Ootsa Lake creature sighting

Rebecca Billard - Burns Lake Lakes District News
August 17, 2010

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.

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