Mysterious lake creature shrouded in myth
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Mysterious lake creature shrouded in myth
Jul 02 2006
Penticton Western News
A photo of the elusive Ogopogo, dated back to 1934. True or False?Once described as a being the spawn of an earwig and a whale, the mystery of Okanagan Lake’s Ogopogo is still being debated to this day.
Originally called M-ha-a-i-tk by local First Nations, Ogopogo’s home is said to be near Squally Point (also known as Rattlesnake Island).
According to city councillor and local historian Randy Manuel, the natives, out of fear of death by drowning, would sacrifice an animal like a dog when passing Squally Point.
“It’s a spot where wind and weather can bring waves up to six or seven feet there. It’s a spot where you don’t want to get caught in a boat,” said Manuel. “It (sacrificing animals) was common practice when they were travelling the length of the lake in canoes.”
The local natives weren’t the only ones that believed in Ogopogo either.
In 1914 one man found what may have been an Ogopogo carcass.
Author F.M. Buckland of Kelowna described the story of what happened to a group of campers near Greata Ranch in one of his books.
“One of the party who had gone to the lake edge for water was attracted by a strong smell of rotted fish. On investigation he found the badly decomposed body of a strange animal lying at the water’s edge … The body was between five and six feet in length and would weigh about 400 pounds. It had a short, broad, flat tail and a head that stuck out from between shoulders without any sign of a neck. The nose was stubby, sticking out of rounded head with no ears visible. The thick hide was sparsely covered with a silky hair four or five inches in length and of a bluish-grey colour while the teeth resembled those of a dog. It had two ivory-like tusks and claws resembling those of a great bird, on flipper-like arms; claws that showed no signs of wear or use, such as those of a cougar or other land animal.”
It is alleged that the shoulder blade, tusks and claws were displayed in private homes by interested parties, but their current whereabouts are unknown.
Attracting more than just interested campers, Ogopogo even has fans in the movie industry.
A movie about Ogopogo is in the planning stages.
Provost Pictures, out of Vancouver, is working on its first film, The Beast of the Bottomless Lake.
Okanagan Lake“The company was really formed around the idea of making this film,” said production director and co-owner of the company Kennedy Goodkey. Goodkey’s friend Keith Provost, who grew up in Kelowna, wanted to create a film about Ogopogo.
Provost felt he’d seen Ogopogo in the water as a child and was what Goodkey called a “minutiae of information about Ogopogo.”
Tragically, Provost was killed in an accident and the project was put on hold because its emotional impact on those involved was too hard to deal with.
“Last year around this time … I dusted it off and said ‘Let’s see if we can’t do this now,'” said Goodkey.
Goodkey and his business partner Craig March created a script from memories of Provost’s stories and after some research, made what they felt was a relatively accurate script.
The Beast of the Bottomless Lake crew went to Kelowna recently to scout filming locations and are planning on conducting their main casting in the Okanagan.
The movie will be a modern-day Moby Dick as a group of UBC academics go to the Okanagan to prove the existence of Ogopogo, but their individual agendas get in the way.
Goodkey is not completely sure if Ogopogo really exists and he will continue to wait for evidence.
“As long as there’s an element of doubt I am one to extend the possibility to hold out my belief,” he said. “I have to admit I think there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that doesn’t make it look good.”
And Goodkey isn’t the only one questioning the reality of Ogopogo.
Local fisherman and owner of Lakestream Flies and Supplies Chris Cousins said he believes the lake monster is really just a big fish.
“I believe that people have seen something out there but I don’t believe it is a prehistoric monster,” said Cousins. “I do believe that what they’ve seen is a sturgeon or a group of sturgeons.”
B.C. Fisheries describes sturgeons as a long and cylindrical fish that can grow up to six metres long and weigh 1,323 pounds. They range in colour from greenish-grey on their backs to light grey on their bellies and they’re covered in bony plates instead of scales.
The sturgeon is a bottom feeder and its mouth is on the underside of its body, that way it can swim along the bottom of the lake and suck up prey.
But every once in a while they make an appearance, said Cousins.
“They definitely come to the surface, it’s called breaching – it means they roll on the surface … They jump and leap out of the water at times,” he said.
It’s thought that sturgeons, which can be found in the Columbia and Fraser rivers, made it to Okanagan Lake through the Columbia River system before it was dammed up in 1953.
In 1958 divers working the Okanagan floating bridge reported seeing the sturgeon, which frightened them.
Since then there have been hundreds of sightings of Ogopogo – most often during the summer months when tourists and locals are hitting the beach and the lake.
Kelowna author Arlene Gaal, who is considered an Ogopogo expert by some, said she has recorded sightings from the 1800s to today.
“I basically have the best records of Ogopogo of anyone in the world,” said Gaal adding she has 99.9 per cent of all photos ever taken of the beast as well as about 90 per cent of recorded sightings in her library of information.
In addition to keeping records, Gaal has had her own Ogopogo experiences.
While investigating a sighting in 1978 she felt she saw him for the first time.
“I had no intent of seeing anything but a beautiful mirror-calm lake,” she recalled. “I was going back to my car and I suddenly saw a shadow moving in two parts toward the bridge … Something broke the water and waves rolled off the back of this thing.”
Gaal took five sequential shots and took the film back to the Kelowna Daily Courier office where she worked to have it developed. She had captured pictures of something she said was large enough to create a backlash of waves on the shoreline.
Since then Gaal has had more sightings but none as memorable as her first.
In response to the sturgeon theory, Gaal said the Okanagan Mainline Basin Water Board and the fisheries department both have reported no sturgeons in Okanagan Lake.
While Cousins does believe the giant fish is in the lake, he admitted he found it a little disconcerting that he’s never seen a picture of someone catching a sturgeon in Okanagan Lake.
While Cousins may be assured there is no lake monster, it will be a mystery to the rest of us.
Source : HERE
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Mysterious lake creature shrouded in myth
Jul 02 2006
Penticton Western News
A photo of the elusive Ogopogo, dated back to 1934. True or False?Once described as a being the spawn of an earwig and a whale, the mystery of Okanagan Lake’s Ogopogo is still being debated to this day.
Originally called M-ha-a-i-tk by local First Nations, Ogopogo’s home is said to be near Squally Point (also known as Rattlesnake Island).
According to city councillor and local historian Randy Manuel, the natives, out of fear of death by drowning, would sacrifice an animal like a dog when passing Squally Point.
“It’s a spot where wind and weather can bring waves up to six or seven feet there. It’s a spot where you don’t want to get caught in a boat,” said Manuel. “It (sacrificing animals) was common practice when they were travelling the length of the lake in canoes.”
The local natives weren’t the only ones that believed in Ogopogo either.
In 1914 one man found what may have been an Ogopogo carcass.
Author F.M. Buckland of Kelowna described the story of what happened to a group of campers near Greata Ranch in one of his books.
“One of the party who had gone to the lake edge for water was attracted by a strong smell of rotted fish. On investigation he found the badly decomposed body of a strange animal lying at the water’s edge … The body was between five and six feet in length and would weigh about 400 pounds. It had a short, broad, flat tail and a head that stuck out from between shoulders without any sign of a neck. The nose was stubby, sticking out of rounded head with no ears visible. The thick hide was sparsely covered with a silky hair four or five inches in length and of a bluish-grey colour while the teeth resembled those of a dog. It had two ivory-like tusks and claws resembling those of a great bird, on flipper-like arms; claws that showed no signs of wear or use, such as those of a cougar or other land animal.”
It is alleged that the shoulder blade, tusks and claws were displayed in private homes by interested parties, but their current whereabouts are unknown.
Attracting more than just interested campers, Ogopogo even has fans in the movie industry.
A movie about Ogopogo is in the planning stages.
Provost Pictures, out of Vancouver, is working on its first film, The Beast of the Bottomless Lake.
Okanagan Lake“The company was really formed around the idea of making this film,” said production director and co-owner of the company Kennedy Goodkey. Goodkey’s friend Keith Provost, who grew up in Kelowna, wanted to create a film about Ogopogo.
Provost felt he’d seen Ogopogo in the water as a child and was what Goodkey called a “minutiae of information about Ogopogo.”
Tragically, Provost was killed in an accident and the project was put on hold because its emotional impact on those involved was too hard to deal with.
“Last year around this time … I dusted it off and said ‘Let’s see if we can’t do this now,'” said Goodkey.
Goodkey and his business partner Craig March created a script from memories of Provost’s stories and after some research, made what they felt was a relatively accurate script.
The Beast of the Bottomless Lake crew went to Kelowna recently to scout filming locations and are planning on conducting their main casting in the Okanagan.
The movie will be a modern-day Moby Dick as a group of UBC academics go to the Okanagan to prove the existence of Ogopogo, but their individual agendas get in the way.
Goodkey is not completely sure if Ogopogo really exists and he will continue to wait for evidence.
“As long as there’s an element of doubt I am one to extend the possibility to hold out my belief,” he said. “I have to admit I think there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that doesn’t make it look good.”
And Goodkey isn’t the only one questioning the reality of Ogopogo.
Local fisherman and owner of Lakestream Flies and Supplies Chris Cousins said he believes the lake monster is really just a big fish.
“I believe that people have seen something out there but I don’t believe it is a prehistoric monster,” said Cousins. “I do believe that what they’ve seen is a sturgeon or a group of sturgeons.”
B.C. Fisheries describes sturgeons as a long and cylindrical fish that can grow up to six metres long and weigh 1,323 pounds. They range in colour from greenish-grey on their backs to light grey on their bellies and they’re covered in bony plates instead of scales.
The sturgeon is a bottom feeder and its mouth is on the underside of its body, that way it can swim along the bottom of the lake and suck up prey.
But every once in a while they make an appearance, said Cousins.
“They definitely come to the surface, it’s called breaching – it means they roll on the surface … They jump and leap out of the water at times,” he said.
It’s thought that sturgeons, which can be found in the Columbia and Fraser rivers, made it to Okanagan Lake through the Columbia River system before it was dammed up in 1953.
In 1958 divers working the Okanagan floating bridge reported seeing the sturgeon, which frightened them.
Since then there have been hundreds of sightings of Ogopogo – most often during the summer months when tourists and locals are hitting the beach and the lake.
Kelowna author Arlene Gaal, who is considered an Ogopogo expert by some, said she has recorded sightings from the 1800s to today.
“I basically have the best records of Ogopogo of anyone in the world,” said Gaal adding she has 99.9 per cent of all photos ever taken of the beast as well as about 90 per cent of recorded sightings in her library of information.
In addition to keeping records, Gaal has had her own Ogopogo experiences.
While investigating a sighting in 1978 she felt she saw him for the first time.
“I had no intent of seeing anything but a beautiful mirror-calm lake,” she recalled. “I was going back to my car and I suddenly saw a shadow moving in two parts toward the bridge … Something broke the water and waves rolled off the back of this thing.”
Gaal took five sequential shots and took the film back to the Kelowna Daily Courier office where she worked to have it developed. She had captured pictures of something she said was large enough to create a backlash of waves on the shoreline.
Since then Gaal has had more sightings but none as memorable as her first.
In response to the sturgeon theory, Gaal said the Okanagan Mainline Basin Water Board and the fisheries department both have reported no sturgeons in Okanagan Lake.
While Cousins does believe the giant fish is in the lake, he admitted he found it a little disconcerting that he’s never seen a picture of someone catching a sturgeon in Okanagan Lake.
While Cousins may be assured there is no lake monster, it will be a mystery to the rest of us.
Source : HERE
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