Weird Sea-Serpent Story-Regales Winnipeg Citizens

Article in Winnipeg Evening Tribune Tells of History and Recent Developments in Connection With Okanagan Sea-Serpent
By Charles L. Shaw

Grotesque, long-neck creatures such as crawled about the jungles and swamps of our prehistoric, times still live in the depths of Okanagan Lake, southern British Columbia, according to white settlers and Indians living in that region.

The so-called "demon fish" of Okanagan was a legendary thing and the butt of scorn and laughter on the part of white people until it made its dramatic reappearance the other day -not once but several times, with a different person seeing it on each occasion.

Since then at intervals the monster has shown itself above the surface of the deep lake, although always at such a distance from the eye-witness that only sketchy accounts have been possible to obtain.

For some time the Okanagan settlers inslated that the "demon fish" was a sea-serpent. The name in itself was of course a misnomer, because the Okanagan is hundreds of miles-inland, and the claim of some of the imaginative boatmen of the neighborhood that perhaps the creature slithered its way along the muddy bottom of half a dozen rivers on its way from the coast until it finally found the Okanagan a suitable place for habitation is hardly acceptable to one outside world.

Such excitement was aroused when the first reports of the return of the traditional "devil fish" came out that J.P. Babcock, deputy commissioner of fisheries at Victoria and one of the best authorities on fish on the pacific coast, entered the argument. He has never seen the "fish". It has heard most of the stories and he scoffs at them, saying that probably the settlers don't know a giant sturgeon when they see one.

This opinion has only been received with resentment by the settlers who have known what sturgeon look like from the days of their youth and who insist that the lake demon, or whatever one choses to call it, is nothing of the kind. They claim that its only resemblance to a sturgeon is the fact that it is living in the lake and there the similarity ends.

Many years ago, white-haired squaws told of a huge creature possessed of many devils which infested Okanagan lake and feasted on luckless members of the tribe who happened to be paddling by in their canoes at the monsters dinner hour. In order that the tribe might not be entirely exterminated by the demon fish, whose appetite was seemingly insatiable, the natives used to make sacrifices of berries, venison and horse meat. These were thrown into the lake at a place called Squally Point, for there, where the waters were always disturbed -unquestionably by some mysterious under surface movements- the demon fish made its headquarters. To perpetuate the memory of this awful creature and desperate efforts made by the Indians to satisfy its hunger there are bold carvings on the rocks at Squally Point today, showing the natives carriers loaded down with baskets of berries and hanks of deer meat, on their way to the feeding place. There are also weird hieroglyphic descriptions of the demon fish's plunders.

Indians always contended that the demon fish still resided in the lake, and they accounted to its inactivity by explaining that it had now reached a great age and was obviously tired and of a retiring disposition.

When Patree Mitchell, of Summerland who returned from a boating trip a few days ago, he was ready to confess that for all its years the demon fish is a fairly lively. He had gone a considerable distance from shore when he noticed a partially submerged body of some long creature wiggling its body along the surface of the water.

"I can swear it wasn't a sturgeon", said Mitchell and he was equally vehement in his denial that he had been drinking.

The lake folk laughed at his story until four boys, William Andrews, Allen Butler, Bob Butler and Ken Booth, returned with a similar story. They were out on a raft, when they noticed a peculiar animal apparently stretched out on its back, about six feet of the body showing above the surface. They thought it was a log until it dived. Then they paddled for shore where their friends were ready to concede that the beach had been washed by a mysterious swell that afternoon.

Then came Mitchell Boyd's adventure. He was out fishing at dusk when he noticed a formless object in the water about 300 yards away. At first he took it for a branch of a tree, but he noticed that it was moving. He rowed closer and felt his hair stand on end as the form took definite shape. The thing he saw seemed to be about thirty feet long, although the proportion above water indicated a much greater length and a vast bulk. "The head was something like a sheep's", he said.

A "demon fish" it remained and nothing more until R. Leckie-Ewings Landing, decided to settle the matter. Leckie-Ewing is noted as a hunter and fisherman, and he claims that the sturgeon theory is mere nonsense. His contention is that the monster belongs to the pterodactyl or dinosaur class, contemporaries of the mastodon and sabre-toothed tigers of thousands of years ago. But he has no fear of it -mainly because he has never seen it. Mitchell Boyd and other witnesses declare- and when the waters off Squally Point appear more disturbed than usual he intends to venture forth in a boat with a gun and a stout line. If he catches what he is looking for he will not only be able to prove his theory but incidently find a place for himself on the front pages of every newspaper in the country.

Whether or not prehistoric animal or fish still inhabit the Okanagan region, it is known that in prehistoric times the country swanned with life. A few years ago the vertebrae of a marine monster said to be that of a sort of whale, was dug up near the shore of the lake. Perhaps the bones belonged to an older brother or perhaps an ancestor of the sportive old creature that is now stirring up the water and trouble in the lake.

Reports from Okanagan Lake recall that within the last few months, Canadian fishermen off the Queen Charlotte Islands and some American fishermen operating in Alaska waters brought back stories that they had seen a sea serpent. At first they thought it was merely a porpoise, but on closer inspection they conceded that the ancient mariner's yarns they had read and laughed at might have borne considerable truth. Ten years ago an Indian sighted what he described as "a snake a mile long" disporting itself off Queen Charlotte Islands. The creature made such a vivid impression on his mind that he beached his canoe ran up on the beach and cut a picture of what he had seen on the clay bank. The awesome portrait is still there.

Sea serpent stories on the Pacific coast are not confined to the remote places either. Only two years ago, Elijah Brundage, a California orange grower was spending a holiday in Victoria. He went out fishing for salmon. He caught nothing, but was well rewarded, for he claims that he saw a sure enough sea serpent playfully romping about in the harbor.

"It was like nothing I had ever imagined before," said Brundage. "There was no chance of my mistaking it for some known species of marine life. It was certainly not a fish. Its head was a terrible sight."