Library of Cryptozoology

The monster taken at Fortune Bay was still unidentified two days after it was killed in a 48-hour battle against fishermen's guns and harpoons, and was lying lashed to Capt. Earl Noble's motor vessel Golda awaiting an offer of purchase. If no museum or institution buys the huge carcass, its nine-inch deep coat of fat will be fried into oil. The exact length of the creature is 34 feet. It is finless, but has several pairs of four-foot long flippers. Its tail is nine feet in extreme width; while the mouth, three feet, eight inches across, extends nine feet from the tip of the snouth. The immense fish differs greatly from any whales frequenting Newfoundland waters, and does not fit descriptions of any known fish.

The 16th I went out in a canoe which Captain Kendrick purchased of the natives and made me a present of shooting I left the ship [Columbia] early with an intention of seeing the village of Okerminna [in Clayoquot Sound] it was noon before I arrived at Inistuck ... before which is a clever snug cove in which there were many geese, ducks and teal sporting here I landed in order to get a shot at them one of the people that was with me who also landed in creeping along the edge of the bush saw an animal which I conceiv'd to be an alligator the man was so agitated as not to be able to give any description of what he had seen than that it was a huge animal very long with a large mouth and teeth the neck about as thick as his thigh and so tapered of to the tail with a black back and light yellow belly I immediately repaired to the place where this animal had been seen but could not get a sight of him from this circumstance I was induced to think it was only a burnt log (of which there are...

A killer elephant, which some have interpreted as possibly a mammoth, was tricked onto thin ice on this lake [Lake Watson] by a resourceful boy. The elephant went through and drowned, thus saving the remaining people from its ravages ... Elder Mida Donnessey ... then continued with the story of another elephant, whose lair was in the upper Hyland River, which was also killed by humans.

When asked to describe Kátcheetohúskw, the [Naskapi] informants said he was very large, had a big head, large ears and teeth, and a long nose with which he hit people. His tracks in the snow were described in their stories as large and round. One Indian who had seen pictures of the modern elephant said he thought that Kátcheetohúskw was the elephant ... the older Indians question were unanimous in declaring that such had always been the description of the Kátcheetohúskw so far as they had any knowledge. ... Dr. Frank G. Speck has kindly sent me an interesting tale which he recently secured from the Penobscot Indians of Maine. The myth concerns the adventures of Snowy Owl, a Penobscot culture hero ... He saw what seemed to be hills without vegetation moving slowly about. Upon closer scrutiny he saw that these masses were really the backs of great animals with long teeth, animals so huge that when they lay down they could not get up. They drank for half a day at a time. Snowy Owl went ...

... [28 September 1807:] The Old Chief & others related that in the Woods of the Mountains there is a very large Animal, of abt the height of 3 fms & great bulk that never lies down, but in sleeping always leans against a large Tree to support his weight; they believe, they say, that he has no joints in the mid of his Legs, but they are not sure as they never killed any of them, & by this acct they are rarely or never seen--this is no doubt some Animal of their Nurses Fables, as they cannot say they ever saw the least remains of a dead one. ... January 5 [1811]: ... we are now entering the defiles of the Rocky Mountains by the Athabasca River... strange to say, here is a strong belief that the haunt of the Mammoth is about this defile... I questioned several, none could positively say they had seen him, but their belief I found firm and not to be shaken.... All I could say did not shake their belief in his existence... ... January 7: Continuing on our journey in the aft...

Some of the Upper Crees, a tribe who inhabit the country in the vicinity of the Athabasca river, have a curious tradition with respect to animals which they state formerly frequented the mountains. They allege that these animals were of frightful magnitude, being from two to three hundred feet in length, and high in proportion; that they formerly lived in the plains, agreat distance to the eastward; from which they were gradually driven by the Indians to the Rocky Mountains; that they destroyed all smaller animals; and if their agility was equal to their size, would have also destroyed all the natives, &c. One man has asserted that his grandfather told him he saw one of those animals in a mountain pass, where he was hunting, and that on hearing its roar, which he compared to loud thunder, the sight almost left his eyes, and his heart became as small as an infant's.

Having been shown a number of the Edinburgh Magazine by a gentleman in this neighbourhood, which gives some account of an uncommon animal seen among the mountains of North America, and signifies a hope that some person who has actually seen the animal will come forward and describe what he knows of it, I take this opportunity of testifying, that, in so far can judge from the description, I have seen the very animal in question. In the year 1803, I was sergeant in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and in that capacity accompanied the late Louis in an incursion into the interior, with view to open a direct communication with the Indian nations immediately to the west of us. We left York fort on the 19th of May 1803. About fortnight after, having been sent across a river, the name of which I do not now recollect, by Mr Louis’s orders, the guide and myself suddenly came upon animal of an enormous size. It appeared about 20 feet in height, and had a very heavy and unwieldy appearance...

A peculiar animal was described to Hall, an account of which is scarcely to be found in Arctic books. The natives speak of it as being larger than the bear, and as very ferocious and much more difficult to be killed. It has grayish hair, a long tail, and short, thick legs, its fore feet being divided into three parts like the partridge's; its hind feet are like a man's heels. When resting, it sits upright like a man. A Neitchille Innuit, crawling into a hole for shelter in the night, had found one sound asleep and quickly dispatched it with his knife. It may be added here that Ebierbing, now residing in the United States, confirms such accounts of the " Arc-la ," and says that the animal once inhabited his native country on Cumberland Sound.

I have been induced to name the Great Beaver in this catalogue because there is pretty certain evidence of the existence of such an animal in various parts of the interior towards the North-West. The Indians of many tribes firmly believe in its existence, and assert they have often seen it. I will take, or endeavour to take, an early opportunity to lay before the society such evidences as are in my possession to prove the fact; in the meanwhile, I will merely remark that the skull which was found on the banks of the Delaware nearly forty years ago–which induced the naturalists of the United States to create a new genus under the title of Asteopera –and which skull is still preserved in the Philadelphia Museum, in my mind belonged, beyond all doubt, to this animal, which is still in existence in our remote lakes and rivers in the interior.

It is curious that the Indians of central Canada had a belief (recorded by French and English pioneers) that occasionally in the dusk, or at night, they have seen an enormously large beaver in the water, so large that at first sight they have taken it for a moose. Travellers who have related this have surmised that the Indian perhaps saw a bear swimming, or a female moose, and in the dim light mistook it for a giant beaver. But as we know that there were once giant beavers ( Trogontherium ) as large as a bear, existing in England, it is just possible there may have been a gigantic type of beaver lingering in Canada before the opening up of the country by Europeans.