Ogopogo: Canada's Loch Ness Monster

Everyone knows about Scotland's famous Loch Ness monster, but comparatively few people have ever heard of Canada's Ogopogo, which hundreds of locals and visitors claim to have seen in Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, some 250 miles east of Vancouver.

Ogopogo has been described as being dark green, 15 to 50 feet long, one to two feet wide, with a head like that of a horse or goat with a beard. But fear not. He (or possibly she) is said to be the world's friendliest inland sea monster, living for centuries in an underwater cave in a 30-mile-long lake which is 1,000 feet deep in places.

The first we knew of him (or her) was when Mick Read, who lives in Peachland, British Columbia, in the mountains above Okanagan Lake, told us in an email:

A couple of years ago me and dog were sniffing around the Lake bank and I noticed something coming towards the bank. A bunch of small humps. I observed for a while and wrote them off as a few beavers following in line. Tell anyone they would think I am up the bloody wall. So I kept mum for a time. A friend the ex-Fire Chief now runs the museum, seeing I often pull his leg reckoned it was Ogo. Of course he was born here.

Five years ago, the Rotary Club of Penticton, Penticton & Wine Country Chamber of Commerce and Okanagan Unviersity College offered to pay two million Canadian dollars to anyone finding alive and definitively verifying Ogopogo's existence between August 1, 2000 and September 1, 2001. There were a few submissions, but the judges were not satisfied that they provided adequate proof, and no award was made.

One website says that the local North American indigenous people knew Ogopogo as N'Ha-a-itk, meaning "Lake Demon."

According to legend, he was formerly a man possessed by a demon, who had slain a neighbour known as Old Kan-He-K (in whose honour Lake Okanagan was named). The gods turned him into a giant sea serpent, to remain at the crime scene for ever.

It seems that people who believe in flying saucers also believe in Ogopogo, because one of the most detailed stories about the monster is posted on the UFO British Columbia website. It was written in 1998 by an 11-year-old named Michael, assisted by his uncle, an Ontario anthropologist who remains anonymous.

Ogopogo was sighted several times last year, according to these reports posted by SunnyOkanagan.com:

June 4 2004. Debbie reported seeing Ogopogo to CKOV radio. She was watching the lake with her three children at 7:30 PM on the north west end of the lake. First the ducks and loons took off. Then she heard a thump thump thump thump in rapid succession making the water spray up, spitting and splashing, much louder than a beaver slap.

Then she saw three smooth shinny humps mostly submerged. The creature swam about 3 feet and submerged leaving the water perfectly calm. She was so scared she ran into the house and thought "Who should I call? No one will believe me."

Just two weeks previous also at 7:30 PM she saw a neck and dinosaur head moving through the water past about three houses. The skin was hairless and the colour was a deep grey black like she had never seen before.

She estimated the body to be 15 feet long swimming like a snake, very mellow and quiet. The head had a bump on the top - dolphins have a bump they use for sonar. It was the weirdest color and the head the weirdest shape.

June 2004. Maria related what a fellow she knew told him: He was on a boat in Okanagan Lake saw what he thought was a log. He reached out to touch it, and it swam away. He said it swam up and down like a dolphin and he saw more than one.

August 9, 2004. John Casorso reported seeing and video taping Ogopogo.. He and his family were in a house boat by Trader's Cove at the old ferry docks early in the morning when he heard a thump thump thumping (same reported thumping as by Debbie) and thrashing beneath the house boat and the house boat tilted 20° and rocked. The lake was perfectly calm and there were no motor boats.

He saw the object 30 feet away, got his video recorder and video taped a large dark object like a black wave, submerging and surfacing... a hundred yards away - he video taped it for 15 minutes. At times there appeared to be two parallel objects. When he got home he played it back and the object resolved clearly depicting a large object with humps, stretching out at times like a reptile, perhaps the best video yet of Ogopogo.

[It] has been given the nickname Igopogo - an obvious parody of the name bestowed upon the aquatic marvel of Okanagan Lake, British Columbia. As Igopogo has been frequently sighted in Kempenfelt Bay on the northwestern side of this roughly circular lake, it is also known as Kempenfelt Kelly.

Those who have had the good fortune of obtaining a sighting of the reticent and elusive beast have described it as having a stove-pipe neck with a head resembling that of a dog and with a face to match. The largest specimen sighted was a mere 12 feet long - a small enough creature when compared with the lurking hulks said to dwell at Loch Ness and Okanagan Lake.