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  The wheelchair man was a very spiritual fellow. Rarely had I heard more bollocks spoken. He urged the surrounding crusties to close their eyes and imagine themselves to be in a happy place. Then he started chanting some mantra in cod Tibetan. It was embarrassing. To try to drown him out I asked my Japanese waitress whether she had heard of the Hibagon. Sadly, her English wasn’t that great and she thought I was ordering something off the menu. It all became quite confusing.

  After lunch I drove north, away from the lake and towards the mountains where, so my sat-nav promised me, Arlene Gaal lived. As I drove further and further inland it dawned on me that I’d rather expected her to be on the lakeshore with cameras trained on the waters. When I eventually got to her place I realized you couldn’t even see the lake from there.

  She greeted me at the door to her home, a little white puppy yapping at her feet. She was a sweet little old lady and had set up a table on which loads of photos were laid out. Some of the snaps were from strangers who’d sent them to her; others were ones she’d taken. She had become a focus for Ogopogo sightings. People who didn’t know what to do with them were always directed to her. I really wanted to tell her about my sighting but thought I should be polite and wait a bit. I looked through the photos. A lot of them could easily have been freak big waves on a calm lake but there were several that were not so explainable. To me what was convincing was the sheer number of unexplained sightings, especially by people who did not want their names released for fear of ridicule. I’d assumed most people would be publicity seekers using the opportunity to get on the television. Far from it: Arlene said a lot of people were very reticent to discuss their sightings because they didn’t want to be laughed at.

  This was my first meeting with a cryptozoologist and she didn’t seem that strange – but I noticed that whenever we talked about Ogopogo a steely determination appeared in her eyes. The ‘Folden film’ in 1968 had been what started it all for her. Sawmill worker Art Folden was driving along the lake-shore when he noticed something strange in the water. He pointed it out to his wife and they stopped the car and Art got out his 8mm cine camera and started filming. The object was diving in and out of the water so Folden, being aware that he didn’t have much film, started to shoot every time the thing reappeared. Eventually it swam away from its initial position quite near the shore and disappeared into the deeper waters in the middle of the lake. According to Arlene this was still the best footage ever taken. She said that on the lakeshore road just near where Folden took his footage there used to be an official sign that read:

  OGOPOGO’S HOME

  Before the unimaginative, practical, white man came the fearsome lake monster n’aavit was well known to the primitive, superstitious Indian. His home was believed to be a cave at Squally Point and small animals were carried in their canoes to appease the serpent.

  Ogopogo is still seen each year – but now by white men.

  It seemed quite a patronizing sign and the government who originally put it up clearly felt the same, as it had now been removed.

  I told her that I’d assumed the locals would have really used the Ogopogo story to attract tourists, but there was almost nothing visible in the valley except for the statue in the port.

  She said that she loathed the statue because it was ‘stupid and Disneyesque’.

  I told her what hotel I was staying at and she said that there had been a great sighting from there. She advised me to sit on my balcony and watch the lake. If it hadn’t been for my sighting the other morning using this ‘method’ I might have been more dissatisfied by her suggestion.

  I’d been hoping that she might have more scientific methods for me to try. I suppose I’d always thought of monster-hunting as being a bit more exciting than just sitting staring at a lake. I wanted underwater cameras, sonars, submarine trips . . .

  With my sighting in the bag, however, I was very happy just to show her the footage on my iPhone and wallow in the glory She watched it without saying a word but her eyes were sharp and focused on my little screen. When it finished she looked up at me and smiled.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got yourself a sighting . . .’

  I secretly wondered whether I’d make it into her next book. I sat back, hoping for something to now happen. Maybe the international news media would start swarming in? Possibly I would be asked to tell my story to packed amphitheatres? Whatever, I was sure that Arlene would know what to do. She did nothing. After some polite conversation she offered me some tea and biscuits. It was all a bit of a let-down.

  I said goodbye to Arlene and drove away a little disappointed. I wasn’t sure quite what I’d expected . . . But I hadn’t got it. Once back at my hotel I sat on my new balcony and watched the lake.

  I watched the lake for quite some time until I started to get bored of watching the lake and wandered downstairs to have a meal. I ate some duck with a bottle of local wine. It was exceptionally good wine. I asked the waitress where the winery was and she told me that it was fairly nearby, on a hill ‘with an amazing view of the lake’. I figured if I was going to have to stare at the lake then I should do it from a winery rather than my hotel balcony. I thanked her and said, ‘I saw Ogopogo yesterday.’ She looked at me blankly and I didn’t pursue the matter.

  Therefore, the following morning, I found myself driving through the plush Mission quarter of Kelowna until the road started to climb out of town. Soon I was high above the lake in front of the Summerhill Pyramid Winery. To my right as I drove in was a gargantuan grey pyramid overlooking the lake. What was it with this valley and bloody pyramids?

  It was an absolutely gorgeous day and I stood on the terrace overlooking a vast expanse of the lake. I could clearly see the bridge the scuba divers had resigned from working on after spotting ‘large objects’ down there. It was a curious design: solid, flat concrete blocks were set in the water from both banks. In the centre two arches in the shape of humps rose into the air; these allowed boat traffic through. It basically created a narrow funnel in the middle of the lake. For Ogopogo to travel from north to south, or vice versa, he’d have to swim beneath these two arches. Surely science was at a stage where two motion-sensor cameras could be placed underwater? I supposed it was money: who would pay for something like that? A monster-hunter, that’s who, so technically me . . . I sat on the terrace of the winery and gorged myself on the beautiful view and a Mimosa.

  I got chatting to the waitress and asked whether she’d seen Ogopogo. She said no, but she had a friend who’d seen it -although he wouldn’t talk to media because everyone would laugh at him. She said she tried not to think about Ogopogo when she was swimming in the lake. A manager approached my table and asked me where I was from and whether I would like a tour of the winery. Why not?

  Two minutes into the tour I remembered why not. I’d already promised myself I’d never go on another winery tour ever again. They’re all identical and incredibly dull. Nobody cares how the stuff’s made – just pour some into a glass and get on with it. I’ve always found myself trying to ask intelligent-sounding questions that I couldn’t really give a shit about. It’s weird: people don’t go on tours of biscuit factories or tuna canneries (although both would be more interesting), so why do we go to wineries? The answer is that we all think we’re going to get free wine under the auspices of ‘tasting’ – but so what? Are we really that cheap?

  All this was going through my mind as I was shown a kylini, an old Indian-style home like a huge underground yurt. We descended some steps into the cavernous room with a chimney in the centre for the smoke from the fire to escape through. There were a couple of teens with dreads cleaning up after an event the previous night.

  ‘Was it a wine-tasting?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ replied my guide, ‘a witchcraft healing session . . .’

  I nodded like this should have been obvious but started to wonder whether I had stumbled into some New-Age vacation retreat by mistake. As we climbed up towards the pyramid my guide told me
that it was exactly an eighth the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. I’ve been to the Pyramids and, looking at this edifice, I privately doubted her claim but I kept schtum. My guide told me (though it was rapidly becoming obvious anyway) that the owners of this winery were hippies and very spiritually inclined. All the wine made on the property had to be stored for a certain time in the pyramid as ‘history suggests that pyramids have magical powers over liquids’. The owner claimed to have blind-tested people on two versions of the same wine, one that had been ‘pyramided’ and one that hadn’t. Ninety per cent supposedly preferred the pyramided wine. I didn’t really know what to say. I just did my nodding thing and wondered how long it would be until I could get some free wine.

  ‘I believe this is the only winery in the world where the wine is stored in a pyramid . . .’ said my guide.

  I wasn’t going to argue but . . . So fucking what? I tried to steer the subject away from New-Age bollocks to something a lot more real: Ogopogo. I asked my guide if she had ever seen it. She said that she hadn’t but her dad was a firm believer. He’d been out on his boat as an eighteen-year-old when Ogopogo surfaced right in front of him. He saw two huge humps and massive water displacement. It lasted for about thirty seconds and then it was gone. She said that he was loath to talk about it with strangers but all the family had heard the story many times.

  We left the pyramid and got to the tasting room. I knocked back about seven glasses of sparkling wine in quick succession and started waffling on about how pyramidic it all tasted. She could tell I was taking the piss and it soon became clear that both the tour and the free wine were at an end.

  All this fizzy stuff had gone to my head a touch so I decided to go for a short walk. I headed off down a quiet little road that snaked south just above the lake. There was hardly anybody about and I thought I could find a spot to sit and watch the lake for a while. After about five minutes I spotted a narrow turn-off towards a viewpoint, the edge of a tall cliff with a perfect panorama of the lake. There was nobody about except for one man, sat alone on the edge of the cliff on a collapsible camping chair. He had a flask of something by his side and was scanning the lake with a medium-sized pair of binoculars. I sensed a kindred spirit. I wandered up to the edge of the cliff and looked out as well. He noticed me and we nodded politely at each other. Emboldened, I approached him.

  ‘Looking for Ogopogo?’

  I tried to stop the moment I started saying it, realizing that, should he happen not to be familiar with the legend, this would sound very much like an offer of some rather specialist gay sex.

  He wasn’t familiar with the legend and suddenly looked very panicky. He replied defensively.

  ‘No, I don’t want anything like that . . . Please go away.’

  Mortified, I tried to explain that I was talking about a lake monster and that I wasn’t some cliff-top cruiser but this just made things worse. I eventually slipped away after forcing myself to stay and survey the lake for a couple of faux-nonchalant beats while trying to look really relaxed. He watched me walk away while shaking his head in clear disgust.

  As I walked on downhill I laughed to myself at the absurdity of the situation. A bit further down the road there was a sign for a car park: ‘Cedar Creek Beach’. Just beyond it was a little pebble peach and the water actually looked quite inviting – the sun sparkled off it and there was nobody around. The water was reasonably shallow but I could see where it dropped away about 100 yards offshore. The guys who’d taken me out to Rattlesnake Island had mentioned that Kelowna was actually built on a rock shelf that jutted out into the lake. I had a strong urge to swim. I was a little freaked out about swimming in these waters but something inside me wanted to try to conquer my fears. Also it was really quite hot and I knew I could do with a cool down. I could see the bottom and it was a mixture of seaweedy-type stuff and big round pebbles. I decided to go for it. I didn’t have any swimming trunks or towel with me but a ‘what the fuck’ feeling enveloped me and I felt adventurous. I looked around: both the car park and the beach were totally deserted. I stripped off naked, took one last look around and headed off towards the water holding my left hand over my privates. I gingerly stepped on to the beach and started walking into the lake until I was about knee-deep. It was crazily cold and I realized that this was going to be a very quick dip in and out but I was determined to at least submerge myself once in Ogopogo’s home. I stepped forward again and suddenly felt a searing pain in my left foot. I’d stepped on something incredibly sharp – I don’t know if it was a piece of broken glass, a can, or whatever, but it had made a huge cut in my foot and I was in incredible pain. I screamed blue murder: ‘Fuck . . . ! Fuckity fuck . . . Fuck fuckity shitting fuck!’ Screaming obscenities made me feel a little better.

  My hand had come off my freezing privates and I was now dancing about in the shallow waters with my hands on the side of my head trying to somehow compress the pain away. The sound of my screaming echoed around the beach and bounced off the tall cliffs around me. It was only after about twenty seconds that I happened to look up. The man on the chair who’d presumed I’d offered him specialist gay sex was now standing on the edge of the cliff looking right down at my naked form hopping and screaming in the shallow waters of Lake Okanagan. Our eyes met for a second and, even at that distance, I could sense a mixture of withering pity and disgust. It was useless trying to explain.

  I bolted back to the car park, grabbed my clothes and legged it. I eventually found cover in a little copse of trees, got dressed and tried to wrap my T-shirt round my bleeding foot.

  This was turning into a stressful Sunday. I was bored of hotel food so decided to head into town for dinner. Sunday nights in Kelowna were not rocking and there wasn’t that much open. Eventually I opted for a chain place called the Keg. It was semi-buzzing and did obese portions of steak and seafood. At the back of my mind I was worried that I might bump into my cliff-top friend – and if I did, I wanted to look as manly as possible, downing pints, eating raw meat and talking to loggers . . . Actually, talking to loggers sounded a bit weird as well.

  So, I was sitting at the bar nursing a pint and watching Canadian football. For some unfathomable reason this is slightly different from the American version so they can’t play each other. The Canadian version has twelve players on the pitch, as opposed to the American eleven, and they have only three downs per possession whereas the American game has four.

  Not that this really matters: Canadians are all about ice hockey anyway. Kelowna’s ice-hockey team is the Rockets and they have Ogopogo as their mascot. The team was originally from Tacoma, just below Seattle, but they were surrounded by big cities so they moved to Kelowna for more fans. They kept the name Rockets because Tacoma was where Boeing made rockets but they adopted Ogopogo as a mascot to incorporate some local colour.

  But I digress. I was at the bar in the Keg when a face suddenly came right up to mine.

  ‘Guess who?’

  It was a girl and I genuinely had absolutely no idea who she was.

  ‘Hey, how are you?’ I said, desperately trying to work out who she might be.

  ‘How weird is this? You doing the rounds about town?’

  Suddenly I clicked: this was the waitress from the winery and it looked like news of my anal cruising hadn’t yet spread too far.

  She moved on to join a table of friends for dinner and I returned to my pint. Then Krist Novoselic walked in. I first noticed him because he was freakishly tall – around six feet seven, maybe eight? He had put on some serious poundage since his skinny youth noodling on the bass in Nirvana but it was him all right. I was certain. He was with a girl much younger than him. She was pretty and blonde with a weird name like Skylar. I know this because the barman went a little gushy and asked Krist how he was doing. Krist nodded and introduced Skylar. The barman totally ignored me from then on and just talked to Krist. He asked Krist if he was playing at the moment. Krist nodded and mentioned a couple of gigs. Did Krist want something to eat
, wondered the wide-eyed barman? No he didn’t; he and Skylar were just having a drink and then going to see a friend in a band. I liked Krist. Krist seemed nice.

  I moved into major eavesdropping mode. I love listening to other people’s conversations, especially when those people used to be in Nirvana. It made total sense that he should be here. Seattle is only an hour or so away from Kelowna and lots of famous people have houses here on the lake: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wayne Gretzky . . . And, clearly, Krist Novoselic from Nirvana. I pretended to play with my iPad while I listened in. Krist was telling Skylar, clearly a musician herself, that he was really impressed with her playing.

  ‘You know the chords,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘but now you need anticipation.’

  Skylar looked at him adoringly and Krist continued with his master class. Krist told her that when he saw a hand move over a fretboard he instinctively knew what was going to be played, allowing him to kick in bang on time, not a millisecond late.

  ‘But that only comes with years of playing,’ he said.

  Skylar lapped it all up. I tried to think about what I knew of him – I thought he was Croatian in origin and he started the band with Kurt; he fought with Courtney Love over the Nirvana legacy and he was pretty political . . . Oh and he once hit me over the head with his bass guitar.

  This is a true story, I swear. When I was at SOAS in London for my university years I used to help organize bands to play at the union. We once got an offer of a band I loved, Mudhoney, but we also had to take the band supporting them on their mini Sub Pop tour. We weren’t happy but said yes, as we really wanted Mudhoney. That support band was, of course, Nirvana, who’d just finished their first album, Bleach, and were relatively unknown. Come the day of the gig, I told them that they had five songs and then they were off so Mudhoney could come on. They ignored me and played on into a sixth song so I pulled the plug on their PA. The band went mental and Krist swung his bass guitar at me, and it glanced off my head. Never mind, though – my job was done: we wanted Mudhoney on, not these grungy losers . . . Whatever happened to Mudhoney?