With Cowichan Lake water levels still low until the fall rains come, it might be a good time for observant lake watchers to see if they can catch a glimpse of a legendary monster that is said to inhabit its Vancouver Island waters.
The Cowichan Valley’s Rodney Chilton says that even though it’s not nearly as well known as Okanagan Lake’s Ogopogo, the enigmatic lake monster called Stin-Qua (or Stin-Quo depending on who you talk to) has quite a rich history as well.
One of the first sightings of Stin-Qua was by a settler in 1885 and since then, several more people have claimed to have seen what’s described as a serpent-like creature, he says.
“It seems that the frequency (of the sightings), as far as I am able to discern, have coincided with intervals when the weather in the late spring to late summer have been warm and dry, and lake levels have dropped accordingly.”
Chilton says it appears that when water levels are low, Stin-Qua is forced to the surface from the deeper parts of the lake seeking food and is more likely to be detected.
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In 2012, Rolli Gunderson wrote a story in the Lake Cowichan Gazette about a 1930 sighting in which Youbou’s Charlie Caldwell spotted something that looked like a serpent in Cowichan Lake, and two years previously, two friends named Jarvis and Hill were hunting and fishing in the area and reported something similar.
“While crossing Bear Lake (near Mesachie Lake) in the early morning of Sept. 17, 1928, they were very surprised by a strange sight,” Gunderson wrote.
The friends reported that fish were jumping out of the water everywhere, as salmon do when the runs are in.
“They noted the oddity then began fishing, hoping to catch their supper,” she wrote.
“Moments later, in the misty distance, they saw what appeared to be a flock of ducks near the channel that joins Bear Lake with Cowichan Lake. Paying no more attention they again set their sights on catching fish when one of the men looked around and saw about eight feet of a tapering neck and serpent-like head standing straight out of the water for about five seconds.”
Gunderson said the friends reported that the creature then moved its head back and forth before disappearing with a “serpentine motion” of the body.
Another sighting had taken place several months earlier in 2028 when Riverside Inn proprietor Norman Thomas and his wife reported “having distinctly seen” a mysterious monster while out on the lake in their speedboat.
“They noticed what appeared to be two logs ahead of them and, steering between the logs, they passed around the end of one log to within 60 feet of the other log when what they had thought was a log suddenly bowed up in the middle and disappeared with great commotion,” Gunderson wrote.
“They then realized that there were no logs nearby and therefore concluded that it was the same serpent they had seen on previous occasions. Thomas stated that in the past, when four tourists were also on board his boat, a long neck about 10 or 12 feet above the water was sighted. He stopped the boat to get a better view of what looked like a large snake upwards of 30-feet-long.”
Gunderson said reporting of the mysterious creature has continued over years, but no evidence has ever been presented that Stin-Qua actually existed, or still exists.
But Chilton says he thinks something out of the ordinary is present in Cowichan Lake and he’d like to see this enigmatic entity for myself.
He says he’s considering renting a cabin next spring on the Youbou side of the lake to monitor the water from that vantage with infrared camera equipment.
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