LINDSAY SELBY: The Ootsa Lake Monster

Ootsa Lake is part of the Nechako Reservoir system in British Columbia Canada.It is the largest of the original lakes to be part of the reservoir and sometimes it is referred to as the Ootsa Reservoir. In the Pleistocene Era, ice movement left grooves and ridges in the landscape forming lakes when the ice melted. Ootsa lake is one of these lakes and is popular for fishing having stocks of large rainbow trout and char. The waters of the lake are said to be cold and deep, some say up to 1000 feet deep(approx 333 metres) .There is a local legend/ story of a monster in Ootsa Lake. Several newspapers claim it has been spotted this week:

Ootsa Lake Creature

By Rebecca Billard - Burns Lake Lakes District News
Published: August 17, 2010 11:00 PM

The last thing Darlene Thompkins expected to see on her holiday was something she referred to as the 'Ootsa Lake monster'.Thompkins who is holidaying in Burns Lake with her family from Edmonton, said she named the mysterious sighting in Ootsa Lake a monster because she didn't know what else to call it.Thompkins and her daughter were wading in the water near the Ootsa Lake spillway last week, while her husband George sat on the shore."A plane flew over and we watched that go by, it looked like the pilot was doing some sort of training exercise, then when we looked back down there was a big wave in the water," she said.Thompkins said the wave struck her as being unusual at the time so she watched the large ripple in the water about eight to 10 metres from where she and her daughter we standing.Thompkins then said she and her daughter saw a head appear out of the water."It looked like a huge snake head ,,, and it was a dark grey colour," she said."I called out to my husband to come and look, but he said to come out of the water and was a little scared. I didn't think about being scared because I was trying to see what it was, I grabbed my video camera and recorded but I was in a hurry and the focus was zoomed in so the footage is blurry," she said.Thompkins then grabbed a camera to take a picture of the creature and snapped a shot."It looks further away in the photo that what it was .... we saw it much closer," she said."We saw it twice, then another one came up beside it and a third one came too," said Thompkins adding that the creatures were very long like a snake."You could see the head while they were swimming along then further back there was another part of it - like a hump .... I can't stop thinking about what we saw and wondering what it was," she added."My uncle said it was probably a sturgeon, but this creature was swimming along with its head out of the water .... right up and out of the water .... and it was really big," she said."I wish I knew what it was, I have heard other people say they have seen something similar ..... these lakes are so big, you would never know what is living in them," she added.

Source: http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/lakesdistrictnews/news/100808924.html

When the lake was flooded lots of trees were covered by water. There is, according to the internet ,some sort of logging operation under way to retrieve the trees for commercial use. So could it just have been a log that surfaced? A dark grey head makes me think seal but I have no idea if seals would be found in those lakes. Perhaps some one else knows and can leave a comment. Again it is noted it is a glacial lake ,similar to many other lakes that have sightings. If they are not unknown creatures then something similar must happen at all these lakes to produce the effect of a monster in the water. Intriguing isn’t it?