Sea monsters, the Valley of Headless Men, the waheela – these are just a few of Canada’s many myths and legends. Canada has an abundance of myths and legends about various creatures, but in this post, I am going to be focusing on sea monsters, as well as the legend of the waheela and the Valley of Headless Men.
To begin, we must journey to the Pacific coast of Canada, where legends and stories of Caddy, or the Cadborosaurus (A name derived from Cadboro Bay in British Columbia, where there have been many sightings of the creature.) are plentiful. In fact, since the 1800s, there have been more than three hundred eyewitness stories of this creature.
Imagine walking along the rocky shores of the the coast, when suddenly you see a giant snake-like creature, emerging from the water. Reaching an impressive twenty feet, the creature is enormous and terrifying. Its horse-like head can be seen slowly rising out of the water along with the eery-looking humps along its back. This is what many people have claimed to see for years.
Recently, a group of researchers, headed by Dr. Paul Leblond, PhD, decided to take the search for the creature to the next level. They called their search The Caddy Scan Project. Cameras were set up at regular sighting areas, but have not discovered any evidence of the Caddy.
Leblond said of the creature, “The way its movements have been described would lead one to think it may be mammalian, perhaps an unknown, large, long-necked deep-sea seal of some kind … but we really don’t know. Until we have a specimen to examine, it’s just a mystery, and one that we’d love to solve.” (More information about Dr. Leblond and this expedition can be found at this sight: https://www.peninsulanewsreview.com/community/does-a-creature-lurk-beneath-cadboro-bay/)
To find our next sea monster, we must travel to the other end of Canada all the way to Muskrat Lake in Ontario. The Mussie, named for Muskrat Lake, is a mysterious creature. This is mainly due to the fact that its appearance has not been agreed on by anyone. Some descriptions say that it looks like a sturgeon, some say it looks like a great sea monster with three eyes, and the speculations go on.
Interestingly enough, there is a myth that Samuel de Champlain heard about the Mussie from those living in the area at the time.
Next up on the list of sea monsters is the most unconventional sea monster of the lot. It is called the Thetis Lake Monster or “Canadian Lizard Man”. Only allegedly sighted twice (and one of those times proved to be a hoax), this creature has the appearance of a man with silver-blue scales, and jagged fins running down his back. Although this specific creature has only one eyewitness report to substantiate its existence, there are legends of creatures like this one in many places around the world, such as in the Queen Charlotte Islands, Ohio, and North Carolina. To me, our Canadian Lizard Man sounds much like a metahuman from “The Flash”. Could Lizard Man be a relative of the infamous King Shark from Central City? Who knows? 😉
A very popular lake monster of Canada’s is the Ogopogo, which resides in British Columbia. Much like a snake, this creature is said to be green or black in colour, and over 120 feet long. (The length was estimated by Jim La Rocque, who allegedly caught the creature on camera. Use the link provided to see his intriguing video: https://globalnews.ca/video/5401099/alleged-ogopogo-sighting-caught-on-camera-2)
This creature is very important to the folk lore of British Columbia. Lisa Kadane, who wrote about this creature in BBC – Travel included a quote which stated that “Ogopogo is to Kelowna what Nessie is to Loch Ness”. In fact, sixteen percent of people in British Columbia believe that this creature exists. Yet, the Ogopogo is not a real creature as far as the First Nations peoples are concerned. They believed, and still believe that it is a spirit of the lake.
Finally, we come to the most chilling and mysterious of the legends in this post – the Waheela and the Valley of the Headless Men. The Waheela is a massive wolf which lives in the the Northwest Territories, or – more specifically – the Valley of the Headless Men. These great wolves have white fur, and are apparently four feet tall! Eerily enough, the wolves are know for biting peoples’ head off – hence the name of the valley that they allegedly inhabit. The Valley of Headless Men, or the Nahanni Valley, is a place full of mystery and legend. The park where this ominous valley is situated – Nahanni National Park Reserve – is full of names that will send chills through your bones. Names such as Headless Range, Funeral Range, Headless creak, and Dead Man’s Valley. To be honest, though, this area seems to deserve its ominous names, as – according to Chloe Berge, who wrote “The Haunting History of the Canadian National Park”, – it seems more like Mordor than Canada. In addition to its frightening appearance and names, at least four people have been murdered in the park, and many people have disappeared entirely while there.
It is the frightening details that surround these four deaths, that are the real cause of disturbance, however. The earliest deaths, occurring in 1910, were the deaths of Willie and Frank McLeod, who went to the park to find gold in 1908. They were found headless near the edge of the Nahanni River. There are different versions of this story, but some reports say that it looked as if one of the brothers had tried to leap out of his bed and grab his gun, but was killed in the attempt. Later, a man named Martin Jorgenson also went searching for gold. His charred remains were later found in his cabin, which had been burned down. His body was also headless. A miner, in 1945, was also found headless in his sleeping bag.
These eerie stories are just some of the many unnerving tales surrounding the legendary Nahanni Valley.
Canada is filled with many fun and mysterious myths and legends, as well as some chilling ones. I hope the stories that I have shared inspire you to explore some of the other Canadian myths and legends out there!