Lethbridge Herald
Lethbridge, Alberta

September 19, 1928

Creature Seen in Lake

By B.C. Clergyman Looked

Like a Hippopotamus

WILLIAMS LAKE, B.C. – (By Canadian Press) – Inhabitants of this little Cariboo town know now why the Indians dread the deep waters of a nearby lake and will venture on its surface only when the ice is two feet thick.

While on a camping trip to a remote section of the lake, Rev. A. D. MacKinnon and his family came upon a huge, horny-pelted creature which they described as resembling a hippopotamus. The animal, which appeared to be as much at home in the water as on land, crawled about in the muddy, shallow waters near shore, browsing in the mud and snapping its huge jaws at passing fish. Mr. MacKinnon and his party did not dare approach the beast as they had no weapons of defense in case it showed fight. They merely gazed at it in bewilderment from a safe distance and when it had vanished under the surface they returned in excitement to the town to spread the news of their awesome discovery.

For years it has been well known that huge sturgeons inhabit Williams Lake and that some of these weigh fully half a ton, but Mr. MacKinnon insists that the strange creature which he saw was no mere fish.

“It looked more like a hippopotamus than anything else I’ve ever seen,” said the pastor, who has had charge of the Union church here for years and whose veracity is unquestioned. “I wouldn’t say that it was a hippopotamus but it certainly looked like one.”

Nor did it resemble the beast seen on several occasions in Okanagan Lake, to the south, and which has become world famous by the name of Ogopogo. Ogopogo is more like a sea serpent even though its head is said to be like that of a sheep; but the Williams Lake monster was not serpentlike and its
head was much more massive than that of the Ogopogo.

Thanks to Jerome Clark for the archival story.