Oh Boy-Ogopogo

Like the Loch Ness Monster, BC  has it's own freaky fish; or monster; or hoax.

Documented sightings to back at least to 1873.  The first recorded sighting (by a Caucasian) was by , B.C. pioneer and author, Mrs. Susan Allison.  Her ranch was located near what is now known as Quail's Gate Winery in West Kelowna, BC.  She described seeing a snake-like creature.  Native persons have reported something similar they call,  N’ha-a-itk, the "water demon".

One of the more recent reports came in to ogopogoquest.com.  The date of the sighting is June, 2017.  It took place on Lake Okanagan.

My wife, son & I were on the boat around 1:30 in the afternoon heading back to the Penticton marina (South). My son was driving as I was watching for stuff in the water. As we were heading South I told him to watch out for the Sea Doo ahead as he was jumping around and making big waves. My son asked what side should we pass him on. I told him to wait until we got closer as he may change directions. When we started to get closer 300ft away we all noticed there was no jet ski there but this object that had three perfect symmetrical waves coming off of it. My wife said slow down as she thought it was a kayaker. We slowed down and approached the area and told my wife and son to grab their phones and start taking a video. Now this is the weird part not one of us had our phones. That never happens. So anyways the object that was making the waves disappears, but the waves were huge, bigger than the wake my 25ft boat was making. They were these perfect three waves rolling away to the West, not the east. There were no boats in the area either and a super com day. So we are not sure what we saw but the size had to huge as we thought it was a jet ski jumping around. The picture is so vivid in our minds.

 Literally hundreds of reports have come in since 1873.  Most report a strange wave, or something sticking up out of an otherwise calm lake.  Some scientists believe that the creature must be a form of primitive whale  Basilosaurus cetoides was a prehistoric whale that lived about 35 million years ago. during the Cenozoic era.  Basilosaurus matches almost exactly with the log-like descriptions and as being one to two feet in diameter with a length of 10 to 20 meters (30 to 60 feet).   One glaring problem with this theory is that the first fossils were discovered along the Gulf Coast of the United States , along with a few fossils in the eastern U.S.  Fossils were later found of a second species, B. isis, in 1904 in North Africa.  They were thought to have inhabited Tethys Ocean (located between the ancient continents of Gondwana and Laurasia), before the opening of the Indian and Atlantic oceans during the Cretaceous Period. The Black, Caspian, and Aral seas are thought to be its crustal remains.  None of these are anywhere near Kelowna, BC.

Ogopogo's head has been described as being horse or goat-like. It is reported to be able to move with astounding speed or in calm weather apparently feeding on either fish or aquatic weeds. Some reported seeing fins or feet on the creature.  

Vancouver Province reporter  Ronald Kenvyn (Nov. 26, 1884 - Aug 13, 1948) composed a song which parodied a popular British song.  Kenvyn's tune included the following stanza:

His mother was an earwig;
His father was a whale;
A little bit of head and hardly any tail-
And Ogopogo was his name.

The name Ogopogo stuck and the original Native name was replaced by this anglicized version.

Possibly the most recent sighting dates to September 2019.  A woman identified only as "Susan C." reported that she was kayaking on Okanagan Lake towards James Grant Island.  No boats were around and the lake was very smooth.  She and her friend both report seeing a long wave and felt a bump under her kayak.  Their husbands reportedly saw the event from the lake shore.  Her husband described it as,  "a funny wave moving down the lake almost something large just below the surface."  The witnesses provided this photo to ogopogoquest.com:

Global News, a Canadian national news source, shared this report about a sighting from June 1, 2019.


Naturally, more sightings occur in the summer months since far more people are on the lake during the season.  UBC-Okanagan  sociology professor Chris Schneider does not "believe in" Ogopogo and says emotion overpowers logic.  “By the very virtue of them not understanding it, it makes them want to try to understand it even more,” Schneider said in the Global interview.

Ogopogo has its own statue downtown and even a book collection.  Real or not, this creature is a huge part of the BC landscape.

More Reading:
https://ogopogoquest.com/sightings.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethys_Ocean
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Tethys-Sea
https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/ronald-kenvyn
https://ogopogoquest.com/sightings-most-recent.php
https://globalnews.ca/news/5381999/pretty-creepy-okanagan-man-believes-hes-captured-definitive-ogopogo-sighting-on-video/
https://www.ownerdirect.com/rental-guide/okanagan/okanagan-lake-communities-map

Giant Shark Sightings in the Bay of Fundy

By: Stephen Turnbull

There are reports of giant shark sightings from around the world. Some of the largest creatures in the ocean are sharks, the basking shark and the whale shark, are greater than 12 and 15 metres respectively. Many of the witnesses that report seeing a large unidentifiable shark have ultimately been found to have seen one or the other. However some, adamantly state, what they saw is not either one of these giant sharks. Nor do they claim it is a great white shark as the size of the animal, even accounting for over exaggeration, is much larger than the great white shark.

Some say it may be C. megalodon, or most commonly referred to as Megalodon! This giant shark, perhaps reaching lengths of 16 metres or more, had six inch teeth. Megalodon is thought to have gone extinct over 1 million years ago as the climate cooled and their main prey, whales, moved northward where the sharks could not follow. Some even say that the animal may have gone extinct only 10,000 years ago. This is based on the examination of a tooth in 1959 that was found by British explorers aboard the Challenger in 1875. The tooth has since been reexamined and may actually be much older than 10,000 years. Others still believe it is possible that the animal has survived in the depths of the ocean!

In October, 1999, witnesses interviewed by Loren Coleman, described seeing a giant shark in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. Bill Curtsinger wasa retired navy seaman, experienced diver, and photographer. He and his dive companion were diving near the southern tip of Deer Island, New Brunswick, a common dive destination. They heard a big splash (like a whale breaching they said), then another “thrash and splash” noise as described to Coleman.

Curtsinger and his companion commented that the colour and the shape of the tail reminded them of a caudal fin of a thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus). The tail was scythe-like and they estimated the shark to be about 10 metres in length, and had a large appendage that was to be 2-3 metres high. Curtsinger stated he had never seen anything like it in his 30 years on and under the ocean. They also described the tail as thrashing from side to side, like that of a shark, and unlike the up and down motion of a whale’s tail.

Coleman noted in his book that thresher sharks are usually foundfarther out to sea but this is not really true in the Bay of Fundy, as thresher sharks are relatively common within the Bay during the spring to fall, and are often seen breaching. However, this shark does not have a huge dorsal fin (or any other fin) as that described by Curtsinger.

Shown here is a photo of a thresher shark caught in the Bay and you can see the long, thin upper lobe of the tail, and smaller, almost nonexistent, lower lobe. Notice the dorsal fin and other fins are very small.

Other shark species do exist in the Bay of Fundy, but only one has an appendage as large as that described by Curtsinger and his companion, the basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus).

You can see the size of the dorsal fin here in this attached image. The fins are not as thin as described but are definitely long, including the lunate tail which is often exposed when the animal is swimming at the surface. Basking sharks are common in this area during the late spring and into late fall and do breach. There has even been a sighting of a whale shark (1997) within the Bay of Fundy also, but not that close to shore and they have very clear, distinctive markings.

The question remains, what did they see? Most sightings of a giant shark turn out to be a known species but some still remain a mystery. More details are needed to either confirm or to eliminate them as possible sources of the sighting.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon

Coleman, L. and P. Huyghe. 2003. Lake Monster, Sea Serpents, and other mystery denizens of the Deep.