Ogopogo (mythology)

Ogopogo is the name of a legendary lake monster that is said to live in Okanagan Lake in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Stories of a large creature living in the lake go back hundreds of years and were told by the region’s First Nations people who believed it to be a sacred lake spirit. While eyewitness accounts vary, most describe Ogopogo as a snake-like creature about 80-feet (24-meters) long with a head resembling a horse or a goat. Similar to Scotland’s famed Loch Ness monster, Ogopogo has become a local tourist attraction and even inspired a one-million-dollar bounty for proof of its existence. Although no one has been able to find proof that such a creature lives in the lake, theories as to the identity of Ogopogo range from a supposedly extinct dinosaur to a large fish or an underwater current that churns up large waves.

Background

Okanagan Lake is 84 miles long (135 kilometer) and in southern British Columbia, about 168 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Vancouver. The lake has an average width of about 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers) and an average depth of 249 feet (76 meters). At its deepest point, the lake reaches about 761 feet (232 meters). The Okanagan Valley in which it sits was formed from volcanic activity more than fifty million years ago and a series of glaciations and erosion over the course of millions of years.

Beginning about 1.6 million years ago, the entire region was covered by a thick glacier that averaged from 3,280 to 9,240 feet (1,000 to 3,000 meters) deep. About 16,000 to 10,000 years ago, the glacial remnants of the last ice age began to melt, forming an ice dam that caused a deep lake to form. The melting ice also caused the ground below it to collapse into a depression or pit. This depression is called a kettle, with lakes formed in this manner known as kettle lakes. The bottom of Okanagan Lake contains about 2,460 feet (750 meters) of sediment deposited by the advance and retreat of numerous glaciers.

Overview

The earliest accounts of something large living in Okanagan Lake come from the Syilx, a First Nations people who reside in southern British Columbia and northern Washington State. To the Syilx, the creature was known as N’ha-a-itk, which means “sacred spirit of the lake.” N’ha-a-itk was said to be dark in color with the head of a horse and the antlers of a deer. According to local legend, N’ha-a-itk was a spirit that could also take physical form. It was said to live in a cave near an island and required a sacrifice to allow the safe passage of the lake. The people were said to bring chickens, salmon, and other small animals with them to toss into the lake to appease N’ha-a-itk.

As outsiders began to move into the region in the nineteenth century, they heard stories of N’ha-a-itk and interpreted the spirit as a giant snake-like monster. The first recorded sighting by a settler occurred in 1855, when a man claimed that something dragged his horses underwater as he tried to cross the lake. In 1872, a Canadian author named Susan Allison reported that she saw a dinosaur swimming in Okanagan Lake.

As more settlers moved west in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, tales of the lake monster became more widespread. In the 1920s, local tourism officials decided to call the creature Ogopogo, a name taken from a popular English folk song The Ogo-Pogo. Now entrenched in local lore, Ogopogo became a tourist attraction, spawning numerous reports of sightings over the next few decades. The creature was most often said to be multi-humped with the head of a horse and green, black, or gray skin. Other reports claimed that it had the head of a goat, a snake, or even an alligator. Still other witnesses said that it looked like a floating log that suddenly started moving.

During the 1980s, an Okanagan Lake tourism association offered a one-million-dollar reward for anyone who could provide “living proof” that Ogopogo really existed. Stories of the lake monster were featured on American television shows such as Unsolved Mysteries and In Search Of. In 1991, a scientific expedition conducted a high-tech search of the lake for evidence that it was home to a giant aquatic creature. The expedition included an underwater remote-controlled vehicle and a submarine, but no sign of an Ogopogo was discovered.

Several photographs and videos of something large seemingly moving in the lake have been captured over the years, but none has proven to be conclusive evidence of Ogopogo’s existence. Die-hard believers in the creature speculate that it could be a living example of a marine dinosaur known as a plesiosaur. While plesiosaurs went extinct about sixty-six million years ago, some believe that a few creatures may have been trapped in inland lakes by advancing glaciers and survived. However, scientists completely dismiss this idea.

A more logical explanation is that the “monster” may be a large fish such as a sturgeon. While a dam on Okanagan Lake supposedly cut off the lake from the rivers that are home to the area’s sturgeon, some of the fish may have remained in the lake. Sturgeon are normally bottom feeders and can grow up to 19.5 feet (6 meters) long. Their elongated shape can be mistaken for a humped creature and also resemble a log moving along the water.

An even more plausible explanation is that Ogopogo may be nothing more than a phenomenon caused by the lake’s geology. As water currents move through Okanagan Lake, its geological features can form a series of long waves that can appear to be something swimming near the surface. Still other sightings can be explained in a more obvious fashion. Reports of Ogopogo resembling a floating log may be just that: a log floating on the water.

Bibliography

DeMerchant, Justin. “The Legend, the Spirit, the Creature: The History of Ogopogo.” Kelowna Visitor Centre, 28 Feb. 2020, www.tourismkelowna.com/blog/post/the-legend-the-spirit-the-creature-the-history-of-ogopogo/. Accessed 4 July 2020.

“Geologic History.” Okanagan Landscape, 14 Feb. 2014, okanaganlandscape.weebly.com/geologic-history.html. Accessed 4 July 2020.

Kadane, Lisa. “Canada’s Mysterious Lake Monster.” BBC Travel, 10 Mar. 2020, www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200309-ogopogo-the-monster-lurking-in-okanagan-lake. Accessed 4 July 2020.

Kirby, Molly Gibson. “Kelowna’s Lake Creature: A Brief History of the Ogopogo.” Kelowna Now, 19 May 2016, www.kelownanow.com/watercooler/news/news/Kelowna/16/05/19/Kelowna‗s‗lake‗creature‗a‗brief‗history‗of‗the‗Ogopogo/. Accessed 4 July 2020.

“Legend of Ogopogo.” Kelowna Visitor Centre, 2020, www.tourismkelowna.com/plan/about-kelowna/history/ogopogo/. Accessed 4 July 2020.

“Legendary Ogopogo Story.” Ogopogo Foundation, 2014, ogopogofoundation.ca/about-us/legendary-ogopogo-story.html. Accessed 4 July 2020.

Radford, Benjamin. “Ogopogo: Canada’s Loch Ness Monster.” LiveScience, 8 Jan. 2014, www.livescience.com/42399-ogopogo.html. Accessed 4 July 2020.

Thom, Shelby. “‘Pretty Creepy’: Okanagan Man Believes He’s Captured ‘Definitive Ogopogo Sighting’ on Video.” Global News, 12 June 2019, globalnews.ca/news/5381999/pretty-creepy-okanagan-man-believes-hes-captured-definitive-ogopogo-sighting-on-video/. Accessed 4 July 2020.