told me it was close to 7 feet tall. Another observed curiosity about them was that the bigfoot would only come on nights when there was no full moon, and when there was a time of a tragedy or death of an elder (this was to stand guard over the members of the tribe).

Source: Chattahoochee Bigfoot Organization™ member Mr. Thomas Finley, Essex England