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Headless Horseman & Ogopogo
61 Plays10 months ago
This week, it's two folktales - one if by land, one if by sea!
First up, Felicia goes in between the pages of the classic folktale of Sleepy Hollow! From “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” - the original 1820 short story by Washington Irving featuring the famous Ichabod Crane & the Headless Horseman with his flaming jack-o'-lantern - deeper to the mythical Headless Horseman's origins and roots in Irish and Scottish folklore, as well as the English tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And of course no conversation about Sleepy Hollow would be complete without touching on Tim Burton’s 1999 film Sleepy Hollow along with Disney's 1949 animated short “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.” 🎃
Next, from New York all the way up North, Lauren takes us to Canada to explore the Ogopogo - a mythological lake monster rumored to inhabit Okanagan Lake in British Columbia (similar to Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster). Its history begins all the way back in in First Nations folklore where they referred to it as “The Naitaka.” Oral traditions kept the sea monster popular until Canadian author and pioneer Susan Allison's 1872 sighting, which was the first detailed Ogopogo account from a white settler. There have been many sightings of the serpentine creature since then…but have any of them been substantiated? Listen to hear more about the creature and people who tried to capture it on camera to provide proof of its existence! 🐉
PS: If you have requests for future episodes or just want to hang out, follow us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast
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Transcript
Introductions and Apartment Updates
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Felicia. I'm Lauren. We're best friends. And we like spooky stuff. And a big poodle moved in to the apartment upstairs this weekend. And Toby, my puppy, has noticed. And so if you hear a little bit of barking or a little bit of whining, that's why. So sorry.
00:00:41
Speaker
I think it'll be nice, a little background bark. Yeah. If they, if, if Toby ever meets eyes with this giant poodle, though, he's going to be so scared. It's going to be hilarious. Then he'll never bark again. He'll never bark again. He'll just hide in his house.
TV Preferences and True Detective
00:00:57
Speaker
I love it. Well, do you have recommendations? Oh, we were just talking about true detective. Yes. Oh my gosh. And this is something. So like Travis, my fiance, we have very different TV tastes.
00:01:11
Speaker
Like he loves comedy and like he really loves like awkward comedy. Like I think you should leave like that kind of stuff. Wait, have you watched it at all? Yeah. Sorry. It's just so uncomfortable to me. I didn't get this. I hated it. My first watch through like it was like James is like, isn't this hilarious? And I was like, Oh, somehow it's come back around for me.
00:01:38
Speaker
Now I've watched it like three or four times and I'm laughing more. I don't know. Maybe it's like that thing when you were like a kid and you watched a YouTube video and it was so stupid, you like couldn't and everybody. It's like a viral. Yes. Like the old version of that. I don't know. I just really like it. I don't know if you've seen the one where it's like The Bachelorette that he keeps riding on the zipline. It's my favorite. I don't know. I watched all of it and I was like, I can't watch this. I don't know.
00:02:05
Speaker
But anyways. But True Detective. True Detective. So I was like, it was yesterday. Yeah, it was just yesterday. I was like, Travis, I really want to watch the season of True Detective. Will you please watch it with me over lasagna? And he was like, fine. Well, we'll watch it. Over lasagna. Yeah. Delicious. Delicious.
00:02:24
Speaker
And we started it and he was like, well, he was like, just no, I'm probably going to be watching other stuff on my phone because I can already tell you this is probably not my thing. And I was like, whatever. Thank you for sitting here, I guess. And then like his eyes are like locked on the TV. And he was like, oh, it's scary. Oh, it's a mystery. He was like, yes.
00:02:48
Speaker
And then we would keep making guesses and he would just go, we're solving the mystery. And so he really likes it and I love it too. I really, and he said this today, because we watched like four episodes over yesterday and today, and he was like, I really hope there's good payoff at the end. So I was like, I know. That's so true.
00:03:09
Speaker
I know I also am like it's it feels very supernatural this season. Yeah, it's so the thing. It's so the thing. Yes. And also the thing director to I know it's Lopez. There's a part when they're showing the room and the yes research thing and they like like they like focused in on the on the thing VHS. So that was nice.
True Detective: Cast and Themes
00:03:32
Speaker
I do like that. I'm obsessed though with I mean, obviously Jodie Foster so great, but
00:03:37
Speaker
I'm obsessed with like the boxer who's like her counterpart. Oh, yeah. The boxer. Yeah, she's a boxer. Oh, I didn't know that. Who is that? Her name is. Yeah, her name's Callie Reyes or Reese. But yeah, hold on. That's crazy. Oh my God. I'm so nervous. He loves that. She's a professional boxer. Yeah. I'm texting him now. Also she's only 37.
00:04:05
Speaker
She just seems like a real adult. Like she's seen some shit. Yeah, but she is. I mean, she's Native American. That's awesome. That's awesome.
00:04:17
Speaker
And it's interesting because as soon as we turned it on, I was like, oh, like I wonder if this is like, you know, and I've heard a bunch of those like true crime stories of like Native women being ignored in domestic violence cases and Native and also of Native men like the moonlighting thing. Yeah, that's what it's called. Yeah, maybe were they. Yeah, I think so. When they leave.
00:04:40
Speaker
drunk people like out in the middle of the tundra to walk back to town and sometimes they die. Wait, that's how I was singing up. That's so awful. Starlight tours. Starlight tours. That's what it is. What's moonlighting? That's like a thing, isn't it? That's like a phrase. I mean, yeah, it's definitely a phrase, but isn't it like you like, like, like do a job at night? Like moonlighting as a. Oh, yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it. But what do you say? Starlight tours. Starlight tours.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. It's so it's so horrible. And it's just all like discrimination. So there's there's there's bits of that stuff for sure. And this season, but it's fascinating. And the supernatural stuff is really, really exciting to me. And it's actually if you want to listen to an episode about the female director behind it, you can go back to one of our old Sinister Sisters episodes.
00:05:36
Speaker
Did we? Good for us. We did, Esa Lopez. Yeah, because we watched Tires Are Not Afraid. So good. I was telling Tires, I was like, I hope he'll... I mean, I'd watch it again. I haven't seen it in a few years now, but it's a great, great film.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, it really is. It feels very del Toro Guillermo del Toro Guillermo. But yeah, it's good.
Film Impressions and TV Series
00:06:03
Speaker
Oh, and then I also I was gonna say really fast. I also just love that Jodie Foster is like not all good.
00:06:10
Speaker
They're all very complex characters. When she's making her stepdaughter take off her... Oh my God. I was so mad. I was like, I hate you, Foster. I hate you. I know. She's not just good Clarice anymore. No. But it's really good so far. I'm excited to finish it. And what else did I just... Oh, poor things. I saw that. Change your life. I loved every second of it. I loved every second of it.
00:06:41
Speaker
I felt like it was made for me. They were like, Felicia Lobo, for you, a present. I felt the same way. It was for both of us, maybe. Absolutely. Just so incredibly well done. And doesn't it make you respect Emma Stone so much? Absolutely. I was like, hell, yeah. Such a good performance. It really is amazing. And I did see Lisa Frankenstein last night. I won't spoil too much. It's great. It's everything you've ever dreamed and more.
00:07:10
Speaker
That's what I hope. The trailer is great. And it's exactly like, you know, some of it is very tropey, obviously, but so much of it is just like done so well. And I will say the only thing. First off, I did not realize I didn't realize at all that it was Cole Sprouse playing the guy. Well, until the makeup was gone.
00:07:31
Speaker
No, like I just didn't know until like three days ago. And then I was like, wait, that's him. Oh, like a million times. I just didn't know. So funny. But I was going to say like all the all the characters are so.
00:07:43
Speaker
Amazing like nobody is like their you know archetype But I was gonna say it does crack me up that like our dream man in this world and also maybe in general It's just silent and does your bidding? That's that's the dream that's the dream They write they write with that I love that yeah, I'll try to I'm gonna try to go this week for sure I can't wait Amazing is there anything else you've seen that you want to mention?
00:08:13
Speaker
No, I think that's it. I mean, those are the most. I also weirdly, this is random and I won't say much about it, but I am honestly really liking the Mr. and Mrs. Smith TV show with Donald Glover and the girl from Pen 15.
00:08:27
Speaker
Oh, man, I wish they did more seasons of that. That was so good. But Maya, the Asian actress, she's like playing opposite Donald Glover. And it's like, I mean, I have no idea what she's like outside of that show. So no. And it's interesting because she's like kind of sexy and like, oh, like a very different role. But like, I don't know, we're obviously like we're
00:08:54
Speaker
It's very interesting because it's so different from Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. I've never seen that movie. I've never seen that movie. It's like taking real relationship stuff and putting it in this heightened spy world. It's funny and interesting. It's cool. Oh, well, and I told you this, but I'll also tell the podcast listeners. Fleabag.
00:09:20
Speaker
Holy shit. Holy shit. She's late to the game, but she got here. I I'm blown away. I'm going to go. I saw it before I finished the series and I should have just bought it when I saw it. But I'm going to go back to the strand and get the this the the theater script version of the show she wrote so I could take a look at it. But I mean, it's just fantastic. It is tragic and funny. It is tragic, funny. It is.
00:09:50
Speaker
And I love her sister. There's so much in it. And Olivia Colman, the stepmom. Oh my god. A little devil. An icon. So evil, but the line of her saying really mean things in a nice way is so crazy. It's so great.
00:10:12
Speaker
her letting the audience in and this like, you know, breaking the fourth wall situation. And then when the priest starts to notice her do it, it's like, what the fuck is happening? Do you ever do you ever feel that way with Travis? We have moments like that where I have done something my whole life like a way and James will be like, well, why do you think that or why are you doing that or what's that about? And I'm like,
00:10:39
Speaker
Don't look at me. Don't perceive me. Please do not look at me in a detailed way. I'm sure there are things, though I did have to just have a conversation with Travis about putting the toilet paper roll on backwards. And I'm like, you have to put it on this way. And he's like, but it's better if it's this way. And I was like, you're wrong. And I don't know what to do right now.
00:11:06
Speaker
Again, something that's really hard for me when it's like, I feel like I'm absolutely right in every single way. And then he's like, or a different way of looking at it. And I'm like, the wrong way. You mean the wrong way? The wrong way is what you mean. You mean the stupid boy way.
00:11:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Also, this is hilarious that you did this because Phoebe Waller Bridge from Fleabag was originally in Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Donald Glover. They were writing it together. And they like how to create it like they literally like creative differences and like their best friends. They're all good. But like, I think it kind of makes sense. Like her thing is so distinct. Yeah. And his thing is so distinct. And I wasn't going to know.
00:11:52
Speaker
Anyway, that like I love Fleabag. I could watch it. I like want to watch it again now that you talked about it. Yeah, I'll watch it again. I would watch it again. She's amazing. It was perfect. Now I want to watch. Yes. What movie? He's in a like because he's gay in real life. He's in some kind. I think it's I honestly don't know the plot as well as I should, but it's with Paul Mezcal and it's like them in a romance.
00:12:19
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. I like that Hamlet clip you sent me. All of us strangers. Yeah.
00:12:27
Speaker
But like a queer love story. Love. Love that. Oh, what's that movie? Oh, my gosh. Did you see the trailer for the A24 movie with Kristen Stewart, where she's like dating? She's like a bodybuilder or something, but it's a thriller. Oh, my God. It looks fascinating. I got a trailer. I think just came out and I saw it on TikTok and I was like, what is this? I'm counting down the dates to Abigail. That's my.
00:12:56
Speaker
one that I'm waiting for. Oh, yeah, that one looks that mean that's gonna be amazing. Yeah. When is that? There's something oh my god and long legs. Abigail I think is April. What's long legs? Wait, have you not seen it yet? What is it? Well, so the marketing has been incredible. It's Nicolas Cage. I really bet you've seen it. The like first trailer that came out was like, felt very
00:13:20
Speaker
Shoot, what was that movie that I actually didn't really like that was mostly like staticky TV and a little boy talking? Oh, it's an Oz Perkins movie. Welcome back. Okay. Oz Perkins in Nicolas Cage feels right to me. Yes. But no, I don't think I've seen the trailer. I'm going to send you this stuff. It's like the first trailer was like barely anything and we've slowly gotten like slightly more information, but it's like the best marketing campaign I've seen.
00:13:49
Speaker
Nice. Or a horror movie in a long time. I haven't seen a thing, but I can't wait. There's this super disturbing shot of a little girl's dead body that was most of the first trailer. Cool. But all you could see is sick.
00:14:07
Speaker
And it's our favorite girl from It Follows and The Watcher. What's her name? Micah? Micah Monroe. Yes. She's so beautiful. She's so beautiful.
00:14:20
Speaker
I loved that one movie. Watch her. She was in. Did you see that again? Yes, I like to do that was just I love that. You know, just this. Yeah, believe the woman because she's probably right. Yeah, honestly, message in that movie was fantastic. I'm going to send you all the trailers after we get off this. Yeah. And you're going to be scared.
00:14:45
Speaker
of movie talk. Good for us. Now to our actual content.
The Legend of the Headless Horseman
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, so this week I'm covering something that I was like 50-50. We've covered this, maybe not unclear. I think people can always learn more. Yeah, I don't think we have, but the Headless Horsemen.
00:15:12
Speaker
Hello. Hello. After weaving, we went to Sleepy Hollow. That's what I'm saying. I know. We went to Sleepy Hollow. I still think you moved there. How many years ago was that? That way you did that. Like three and a half. Three and a half? Okay. Yeah, we went up there and that was the first time I had really met James.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, and we did a Ouija board the whole thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, good times. Good times. I loved that Airbnb. That was like such a cool. So cool. Such a good spot. I want to live there. Me too. Me too. But yeah, and it's funny because Sleepy Hollow, because the movie
00:15:55
Speaker
I mean, the aesthetic, the aesthetics of that film are so perfect for, like it's everything I love, it's everything I love. And Johnny Depp, it's literally, they put everything that they could have put in there for me, in there. And I love it so much. And so I guess I had not really considered the fact that I lived so close to it, because it felt like this totally different world.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, like it's like fake but it's not fake. We even have a teacher that Lauren and I had in college that like moved up there. Yeah. So it's like it's a place people live there.
00:16:34
Speaker
But yeah, today I'm gonna give you some general stuff here. So the Headless Horseman, let's start there and then we'll talk about the Sleepy Hollow section of it. So in general, the Headless Horseman is a dude on a horse who is carrying his head in his arms or missing his head altogether and is searching for it.
00:17:02
Speaker
He also is sometimes depicted with the pumpkin as his severed head, which I think is quite cute. Good luck. A good luck. Yeah, there's something about it I like. And yeah, and so there's a couple of places this appears. And the first one I had not really, even though I've definitely heard of this, I just didn't connect it. Or I don't know it well enough. The Sir Gawan and the Green Knight. Do you know that? Oh.
00:17:31
Speaker
Yeah, so it's not related to A24's Green Night. Oh, it is actually. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot that's true. I forgot I saw that. A movie that I found hard to get through, but most people liked. I was the same where it was just so, and I saw it with Travis. So slow for me. It was slow and it all was sort of the same turnout. So it was partly
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, it didn't build. Yeah. Like, it didn't have a structure that was useful to it, I think. Just like Oz Perkins' previous movies for me. I know, totally. I know, I feel the same. How beautiful. Yeah, how beautiful, and I'm asleep. But I just also pulled up The Green Knight because you said that, the movie, and I guess Barry was in it.
00:18:25
Speaker
Very from Southern. I didn't really forgot. I wasn't so obsessed at the time. Now I guess I am more obsessed.
00:18:34
Speaker
Anyways, what was I talking about? So yeah, so the main night in this, one of the plots in it is the beheading game, which is a trope in a lot of like Irish mythology and medieval stuff where a stranger challenges a hero to fight and the hero decapitates
00:19:00
Speaker
the stranger, I guess. And there's like a supernatural aspect to the stranger. So even though he decapitated him, he can keep fighting.
00:19:12
Speaker
So yeah, there's something around that one. And that's so, and the Sir Godwin is like from the 14th century. So that's really, it's really freaking old. Okay. Very, very, very, very, very. But then the version that when I think of Headless Horseman that comes to my mind is, of course, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
00:19:36
Speaker
And I was trying to remember what my memory of Sleepy Hollow was before the Tim Burton film. Had you seen the Disney cartoon? No? I don't know. Honestly, I don't have a memory of seeing it. It's pretty cute. So I don't know. I think I knew the image, but I'm not sure how I got the image.
00:20:01
Speaker
before, but think about it, you know, the Tim Burton movie and I wasn't even thinking about this till now, but that came out in 1999. So I was only what, like seven, seven, which probably, did you see it then? No, right? Nah, definitely not. Definitely not. But probably, yeah, probably as soon as you were interested in that kind of stuff.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't know because in my mind, I feel like I know it from other things, but I'm just not sure what those things are. We actually think I think read like the original poem in school, maybe. Oh, I think so. I remember it like being like, whoa, we can read this in school. Spooky. But yeah, so it's the original poem. Let's talk about that. So
00:20:43
Speaker
1820, it was written by Washington Irving. And it's, yeah, it's a short story. And the plot, I'll take you through as quickly as I can. So basically I have, it's Ichabod, right? That's how you say it? Ichabod Crane. Yeah. So the legend itself takes place in 1790.
00:21:06
Speaker
and near Tarrytown, which is where Sleepy Hollow is in New York. And Ichabod Crane, who is also, which this is so great for Johnny Depp, but Aline Lanky, superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut. So to be clear, the movie is quite different than the actual original story, just in terms of like the Ichabod's character and like, actually pretty much the whole plot is pretty different.
00:21:35
Speaker
So he was a school teacher. He gets ribbon-board from the town of Sleepy Hollow to teach the kids there. He falls in love with Katrina Von Tassel and, you know, wants to marry her. But he's competing for her affection with this guy, Abraham Van Brunt, and they're, you know, kind of going back and forth.
00:21:59
Speaker
And one autumn night, Ichabod is invited to a party at the Van Tassel's house. Could be Van Tassel, I don't know. How would you say it? Van Tassel, Van Tassel. I know, I'm like Van Tassel. I'm like, they all say it in almost British accents. Van Tassel. Yeah, exactly. I'm not sure.
00:22:22
Speaker
And while he's there, everyone's telling these ghost stories. And Brahm, the guy who also loves Katrina, tells a story about how he once raced against the Headless Horseman.
00:22:37
Speaker
And he was a man that was decapitated by a cannonball in the Revolutionary War, which is like brutal. Like, yeah, that's pretty imagine. It almost sounds comedic in a dark way, like a cannonball decapitation. Like, it's just like what aim would you have to have to to make that happen? Yeah. Sorry.
00:22:59
Speaker
But yeah, so anyways, the horseman, he was buried in Sleepy Hollow and every night he rises from the grave to search for his missing head. But there is a bridge and they have this bridge in Sleepy Hollow, you know, and it's it's marked by a lovely plaque that the ghost is unable to cross because there's some sort of supernatural barrier unclear. And they show that in the in the movie in the movie, too. You can't get across this bridge.
00:23:30
Speaker
And so after he hears all this, he basically asked Katrina to marry him. And she says no. She says no. So he leaves the party. He's upset. He's riding home on this horse named Gunpowder. And it's dun dun dun, the witching hour.
00:23:52
Speaker
And he is thinking about all these ghost stories that he had heard at this party. He sees all these ghouls and goblins around every turn. And then he comes upon a rider on a black horse. And he sees that he's carrying his own head on top of his saddle. And he says, that's the headless horsemen.
00:24:15
Speaker
So he is, you know, he's trying to run away on his horse, trying to get away as fast as he can. The horseman chases Ichabod all the way to the bridge. And then this is the best part. He gets to the bridge. He can't cross it. So he takes his own severed head, throws it at Ichabod and knocks Ichabod off of his horse. Crazy. Crazy.
00:24:46
Speaker
And so the next morning, gunpowder is found like, you know, away, chilling in a field somewhere. And Ichabod is nowhere to be found. They find like, oh, they find, oh, they find the pumpkin. They find a shattered pumpkin. So Halloweeny. And
00:25:06
Speaker
Brahm, the other guy, he ends up marrying Katrina. It's okay. He ends up marrying Katrina. And then it's like discovered the headless horseman may have been Brahm the whole time trying to prank Ichabod and using a jack-o'-lantern as a false head. So it wasn't actually a headless guy.
00:25:30
Speaker
Rude. So rude. So years go by, Ichabod's, you know, disappeared, whatever. And somebody comes to visit the town and says that he's seen Ichabod and that he was so upset by Katrina's rejection and scared by the Headless Horseman that he left the town and like went on to do other things. But the Dutch wives, I guess the women in town who tell stories, I guess,
00:26:01
Speaker
say that they think he was taken by the Headless Horseman. They said that the schoolhouse that he once taught at was left abandoned and haunted by his spirit. And oh, here you go.
00:26:20
Speaker
On quiet summer evenings, his voice can be heard at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of sleepy hollow.
00:26:36
Speaker
And that's the, yeah, that's the main story. So that's the legend of Sleepy Hollow that people tend to know in that the town of Sleepy Hollow celebrates every year and makes as much bank as they can off of during the Halloween season. Which they do.
00:26:54
Speaker
What is this musical? Did you know there was two Sleepy Hollow musicals? No. Oh, actually, there's three Sleepy Hollow musicals. And guess what? They're all called Sleepy Hollow. So there was one in 1948, but it was only open for 12 performances. So we'll let that one go. There was Sleepy Hollow in 2009 that never was on Broadway, but it was a musical that was I think it was it looks like it
00:27:19
Speaker
Oh, it was written in like a college program, but it didn't win like a Kennedy Center Award. Cool. And then there was another one in 2017 by, who is this? Michelle Ackerman, do you know that name? And then in 2022,
00:27:37
Speaker
There's one called Ichabod the Legend of Sleepy Hollow that it says it's a new production combining a score from one of the old versions, I'm a little unclear, and a new book by Stephen Gregory Smith that stays truer to the Irving short story. So that's very interesting to me. So I'm like all this theater. Yeah.
00:28:03
Speaker
But yeah, but the main ones that we, you know, know about are the Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which is the Disney one, and the 1999 Tim Burton film, A Sleepy Hollow. Both so good. Both so good. And I'll just mention this as well. There are other Headless Horsemen stories outside of these. So there's one in...
00:28:29
Speaker
Irish folklore in English is called The Dark Man, the Delahan or Delachan. I'm not sure. But it's a headless demonic fairy, usually riding a horse and carrying its own head.
00:28:43
Speaker
And he wields a whip made of a human corpse's spine, which, like, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. I don't know. It is pretty badass and scary and scary. And then there's a Scottish one, this guy named Ewan, who was decapitated in a battle and just like a headless rider. And that one is like considered an omen of death within a family. So like if you see the headless
00:29:13
Speaker
Horseman, it means someone in your family is going to die. Super scary. And there's a German one, which in this one, the headless horseman doesn't decapitate other people. It just if he touches you, you'll just die, which I'm like less dramatic, I guess. But but yeah.
00:29:34
Speaker
So that's basically, that's mostly what I found. I really, in Sleepy Hollow, if you ever have the chance, the jack-o'-lantern.
00:29:44
Speaker
light of light festival thingy that we went to is pretty honestly, I thought it was pretty spectacular. Yeah, it's called like the pumpkin blaze or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And they make all these amazing sculptures out of pumpkins and it's gorgeous and fun, fun Halloween stuff. It was really fun. I love it. Thank you for doing that. The Headless Horseman and Sleepy Hollow.
00:30:26
Speaker
All right.
Ogopogo: Canada’s Lake Monster
00:30:28
Speaker
Today, I'm doing the Ogopogo, which is kind of a loftness monster sort of creature. It's a lake monster that's said to inhabit, and I should say before I begin.
00:30:44
Speaker
that I might butcher some indigenous words today and I will try my best here. I listened to all of them before we started recording and now it's been a bit. They're gone. But this is the lake
00:30:59
Speaker
that this creature is supposed to live in is the Ocan, wait, I think it's Ocanagon Lake and it's in Canada, in British Columbia, Canada. And there was a picture that popped up in 2022 of this monster that brought it back to the public eye. I watched a TikTok about it is how it came to my brain.
00:31:22
Speaker
But it is like the picture itself is so convincing in some ways. It also weirdly looks like CGI in a way that I'm like, did somebody just craft this? But it looks a lot like a dragon that probably you'd see like, I don't know, I want to say like, in like roller coasters or like, like, look at this picture, it's
00:31:50
Speaker
It's like a little horned dragon head, basically. This is why people are talking about it again kind of recently, but the legend of the creature is closely tied to native myths.
00:32:04
Speaker
It's what they call First Nations people. And actually, I don't know if that's a term that's mostly for Canada or not. Yes. I think it's basically like, you know, a way of saying indigenous people of Canada.
00:32:20
Speaker
So, they called the animal the Nihaa'itka and they classified it as an evil supernatural entity with great power and ill intent. And that word translates to water demon, water god, or sacred creature of water.
00:32:39
Speaker
And it was in like in that legend, basically it was a creature that would they'd have to sacrifice an animal for safe crossing of the lake. And so they would, you know, for hundreds of years, sacrifice small animals. But I will say just to add a little a little caveat to that. There are a lot of people who like a lot of historians nowadays who think that maybe there was just like a misunderstanding between the indigenous people and white settlers, of course.
00:33:09
Speaker
It actually was not an evil creature and it perhaps was a like a lake god that they worshiped and they even went as far as being like it might not even have been animals that they sacrifice and might have been like tobacco or Plants or crops that they like that they gave to the creature. So anyway, I know we're just telling me they kill tiny animals for no reason and
00:33:32
Speaker
Is that what you're saying to me? No, I mean, maybe. The white settlers being like, oh, we're supposed to sacrifice things? That's what I'm saying. Yep. Yep. It's a clique.
00:33:43
Speaker
So there is a legend originally of a chief named Tim Basket is what it looks like. It cannot be pronounced that way. But he refused to sacrifice an animal as he didn't believe in the demon. And when his family entered the water, the creature stirred up the water with its tail and the canoe and all of its passengers were sucked to the bottom of the lake.
00:34:07
Speaker
Dang. In a lot of these stories, the Ogopogo would use its tail to create waves or storms and drown people. Intense.
00:34:18
Speaker
In 1855, there was a white settler named John McDougall, and he claimed that his horses were sucked under and that he only escaped by cutting the line to his horses, which I'm like, his horses were, I guess, close to the water is my understanding. But that's one of the most early stories that we have of people actually
00:34:43
Speaker
seeing it or, you know, animals dying. And according to the historian Mark M. Orkin, the creature received its name on a night in 1924. That's how it got Ogopoco. And it's like from a song, which I think is cool. So the song goes, his mother was an earwig. His father was a whale, a little bit of head and hardly any tail, which doesn't line up with what we think of the creature.
00:35:11
Speaker
Hardly any tail. I know. And Ogopogo was his name. That's great. It also sounds like a weird insult for like a girl with a small butt. Yeah. Hardly any tail. Hardly any tail. Also, I'm like his mother was an earwig. His father was a whale. Already I'm confused. It's a earwig. Like the little bug. Have you ever seen them? They're like tiny. Oh, no. I don't know. I don't know. That's supposedly where the name came from was from this like folk song.
00:35:40
Speaker
But the lake monster, as I said, is not normally described as not having a tail. It's mostly described as a serpentine creature with smooth dark skin with a large body thicker than a telephone pole and being up to 49 feet in length. So pretty big. Yeah. It's said to be very fast. It's said to propel itself with its tail.
00:36:06
Speaker
So Susan Allison was another early settler that had a detailed sighting of the Yogo Pogo in 1872. I almost am like, should I do a whole episode about her? She's like a, like a female pioneer in Canada. I'm really sinister, but I'm just like, she just like the pictures of her. Yeah. I'm just like, she was just like a woman pioneering Canada. That's awesome. It's very cool. So I love the story, right? Like, I'm like, good for you.
00:36:35
Speaker
at that time. So she established early relationships with the native people and did have a sighting of the creature. I'm going to go through several of these. I probably won't cover all of them. There are a shocking amount of sightings and some more believable than others. Another one was in 1968.
00:36:59
Speaker
Art Foulden was driving by a man and he pulled off the road because he saw something moving in the lake and what he filmed, what he saw, and it showed this large wake moving across the water. He estimated it was 100 meters away.
00:37:18
Speaker
In 2005, a TV show actually used his footage from 1968 and they did a test with that footage. Apparently, he was actually a lot closer to the water than he was saying or than he thought. The animal and the wave were actually much smaller and they believed that it was like a bird or an otter or a beaver.
00:37:42
Speaker
And you'll hear this come back in other sightings. I think just people either wanting attention or being scared and perceiving something to be scarier than they thought. In the 1980s, there was a local tourism agency that offered a cash reward for seeing the beast, which I think is cool.
00:38:02
Speaker
And Greenpeace even got involved and was like, don't hurt the beast. You have to film it and not capture it. And it was even listed as an endangered species at that time, which I'm also like, wow, we're just going with it, saying that it was real.
00:38:21
Speaker
And in 1980 as well, around 50 tourists watched what they thought was an Ogopogo for about 45 minutes off of the beach. It was captured on film. Skeptics think that it was several otters, which I'm like, that's such like a funny, you know, like they were just like otters swimming together and so it looked like the humps of the creature. I love otters. They love otters too. They really are so cute.
00:38:48
Speaker
In 1989, John Kirk said that he saw an animal that was 35 to 40 feet long and five sleek jet black humps with a lashing tail. He believed it was traveling around 25 miles an hour. So there are, you know, there are many, as I said, many sightings. The next one that I'm going to talk about was again in 1989.
00:39:14
Speaker
Ken Chaplin and his 78 year old father went to the lake and they caught on camera a slim serpent looking creature that was 15 feet long and it was swimming about 75 feet away from them. It slapped its tail. Ken claimed that it could have killed a man if he had been in the range of the tail. And then he went back a few days later with his daughter
00:39:40
Speaker
And he caught the same creature on camera again. And this sighting was probably one of the ones that got more press than almost anything else. It was documented in magazines, newspapers. It's even on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, which I think is cool. Oh, nice.
00:39:55
Speaker
But after it was analyzed by local biologists a little bit later, they believe it to be a beaver and that Ken had grossly miscalculated the size. And I think the common thought about him is that he just did it for attention or wanted the press of it all.
00:40:13
Speaker
There was another one in July of 1992. This one, basically, similar kind of thing. There was a boat towing a water skier. That is what they were filming. And the skier falls into the water near this object that they thought was the Ogopogo. And there were two other video tapes of it.
00:40:35
Speaker
And it looked like multiple animals in the water, but again, that one they kind of disproved or it was an FBI video specialist. That felt like it was debris that had fallen into the ocean and, or sorry, into the lake and was like bobbing up and down. And the skier didn't seem like he was, you know, encountering a serpentine creature that no one else had ever seen.
00:40:59
Speaker
Let me see, there was one in 2008, again, you know, a local photographer, Sean Veloria and his girlfriend, Jessica Wieger. They were sitting on the lakeshore of Peachland and they noticed, you know, disturbance in the water.
00:41:16
Speaker
They pulled out their camera, took a picture, but of course their camera died so they could only get one picture. And Sean actually, the photographer never publicized it, but he said that it had black hump-like ridges.
00:41:32
Speaker
And then eight days later, south of the original sighting, Sean again pulled his car over. They saw another disturbance. And this time he got 11 photographs of the creature. But he only showed three to four images to the public. And one of them shows a tail or neck-like object surfacing the water, while the other show the back or the head of the creature.
00:41:57
Speaker
They said it was six meters long. And again, like local experts were like, I don't know. And they thought maybe it was like that there was like a biologist that said the black red texture was possibly a different creature or pollution. But they, these photos were actually shown in 2009 on monsters quest episode on a monsters quest episode called lake demons.
00:42:22
Speaker
So there are a lot of different places you can find out more information. It to me is very Loch Ness Monster.
00:42:29
Speaker
I now I'm like, I kind of want to do the Loch Ness Monster at some point because I don't know. Why have we not done that? That feels like- I don't know. I'm like, maybe it's too much research. Nah, let's do it. But there was also another sighting in 2011, three in 2018. So there are a lot of sightings for this kind of creature. And I think it makes sense.
00:42:52
Speaker
If there were something like this to exist, I'm like, of course, it's in like a big lake in Canada. Like, yeah, yeah. If there was a place, it would be there. People often, you know, as I said, like beavers, otters, birds. But there's also this creature called a sturgeon, which now I want to look up a picture of. Yeah, it's basically like it's a long, like fish looking kind of creature.
00:43:18
Speaker
But they apparently don't exist in this lake or people don't know if they exist in this lake. So there's currently an unclaimed $10,000 reward for concrete evidence of a surgeon in this lake because they feel like it would be the explanation behind all these sightings.
00:43:36
Speaker
And then I will say there's also this very legit feeling website that's just dedicated to the search. It's called the Ogopogo Quest website. And there's all this different information about sightings. There's all these different drawings of it, all these different photos and expeditions. It's a lot of legit stuff. So if you want to learn more about it, I would definitely say check it out.
00:44:06
Speaker
It to me is more legit of the things like this I've seen. It does not seem like a sketchy website. It's very cool to me. I love that. If you're interested, definitely check it out. I feel like Canada has some, I'm sure there's a lot of crazy true crime stories in Canada, but I'm a little bit like, oh, I haven't really thought about Canadian folklore in a long time.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah. And I feel like they have so much open space where things could happen and lurk. Exactly. It's honestly not so different than True Detective. No.
00:44:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That's the other thing I love about this season is like, because it's actually not been as cold this week, but it was like so cold here. And we had some sort of record number of days without sunlight here in New York. Oh, damn. You heard about that because it was just like there was no sunshine for so many days. And it is depressing. But I was like, oh, my God. Yeah, it's like we're in Alaska. I don't know.
00:45:11
Speaker
Except that you have millions of people around you. Yes, it's not quite the same, I guess, but at least you're not alone. That's true. That's true. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. Well, thank you guys for listening this week to our Sleepy Hollow Canadian Loch Ness Monster. Yeah. All right. We hope you have some sweet, sweet nightmares. Bye.