Manipogo

In Canadian folklore, the Manipogo is a lake monster said to live in Lake Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada. The creature was dubbed Manipogo in 1960, the name echoing British Columbia's Ogopogo.[1] There is also a Lake Winnipegosis sea monster called Winnepogo, thought possibly to be the same creature as the lakes are connected.

The monster is described as being from 4 to 15 meters long.[2] It is described as "A long muddy-brown body with humps that show above the water, and a sheep-like head."

There is a provincial park on the west shore of Lake Manitoba named Manipogo Provincial Park.

St Laurent, a community on the south east shores of Lake Manitoba, holds a Manipogo festival the first week of March every year.[3]

People have claimed to have seen the lake monster since the 1800s.[4]

The local native population has legends of serpent-like creatures in Lake Manitoba going back hundreds of years.

A group of seventeen witnesses, all reportedly strangers to one another, claimed to have spotted three Manipogos swimming together.[5]

In the early 1960s, Professor James A. McLeod of the University of Manitoba investigated the creature by trying to locate its remains. If there is a breeding population in the lake, carcasses and bones should remain after death.[5] McLeod found none.

Alleged sightings
  • 1909: Hudson's Bay Company fur trader Valentine McKay reports seeing a massive creature in Cedar Lake.[1]
  • 1935: Timber inspector C. F. Ross and a friend saw the creature. On its head was a single horn and its head was small and flat. To them it looked very much like a dinosaur.
  • 1948: C. P. Alric reported that some sort of creature rose six feet out of the lake and gave a "prehistoric type of dinosaur cry".
  • 1957: Louis Belcher and Eddie Nipanik saw a giant serpent-like creature in the lake.
  • 1962: Two fishermen, Richard Vincent and John Konefell, saw a large creature like a serpent or giant snake 60 yards away from their boat.
  • 1960s: Around the 1960s, Mr. and Mrs. Stople saw a "reptile-like beast surfacing about thirty feet from their boat
  • 1989: Sean Smith and family visiting from Minneapolis on a camping trip stayed at Shallow point off highway #6 on Lake Manitoba and saw what he described as 'many humps' in the lake about 80 feet off shore.
  • 1997: Several reports by cross country campers from Quebec staying at Lundar Beach campground saw what appeared to be a large reptile head rise and fall in the water several hundred feet off shore. Swimmers were evacuated from the water; the head only appeared one time. It was dismissed as a floating log, but no log was seen afterwards.
  • 2004: Commercial fisherman Keith Haden, originally from Newfoundland, reported several of his fishing nets on Lake Manitoba near the narrows one day to be torn up by what seemed like an ocean shark or killer whale. The fish that were in the nets were not nibbled on, but actually torn in half, by what seemed like huge bites.
  • 2009: Several residents at Twin Lakes Beach reported seeing several humps a few hundred yards from their lake-front cottages. No photos were taken.
  • 2011: Many sightings of several humps emerging and then submerging seen offshore at locations like Marshy Point, Scotch Bay, and Laurentia Beach by security personal patrolling flooded cottage and home areas.

Television

Manipogo was featured on an episode of the television documentary series Northern Mysteries.

See also

References
  1. Edwards, Kyle (July 9, 2019). "Why Canadians have a thing for mythical lake monsters - Macleans.ca". www.macleans.ca. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  2. Bernhardt, Darren (June 3, 2018). "Keep your camera handy: Stories of Manitoba lake monsters told for centuries but proof remains elusive". CBC News. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  3. Blume, Michael. "Manipogo Festival in St. Laurent Sees Resurgence". PortageOnline.com.
  4. "Manipogo Campground Map and Information" (PDF). (1.6 MB)
  5. "Scientist to seek lake monster". Calgary Herald. August 18, 1961. Retrieved 11 March 2020.

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