Ogopogo
The Syilx called it N'ha-a-itk and left an animal in the water as payment before crossing. The English name comes from a music hall song performed in Vernon in 1924. In 2021 the City of Vernon, which had held the trademark for decades, voted to hand it to the Okanagan Nation Alliance for one dollar.
Field Guide Entry
Susan Allison, the first settler of European descent in the Okanagan Valley, wrote down an account of a creature in the lake in 1872. She was recording what the Syilx had described to her rather than reporting something new. In their accounts the being is N'ha-a-itk, associated with the water around Rattlesnake Island, and travelers crossing the lake put an animal into the water as payment for passage.
The 1926 beach
In the summer of 1926 a group at Okanagan Mission beach reported watching a dark, humped shape surface repeatedly for around 20 minutes. The number of witnesses is usually given as about 30. Regional papers carried it at the time, and it is the sighting every later account is built on, though the original issues are harder to lay hands on than the retellings suggest.
Folden's film and the trademark
Art Folden shot film of a wake from Highway 97 in 1968, and it remains the most reproduced footage of the lake. A National Geographic analysis in 2005 concluded the object was far closer to the camera than Folden had assumed, and was consistent with a beaver, an otter, or waterfowl.
The name arrived from an English music hall song about a banjo playing monster, performed in Vernon in 1924. Vernon registered it and held the copyright and trademark for decades. In 2021 the council voted to transfer both to the Okanagan Nation Alliance for one dollar, which put the name back with the people who had the older one for it.
The statue in Kerry Park was made in 1960 by Peter Soelin and moved to the waterfront in 1998. Kelowna repainted it in 2025 and shifted it a short way north during the promenade rebuild.
Visiting Information
The statue stands on the downtown waterfront promenade, free and open at any hour. It was repainted and moved onto a new base in 2025, so photographs older than that show it in a different spot with a different finish.
Rattlesnake Island, where the Syilx accounts place N'ha-a-itk, is at the south end of the lake near Peachland. It is private and Syilx land and is not somewhere to go ashore, though the drive along Highway 97 and the lake tours both give a clear view of it.
The Okanagan Heritage Museum is a few blocks inland and holds the local material on the sightings. Kelowna is busiest from June through August, when the lake is the reason most people are in town, and the promenade is walkable year round.
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