Toronto television producer John Garrett got on the phone yesterday and told Bigfoot not to come in to work.

"We lost power. The snow is dumping down. It's just one thing after another," he said. "I had to call 20 actors and cancel the whole afternoon shoot."

"Creepy Canada" traveled to Westmoreland County this week to tape an episode on Bigfoot and UFO lore. It's been a nightmare experience, Mr. Garrett said.

His Bigfoot, better known as John Shissler, is a 6-foot-5, 300-plus pound junk hauler from Bethel Park who says he's waited all his life to portray the hulking humanoid of the Chestnut Ridge.

"I'm an easygoing guy. I'm self-employed. An extra day's wait won't matter," Mr. Shissler said. "I'll be just as big on Thursday."

Mr. Garrett wasn't quite so calm.

"Creepy Canada" is a 3-year-old series that's "pretty much tapped-out of Canadian material," he explained. Once the show's writers started looking southward for supernatural stuff, Western Pennsylvania "jumped right out at us."

With a four-day shooting schedule in hand, the crew left Toronto Sunday afternoon, bound for Ligonier. They were stopped dead at the U.S. border.

"One of the customs agents had a question about us that only her boss could answer," Mr. Garrett said. "He wasn't due at work until Monday. We lost our travel day. So on Monday we had to travel and shop for costumes, too."

Luckily they found a good Army-Navy outlet in Erie Monday morning.

Shoots were set up for yesterday morning in Greensburg and afternoon in Ligonier Township.

Then fall's first snow started falling -- 6 inches on Ligonier. Then the lights went out.

But yesterday wasn't a total loss. Like most seekers of the weird and eerie, the first stop for "Creepy Canada" was Stan Gordon's place in Greensburg.

Mr. Gordon opened a National UFO Hotline in 1969 and founded the Westmoreland County UFO Study Group a year later. After three decades steeped in the unexplained, Mr. Gordon has become a phenomenon, too.

The tape rolled. Mr. Gordon told the interviewer "all about events of 1973, an intriguing year around here."

He detailed summertime UFO and Bigfoot sightings in Hempfield, Latrobe, Derry, Whitney and Jeannette. And he narrated a combo sighting in October 1973 near Uniontown:

"Barn-size red half-sphere, multiple witnesses," Mr. Gordon recited. "And along a fence line behind it were running two 8-foot creatures covered in black hair."

That's the scene the crew had hoped to shoot yesterday afternoon, he said. For some reason, the Canadians ordered only one Bigfoot suit and Mr. Shissler was ready Tuesday morning to fill it.

"I move kinda slow, and I like hanging out in the woods. I get called Sasquatch all the time," Mr. Shissler said. "I've never acted before, but Bigfoot's got no lines. I think I just have to lumber around."

Mr. Shissler's brother-in-law, Gary Troiano, also from Bethel Park, landed the role of "the man in the black suit with a mean disposition." The rescheduled shoot might cut Mr. Troiano out of the picture, but that's show biz.

Or just snow.

"Yeah, we're Canadian. We laugh at this kind of snowfall," Mr. Garrett said. "But when you have no power, your cameras don't work. The lights won't come on.

"We're in the dark."

Creepy, eh?