Despite numerous reports dating back more than a century, there has never been official confirmation that white sturgeon inhabit Okanagan Lake in B.C.
However, today Glacier Media is sharing strong evidence to confirm their presence - photographs that this columnist shot himself.
On May 10, 2016 I was walking along a beach in the Mission neighbourhood of Kelowna when I came across a curious skull that had washed up on the beach.
Measuring about five inches in length, as a lifelong fisher who has caught and identified countless fish in this province (including sturgeon) I could tell that it was a young sturgeon skull. I could hardly believe my eyes, and immediately shot photos of the top and bottom of it before continuing my walk.
I left the skull there on the beach, which is a decision I regret to this day.
I didn't share the story publicly back in 2016 as I figured the coincidence of the timing was unbelievable - the whole reason I was there was that we were in town filming an episode of our history TV show, digging into the mystery of Ogopogo. Just a couple of days earlier I had asked an Ogopogo researcher if they thought the creature might just be a sturgeon, as many people have speculated over the decades.
Days earlier I had also taken Jordan Coble from the Westbank First Nation out on my boat to talk about the creature his people know as n'ha-a-itk. He told me it's less of an actual physical beast and more of a spirit that looks over the lake and protects it.
Casually walking along a beach and coming across what I knew to be a sturgeon skull, I didn't share it as I didn't think anyone would believe me. It would serve our production and the story we were telling far too greatly to have magically found something that nobody had ever found before.
I'm presenting this evidence today as proof that there are sturgeon in Okanagan Lake. The EXIF data embedded in the original photo files shows exactly where the photo was taken, and when.
