The legend of Ogopogo, Canadian Nessie

If Nessie was not alone, she has a friend across the ocean, and more precisely in Lake Okanagan, where lives Ogopogo, a Canadian counterpart to the worldwide popular Scottish lake monster.
It seems the creature with a friendly name lurks below the placid waters of the lake in British Columbia, and apparently pops up every once in a while, giving plenty of fodder for cryptozoologists and folklore’s enthusiasts.
Okanagan Lake is the largest of five inter-connected freshwater fjord lakes in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, named after the First Nations people who first inhabited the area.
It was created when melting glaciers flooded a valley 10,000 years ago, stretches for 127.1 kilometres, has a maximum depth of 232.3 metres and it has frozen over during eight winters in the last 110 years.

Described as a long, dark serpentine creature with many humps, a large body thicker than a telephone pole and being up to 15 m in length, Ogopogo has been elusive in the last few years, but over time there have been several accounts of visitors catching a glimpse of movement in the lake, with his humps appearing briefly above the water.
Not by chance, the monster has said to move at incredible speeds, coiling its body in vertical undulations, and propelling itself with a powerful tail.
According to historian Mark M. Orkin, the creature received its name on a night in 1924 when the strains of an English music-hall song were first heard in the city of Vernon, British Columbia, that cites the following lines:
“His mother was an earwig,
His father was a whale;
A little bit of head
And hardly any tail—
And Ogopogo was his name.”
Our historian, however, added that a somewhat different form of the song appeared in the Vancouver Province already in 1912, when the name was first applied.

In any case, amd ethymology apart, his records go back as far as 1872, and it was the first detailed Ogopogo account from a white settler, Susan Allison. She was the first non-native person to live in the region, establishing relations with the native peoples, but it was written about also in a local newspaper in 1926 when people in nearly 30 cars reported seeing a creature in the lake and, interestingly, this was a few years before the Loch Ness monster gained widespread media attention.
The creature was first caught on film in 1968 when a tourist spotted literally “something large and lifelike” in the water and shot a 60-second video on his camera. In 1991, a widespread investigation was conducted, using underwater technology devices but nothing was found, no Ogopogo and no bones or carcasses either.
However, sightings continue to be reported and in 2011 another tourist recorded what he saw on video, two short log-like objects floating close to each other.
Logs or Ogopogo, nobody knows for sure.
In September 2018, there were reportedly other three sightings, one of which was described as a giant snake that was about 15 m.

But the creature also has a mythical connection, as Canadian Aboriginals in the area believed that there was a terrible monster named Naitaka living at the bottom of the lake and feared crossing it.
The Secwepemc and Syilx natives regarded the creature as an evil supernatural entity with great power and ill intent. In fact, the word “n’ha-a-itk” has various translations, including “water-demon”, “water god”, or “sacred creature of the water”.
On their journeys across the water, they carried chickens and other small animals and dropped them in as a sacrifice, to ensure their safe passage.
Oral traditions often described visiting chief Timbasket, who rejected the required sacrifice, denying the existence of the demon. As a result, upon entering the lake on a canoe with his family, the monster whipped up the surface of the lake with his long tail and the canoe and its occupants were sucked to the bottom of the lake.
The Naitaka was often described as using its tail to create fierce storms to drown victims.
Ok ok, these legends may not be referring to the modern lake monster, but to a water spirit they believed in.

And now a little bit science and some possible explanations.
Otters, especially when swimming in a row, may be mistaken for a lake monster! Yes, really.
And, according to skeptical author Benjamin Radford, contemporary sightings of Ogopogo were most likely misidentifications of water fowl, otter, or beaver, adding that the First Nations stories,were not referring to a literal lake monster like Ogopogo, but instead to a legendary water spirit.
But also sturgeon are often mistaken as lake monsters, even if their existence in Okanagan is unclear.
Moreover, waterspouts are a likely source of inspiration, and they are fairly common on Okanagan Lake, often forming when air temperatures drop and the lake still has a relatively warm water temperature.
But, in any case, and monsters apart, there is currently an unclaimed $10,000 dollar reward for concrete evidence of sturgeon in Okanagan, if you are interested…