The Ogopogo is a lake monster said to inhabit Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, Canada in Canadian folklore. Some scholars have charted the entity's development from First Nations folklore and widespread water monster folklore motifs. The Ogopogo now plays a role in the commercial symbolism and media representation of the region.
Background
Okanagan Lake is the largest of five inter-connected freshwater fjord lakes in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Named after the Syilx Okanagan Nation that have lived in the valley since time immemorial, it was created when melting glaciers flooded a valley 10,000 years ago. It stretches for 127.1 kilometres (79.0 miles) and has a maximum depth of 232.3 metres (762 feet) and an average depth of 75.9 metres (249 feet). Okanagan has frozen over during eight winters in the last 110 years. The lake monster has been mostly described as being a serpentine creature with smooth dark skin with a large body thicker than a telephone pole and being up to 15 m (49 ft) in length. The monster has said to move at incredible speeds, coiling its body in vertical undulations, and propelling itself with a powerful tail. Many have compared the creature as being strikingly similar to the cryptid Cadborosaurus, or the extinct Basilosaurus.
Etymology
According to historian Mark M. Orkin, the creature received its colonial 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". Orkin cites the following lines from the song:
His mother was an earwig, His father was a whale; A little bit of head And hardly any tail— And Ogopogo was his name. Orkin, however, notes that "A somewhat different form of the song appeared in the Vancouver Province in 1912, August 24, 1926. According to the DC the name was first applied in 1912." Additionally, the creature may sometimes be referred to by the pet name Oggy. Smaller creatures may be referred to as Ogopups.
History
Native origins
According to Ben Radford, the Ogopogo is "more closely tied to native myths than is any other lake monster." The Secwepemc and Syilx natives regarded the Ogopogo, which they called the Naitaka, as "an evil supernatural entity with great power and ill intent." The word "n'ha-a-itk" has various translations, such as "water-demon", "water god", or "sacred creature of the water". In native lore, Naitaka demanded a live sacrifice for safe crossing of the lake. For hundreds of years, First Nations would sacrifice small animals before entering the water. Oral traditions often described visiting chief Timbasket, who rejected the required sacrifice, denying the existence of the demon. Upon entering the lake on a canoe with his family, Naitaka "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. In 1855, settler John MacDougal claimed that his horses were sucked down into the water, and nearly his canoe before he cut the line. According to Pat Raphael of the Westbank First Nation, a member nation of the larger Okanagan Nation Alliance, the demonic view of Naitaka came about through miscommunication between Canada's early European settlers and the Syilx/Okanagan people. To the Syilx, it's n ̓x̌ax̌aitkʷ (n-ha-ha-it-koo), a sacred spirit of the lake that protects the valley. The spirit was said to dwell in caves under Rattlesnake Island (a.k.a. Monster Island) or adjacent to Squally Point.
Alleged sightings
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