The three creatures that have recorded the most eye-witness sightings are nicknamed Champ, Ogopogo and Caddy.
Champ is reported to be a reptilian creature that lives in the 201 km long body of fresh water called Lake Champlain. The beast is said to 20 to 40 feet in length, with a long neck, four flippers or webbed feet and possibly capable of echolocation.
Ogopogo is Lake Okanagan’s resident monster. Canada’s version of Nessie is said to be 40 to 50 feet long, have a snake like body, show three humps in the water when swimming and has horse-like bearded head. It is claimed Ogopogo is a violent, flesh eating predator and the early native Americans would not travel across the lake without having livestock on board, ready to be sacrificed to the hungry beast if it attacked.
Caddy (short for Cadbrosaurus or where it is often seen in Cadboro Bay) is a sea serpent also with a horse like head. The head shape can be clearly seen in the photo of a juvenile animal that was cut from a Sperm whale’s stomach in 1937. Caddy is said to inhabit coastal waters from Alaska to as far south as San Francisco.
In 2009, fisherman Kelly Nash filmed several minutes of footage featuring ten to fifteen creatures in Nushagak Bay. In 2011, a very short segment of the footage was shown on the Discovery TV show Hilstranded, where the Hilstrand brothers from Deadliest Catch apparently saw Nash's footage and unsuccessfully attempted to find one of the creatures. It is said the best part of the footage has not yet been shown after being bought by a production company that works for the Discovery Channel.
As usual, cryptozoology enthusiasts around the globe are waiting for that definitive evidence to finally surface so these strange and elusive water creatures can be positively identified. And just like Loch Ness, the locals are always keen to perpetuate the monster stories as it obviously does no harm to tourism.
