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PaperclipPerfector  15hr ago (text post)   603 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 22, 2025

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Ogopogo is your bog-standard lake monster with a cool name. I'd have assumed it was invented to sell cute snake plushies at souvenir shops, if not for its apparent long history:

According to Ben Radford, the Ogopogo is "more closely tied to native myths than is any other lake monster." The Secwepemc and Syilx natives regarded the Ogopogo, which they called the Naitaka, as "an evil supernatural entity with great power and ill intent."[7] The word "n'ha-a-itk" has various translations, such as "water-demon", "water god", or "sacred creature of the water".[8] In native lore, Naitaka demanded a live sacrifice for safe crossing of the lake. For hundreds of years, First Nations would sacrifice small animals before entering the water. Oral traditions often described visiting chief Timbasket, who rejected the required sacrifice, denying the existence of the demon. Upon entering the lake on a canoe with his family, Naitaka "whipped up the surface of the lake with his long tail" and the canoe and its occupants were sucked to the bottom of the lake. The Naitaka was often described as using its tail to create fierce storms to drown victims. In 1855, settler John MacDougal claimed that his horses were sucked down into the water, and nearly his canoe before he cut the line.

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