Posted by: John Kirk on May 12th, 2007
Many readers are familiar with the most famous lake cryptid in British Columbia known variously as Ogogpogo or Naitaka. There are actually more sightings reports for Ogopogo than there are for the Loch Ness unknown.
However, in recent years sightings have diminished. As I spend a fair amount of my investigative work at Okanagan Lake, I have to plan each year’s program around the time when sightings most frequently taken place, but acquiring recent sightings data is becoming more and more difficult as the sightings are drying up.
The last sighting on record was obtained by Jill Jellett and her husband on 27 June, 2006. The Jelletts were having dinner in a waterfront restaurant in Summerland which is about ten miles north of the southern shore of Okanagan Lake. Over the years Summerland has seen its share of sightings and is the location of the longest sighting of Ogopogo which took place for several hours in 1926 at the local Pier. The creature at first showed itself to a handful of people, who then spread the news around the entire community At first Jan thought she was seeing a seal, but quickly realized that seals do not stick their heads up to a height of five feet and seals also do not have rounded muzzles, but rather they have sharp ones.
Jen and her husband then realized that they were actually seeing an Ogopogo – there are several creatures living in the lake – but the sighting did not last much longer.
In fact this is the only sighting report to which I can put a name that occurred in 2006. So far in 2007 there has not been a single sighting report. It is not usual for sightings to take place in winter, but they do on occasion, occur. This year no reports have surfaced in the colder months, but then again we have had very stormy weather and tons of rain so people generally avoided being out and about on or by the water.
This summer we plan to bring our investigators from the BCSCC back up to the lake and carry out our work at various places where previous sightings have occurred. We hope we will have a better year than we have had in recent years where we saw no signs of the creature and its activities.
One of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998). In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur. Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC. In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.