Bear Lake Monster: tall tales and tourism

By Mark Thiessen
The Associated Press

DOUGLAS C. PIZAC / AP A sea-monster-shaped pontoon boat run by Brian Hirschi ferries tourists on a tour of Bear Lake, north of Garden City, Utah. The Bear Lake Monster has been a source of debate since 1868.

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GARDEN CITY, Utah — There's no photographic proof, but some say it looks like a walrus minus the tusks.

Others are adamant it's a dinosaur. Or a big alligator that swims really fast.

But while the existence of the Bear Lake Monster has been debated at coffee shops and campfires since the first published report in 1868, this much is undisputed: Stories about the monster bring in the tourists and make cash registers sing at stores ringing the lake on the Idaho-Utah border.

"Yes, it's good for business," said Vic Tilt, who along with his wife owns Gladys' Place, a combination convenience and liquor store, deli, post office and gift shop in nearby Fish Haven, Idaho.

The Tilts have no firsthand sightings to confirm the creature's existence in the 20-mile-long lake, but are quick to say anything is possible. "I believe in the tooth fairy," said Gladys Tilt. "I love having these things to think about."

The 136-year-old tale got new fins when Bear Lake business owner Brian Hirschi announced that he had seen the creature. Skeptics pointed out his recounting of the sighting appeared in a Salt Lake newspaper on Memorial Day weekend — the start of the summer tourist season.

It happened, he insists, one night two years ago as he was anchoring his large pontoon boat — shaped like a sea monster — after a day of ferrying tourists around the 20-mile-long, 8-mile-wide and 208-foot-deep crystal blue lake.

After throwing the anchor, he saw "these two humps in the water" about 100 yards from the boat. At first he thought they were lost water skis, but they disappeared. Then, his boat lifted up.

"I started to get scared," said Hirschi, who owns five watercraft rental locations around the lake. "The next thing I know, a serpent-like creature shot up out of the water."

He said it had "really dark, slimy green skin and deep beet-red eyes." It went back under water and made a sound like a roaring bull before taking off.

Hirschi said he hesitated before telling anyone about his experience, fearing they would "think I was crazy or on the lake too much." To those who say it's obviously a publicity stunt, Hirschi responds: "Once you've seen the monster, you really don't care what other people say."

Steve Siporin, a professor of English and history at Utah State University in nearby Logan, says stories about the monster have "more to do with tourism than belief. It seems like an awful lot of vacation lakes have their own monster, a local symbol of pride. What self-respecting lake can there be without its own monster?"

The origins of the Bear Lake Monster go back to a series of articles written by Joseph C. Rich, a Mormon colonizer at Bear Lake. His articles in Salt Lake City's Deseret Evening News claimed several upstanding citizens, but not Rich himself, had seen the creature. However, in 1888 he recanted the stories, saying he had made up the monster.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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