A British Columbia lake received the attention of the B.C. Scientific Cryptozoology Club this past weekend, looking to identify what might be a large lake-dwelling animal. Years of sightings of strange waves have prompted the investigation.
Cameron Lake is a long, narrow lake surrounded by steep mountains on Vancouver Island. For the past several years, people have
reported seeing a strange wake on the lake. Bridget Hovarth
photographed the wake in 2007. John Kirk, a co-founder of the
B.C. Scientific Cryptozoology Club (BCSCC) told the
media “Our organization has received reports coming from Cameron Lake since 2004. Witnesses have been describing what looks like a dark creature in the lake.”
The 20 year old group was
founded by journalist, John Kirk, along with scientist Dr. Paul LeBlond and writer James A. Clark. The group works to find previously unknown animals. Kirk told media that the strange waves seen on the lake could indicate the presence of a large animal, but the waves could also be caused by known animals.
“It could be a number of things,”
Kirk told the
media.
“A bunch of otters swimming in a line can look uncannily like Ogopogo. So can swimming beavers or muskrats. Another possibility is that it could be a sterile eel, which can get up to 12-feet long. It could also be a sturgeon, although there are no reports of sturgeon being caught in this lake.”
The list of potential causes also includes what Kirk calls
"... windrows. It’s basically a wake that’s created by the wind."
Kirk thought that the possibility of the waves having been caused by a lake monster such as Cadborosaurus "is remote."
The
Cadborosaurus is the name for the North American version of the still-unproven fabled Lock Ness Monster.
The
Oceanside Tourism Association provided a boat for the search. Probing the lake with an underwater camera and a fish finder, Kirk and his team said they were looking for a logical cause for the strange wave
photographed in 2007, as they thought the lake could not support a large creature of 12 feet or more. The team looked for things in the lake that might explain the shapes seen in the water or on fish finders, like large rocks, big fish, even a rumoured plane.
From reports of the weekend's activities, it seemed that the search was doomed, and the team would have to come back another day to get even a clue of what might be lurking beneath the surface. The water was apparently too dark and the underwater camera was of no help, and an accident involving a boat propeller and the camera cable saw the camera lost to the lake, some 70 feet below the surface. One of the search boats got swamped with water. The water was rough and choppy, which meant surface sightings were out of the question.
But, just when it seemed as if all might be lost, one of the boats searching around a rock formation known as
Angel Rock, located a large something in the waters. With that one finding, plans are being made to return for a continuation of the search next summer.
Said Kirk,
"We found it very unusual for there to be something that big in the lake, so it has prompted us to start making plans to return to the lake next summer — if we get the kind of sponsorship we did this time. I am still not convinced there is a cryptid in the lake, but there is something very large. It could be an eel, a sturgeon, a large fish or even a semi-waterlogged tree trunk, but it may also be a unknown animal and we are obliged to put this story to rest, one way or another.”
