My friend, Angela Campbell, wrote a wonderful post on Here Be Magic about her fascination and
affection for the Loch
Ness Monster. And this month scientists will be sampling the dark waters of
that mysterious lake, hoping to tease out a DNA sample. Personally, I’m cheering
for them – as a fantasy and paranormal writer, I can’t help but love a good monster!
While we wait for those results, let’s talk about Nessie’s possible relatives. Did you know there are
several other legendary water beasts scattered throughout the British Isles? And here in
the United States, approximately 22 Nessie-type creatures have been reported! That's enough to give a person pause before swimming in deep waters...
As a Canadian, I can attest that the Great White North has its share of aquatic monsters too – over a dozen, not counting the ones that share waters with the U.S. I've been lucky enough to visit a few of the lakes, and one more than once: Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. About 80 miles long and surrounded by steep-walled mountains, it’s been compared to a coastal fjord with depths of nearly 1,000 feet in some places.
It certainly seems like an ideal home for the most famous fresh water monster in Canada: “Ogopogo”.
As a Canadian, I can attest that the Great White North has its share of aquatic monsters too – over a dozen, not counting the ones that share waters with the U.S. I've been lucky enough to visit a few of the lakes, and one more than once: Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. About 80 miles long and surrounded by steep-walled mountains, it’s been compared to a coastal fjord with depths of nearly 1,000 feet in some places.
It certainly seems like an ideal home for the most famous fresh water monster in Canada: “Ogopogo”.
In
1924, however, a Vancouver newspaper reporter parodied a British song,
“Ogo-Pogo, The Funny Foxtrot” in order to make fun of the reported sightings of
the time:
His mother was an
earwig, his father was a whale;
A little bit of head. And hardly any tail.
And Ogo-pogo was his
name.
Unfortunately, the original native
names for the monster were promptly forgotten or ignored, and the mysterious creature has
been called Ogopogo ever since!
Reports of the Okanagan
monster by Europeans predate the first sightings of Nessie in Scotland by about
60 years. In 1854, settler John MacDougall was in a canoe, swimming his team of
horses across the lake. Without warning, the horses were dragged under by
forces unseen. He was forced to cut the lead ropes to save the canoe from being
pulled under as well, and narrowly escaped. The horses disappeared without a
trace.
The first recorded sighting of the creature was by author Susan Allison in 1872. She was watching the lake for signs of her husband returning from a canoe trip, when suddenly she spotted an unusual animal swimming against the waves. And in 1880 a shipment of timbers was going to be floated to Osoyoos. As the hand-sawn timbers were being made into a raft, the monster was seen to raise its head from the water and watch! In 1890, Thomas Shorts was captain of a steam ship on the lake and claimed to have seen a finned creature about sixteen feet long with a head like that of a ram. It disappeared when he turned the ship in its direction.
Sightings have occurred ever
since—including some by large groups of people at the same time! On September 16, 1925, a
large creature was seen swimming in the lake by about 30 cars of people parked
along a beach. (The government subsequently announced that the new ferry being
built for travel across the Okanagan Lake would be equipped with special
"monster repelling devices".) On July 2, 1947, several boaters
reported seeing the monster . On July 17, 1959, a number of
people claimed to have seen a huge creature with a long neck for about three minute before it
submerged.
Most witness accounts describe
a serpentine creature from 12 to 70 feet long. It's usually glossy black or brown and undulates through the water. It isn’t clear if the creature actually has a
number of humps or if it just looks like that because of its method of
locomotion. The Ogopogo is described as having a goat-like or horse-like head
on a very long neck. And sometimes the creature has been spotted emerging from
the water and onto the shore!
So is it possible that
Okanagan Lake has an undiscovered animal, or “cryptid”, living in it?
Meanwhile, each summer brings thousands
of tourists to the beautiful shores of Lake Okanagan for waterpark fun, for camping
and fishing, for beautiful scenery – and maybe, just maybe, a glimpse of its most
famous non-human resident.
LEGEND ∙ LORE ∙ LOVE ∙ MAGIC
The fae are cunning, powerful and often cruel. The most beautiful among them are often the most deadly. Hidden far beneath the mortal world, the timeless faery realm plays by its own rules—and those rules can change on a whim. Now and again, the unpredictable residents of that mystical land cross the supernatural threshold…
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