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HAUNTS RESIDENTS: Willie Brertton, amember of the Saddle Lake Indian band,■mt V wiruphotopoints to the lake residents on the reserve say is inhabited by a monster.Monster haunts residentsAlberta government trying to find what lives in lakeST PAUL, Alta. (UP) — The provincial government, in a move to calm concerned residents, has agreed to fly a helicopter over a small lake in northeastern Alberta to see if it can find amonster.Residents of the Saddle Lake Indian reserve, 175 kilometres northeast of Kdmonton, say the monster has been in the lake for generations and has been sighted repeatedly.The creature has seldom been clearly described and has no name. Some say it is a hairy, serpentine monster ranging in length from one to99 metres Some say i1 has a horse-like head and another claims it has a horn on its forehead.The fish and wildlife branch plans to send a helicopter over the lake in October, when the water is clearer.We are willing to do that to appease them somewhat,” said Ray Makowecki. branch director for north eastern Alberta.“They obviously must be seeing something. The question is what is it?Willie Brertton, a member of the Saddle Lake band council, said the monster has been sighted about 100 times over the years.There are those who say the creature has never harmed anyone, but others recall a legend of a girl, about age three, who was somehowenticed into the water by the monster about 100 years ago. They claim her screams can still be heard at times.Saddle Lake Chief Henry Quinney is skeptical.“It's lieen going on for years, Quinney said. “I don't know what to say. I have to see it to believe it.The band council decided it wanted answers to the mystery after a band employee reported he had seen thecreature in June.The council closed the lake to motor boats in late July, giving as reasons fear of the monster and concern that the boats were polluting the lake, the source of the band's water.Brertton, appointed to investigate the monster reports further, went to the fish and wildlife branch, which got m touch with the University «f Alberta.Three university specialists visitedthe laklt; July 31 and Aug. 1. They found nothing, although two of them may investigate further.The third expert, Wayne Roberts, curator of the university's zoology museum, believes the sightings were probably nothing more than animals such as moose and beaver.“That’s too bad, because I like to think there are things out there we haven't seen.Roberts patrolled Saddle Lake w itha depth sounder but found nothing unusual.James Stemhauer, the band’s burlv*police chief, said In* and a partner saw the creature one night in August 1983, swimming back and forth about 4b metres offshore,A light fog made it hard to determine the monster’s features but Steinhauer said it resembled a snake and was roughly one metre in width.“We threw a couple of rocks at it and took off, he said. I used to think it was just a bunch of lies. Now Ibelieve there is something in the lake.Elmer Jackson, a 59-year-oldfarmer who lives near the lake, describes the creature as having a single horn on its forehead with a bodv about one metre wide and 99 metres long He said he got a view of it three years agowhen it surfaced about three metresfrom his boat.Robert Purdy, a graduate student m wildland recreation who went on thetrip to Saddle Lake w ith the universityspecialists, believes there might be something to the sightings.“I believe the people who were telling the stories had seen something that disturbed them. Purdy said.rhey couldn’t all be mass-hallucinating. Who knows? Maybe they were.4.4 nr*
Newspaper Details
Brandon Sun
Brandon, Manitoba, CA
Sat, Sep 01, 1984
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Kevin S.
CA 28 Nov 2020
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