Ken Chaplin

Five days after the press conference, at a meeting of the Kelowna City Council, Mayor Stuart asked that the members approve a resolution requesting federal and provincial protection for Ogopogo as an "endangered species". There was some debate whether anyone could protect something admittedly unknown. And there was some light-hearted banter over the resolution's wording -whether the request should call the creature "Ogopogo" or, since there had to be more than one, "Ogopogi". It passed as... "Ogopogo". Stuart, convinced by the Chaplins' testimony and the second crucial segment of the tape, contacted a local member of the Legislative Assembly, Cliff Serwa, who -in turn- wrote B.C.'s Minister of the Environment, Bruce Strachan. In Serwa's letter, he asks the government to pass an order-in-council declaring "the world-famous Ogopogo" a protected species.

The "world-famous" part was not unimportant. Both Mayor Stuart and MLA Serwa acknowledged that the Ogopogo flap prompted by Chaplin's video was terrific for Kelowna. Stuart expected scientific expeditions to descend on Okanagan Lake. Jacques Cousteau and the National Geographic Society come to mind. He expected, as well, a good -and needed- increase in tourism, since the summer of 1989 had been unseasonably cloudy. To which George Tinling, the Kelowna ,Chamber of Commerce's tourism manager, said a hearty "Amen". "The video has taken Ogopogo." Tinling noted, "from myth to reality. It's sort of like finding out the Tooth Fairy who brought the nickels, instead of being Mom and Dad, is a fact." Next year, Tinling is considering marketing Kelowna as "Home of Ogopogo". He hoped that local entrepreneurs would begin running tour buses to the famous Ogopogo sites around the lake. He planned to replace the two stolen Ogopogo Sighting Stations signs, assuming the people in the Public Works Department could create something theft-proof.

With all this hype and hyperbole, broadcaster McDivitt agrees on only one thing: "This has gotten Kelowna an incredible amount of national and international attention. Politicians aren't unaware of what that means. Politicians aren't blind to the commercial possibilities. But... passing an order-in-council protecting Ogopogo? God help me! Why not protect the Easter Bunny? the Tooth Fairy? Santa Claus?"

Following the first flurry of media reports in mid-August, the quacks started coming out of the woodwork. A man from California phoned the Kelowna Daily Courier, saying Ogopogo would never be captured because it lives in "a parallel universe". Arlene Gaal expressed fears that a Seattle man she'd heard about might try to dynamite the animal to the surface. The B.C. Cryptozoology Club announced they'd return to Kelowna to get new pictures of the creature. And a local woman began circulating a petition asking that "no nets, no cages, no projectiles, no restraining holds, and no high-frequency sounds" be allowed near Ogopogo.

Through all the hubbub -fed by Chaplin's well-timed release of additional information and images from his videotape- the Toyota salesman turned Ogopogo marketer was quickly going broke. Here he had National Geographic asking to take the tape to Washington, D.C for computerized enhancement. Here he had National Enquirer requesting an interview. Here he had TV's "Today Show" and "Unsolved Mysteries" and "A Current Affair" clamoring to see -and maybe buy- the video. And a Vancouver PR agent was telling him it might be worth a million or three in Japan.

But Chaplin couldn't pay, his rent. He couldn't make the $150 child support payments for his daughter, Carla. He couldn't cover the instalments on his bank loan. When he pulled into a Shell station in late August and tried to pay for $10 of gas with his credit card, the station attendant informed Chaplin that he'd have to confiscate the card for non-payment of previous bills. It was humiliating. And what was worse: by Chaplin's estimate, Ogopogo had cost him about $21,000 in lost wages, lawyer's fees, rentals, and long distance calls. No one was paying him for his time.

Chaplin arranged to meet with the three top political figures in town, Mayor Stuart, MLA Serwa, and MP Al Harvey, hoping to get some kind of financial support. Serwa said to Chaplin, "The kind of promotion you're doing for Kelowna is priceless." Chaplin replied, "If it's so priceless, how about helping me out?" All three men declined. He went to his parents and asked for more money. His mother told him to get a job. He said he'd pay them back. They said, "Don't spend another dollar. Don't do any more interviews." He offered, in writing, to give them a percentage of the future profits from the sale of the video. They said, in Chaplin's account: "Quit. Quit. Quit. Quit. Quit."

Chaplin refused. Instead, he moved out.

His father then phoned him demanding repayment of the $2,000 he'd fronted his son for expenses during the early halcyon weeks after the videotaping.

Chaplin sold his last piece of collateral his much loved, 140 horsepower, inboard-outboard Sunrunner speed boat for $7,500, hoping the money would keep the creditors off his back and finance the remaining month or two it would take until the media contracts were signed and the Big Bucks started to roll in. He had, by early September, when we talked, only $1,500 left. He was still waiting for a phone call. I walked by myself one early evening to the low bluff where Chaplin stood with his father on that first day he says that he saw and videotaped Ogopogo. It is an unlikely location for seeing a legendary creature become flesh. From where I stand, looking east across Okanagan Lake, I can clearly see Knox Mountain and downtown Kelowna and smoke belching from the very mill that the Chaplins' friend. Horace Simpson, once owned. The lake is full of boats. Bear Creek, to my right, is little more than a burbling freshet; even full to the highest waterline as it would have been in mid July it would be less than three meters deep. To my left is a busy beach. I can hear kids shouting. At my back 50 meters away a group of elderly people, sitting in aluminum folding chairs, chat beside their Rvs. Nearer still, very close in fact, is Bear Creek Provincial Park's horseshoe pitch. A bald-headed man, supine and unspeakably fat, drifts by on an air mattress just offshore. I wonder if I should warn him that some people think a monster lives here. I locate Dave Goodman, the park manager, and ask him what he thinks. There are beaver in the creek, he tells me. But as for the friendly lake monster named Ogopogo, no one during the summer of '89 once reported seeing it or anything else unusual near the park. He hasn't seen the video, but he speculates maybe it's a sturgeon. I tell him I've seen the video. It's definitely not a sturgeon. It's definitely not a wave. It's definitely not a log. He shrugs. I go back to visit Chaplin and view the tape one last time. He's staying temporarily in a motel. His parents haven't spoken with him for a month. The boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese dinners on the pantry counter are, as he says, "bachelor food". The tape runs. Chaplin recommences his tale for, what he admits, is the hundredth or so time. Chaplin's voice gets excited. The black shape swims across the screen and dives. Yes: Chaplin does have a videotape of a real animal. Yes:he believes it is Ogopogo.

As we watch and chat, the phone keeps ringing. Into the mouthpiece he relates the story again. And again. When he's finished, he says with boyish delight that National Enquirer is flying in tomorrow to have a look. And that the present offer of $20,000 from the U.S. TV show "A Current Affair" isn't nearly enough. He'll hold out for at least $100,000. Maybe more. His sister calls to remind him to get his passport, in case he has to fly off to Japan to negotiate the million dollar deal there. In the meantime, he has decided to charge $100 for a viewing of the video. A single photo taken from the tape is $450. His time for an interview is $30 an hour. So far, he confides, he has made about $3,000. He wonders aloud whether Pierre Berton might do a book on the discovery or whether other marketers might want his images for T-shirts, statuettes, or maybe a book using Ogopogo as a mascot crusading for environmental clean-up. He is a man with plans. He doesn't want to hear, I know, that a good friend who saw the creature with him back in July says it's a beaver. He's not open to the opinion of Vancouver Aquarium's biologist and public affairs manager, Stefani Hewlett, to whom I described the video, that it is, in all likelihood, a river otter. He wouldn't want to hear Jim Stuart say, as the mayor did say: "I think of Ken as someone with gold fever." He wouldn't want to know journalist McDivitt's opinion, which is much, much worse. And even if National Geographic were to come back to him saying he has videotaped three minutes and 43 seconds of an otter or a beaver swimming, he still won't be deterred. He will seek a second and a third opinion.

"I saw it up close. I saw something I never saw before in my life. That thing's definitely there. It's real. It has become sort of an obsession, I guess. But I know that this thing is going to be proved out. The doubters will be eating crow when it's shown to be Ogopogo."