Manipogo

Manipogo is the name given to the lake monster reported to live in Lake Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada. Sightings of this serpent-like sea monster have been going on since roughly 1908. The creature was dubbed Manipogo in 1957, the name echoing British Columbia's Ogopogo. There is also a Lake Winnipegosis sea monster called Winnepogo, thought possibly to be the same creature as the lakes are connected. Some have speculated that the monster sightings may be attributed to sightings of an unusually large lake sturgeon, or a relict population of prehistoric plesiosaurs. Although many experts believe the correct name is Winnipego, as confirmed by local residents.

The monster is thought to be anywhere from 12 feet to 50 feet long. It is described as being "A long muddy-brown body with humps that show above the water, and a sheep-like head."^[1]

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.

Since the 1800s, people have claimed to have seen the sea monster Manipogo.^[2]

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.^[3]

In the early 1960s, Professor James A. McLeod of Manitoba University investigated the creature by trying to locate its remains. If there is a breeding population in the lake, they should be leaving carcasses and bones when they die. McLeod found none.

Alleged sightings

• 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. (Storm, 38)
• 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 humpes" 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.
• 2012: Aug. 9 @ 9pm just off shore of Outlet at Twin Beach Rd. Surfaced twice, showing a scaled / sawtooth jagged back of that of a giant Sturgeon.

Television

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

See also

• Turtle Lake Monster
• Ogopogo

References

• Storm, Rory (2008). Monster Hunt: The Guide to Cryptozoology. Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. pp. 37–40. ISBN 978-1-4027-6314-4. 

External links

• Global monster database
• Lake Manitoba Narrows website

Coordinates: 50°44′6″N 98°26′32″W / 50.73500°N 98.44222°W / 50.73500; -98.44222