Jorda: the 25-foot 'infant' Cadborosaurus of Jordan River

October 1933. The Victoria Daily Times gave a name to the sea serpent that readers kept reporting in the waters off southern Vancouver Island. Cadborosaurus. Caddy, for short. Witnesses described "a serpent with vertical coils or humps in tandem behind a horse-like head and long neck." Before long the papers spoke of a pair, Caddy and Amy.

The coast west of Victoria already had a story of its own. In 1933 a telegraph lineman working between Jordan River and Port Renfrew claimed he had shot a serpent.

Jordan River is a small community where the river meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca, about 50 km west of Victoria. Spring 1934. Shortly after Easter. Two local couples, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Linder and Mr. and Mrs. A. Cox, saw a serpent swimming. They judged it to be about 25 feet long. And they believed they knew what it was. A young one, the offspring of the famous pair.

They gave it a name. Jorda. Whether it swam in the river itself or offshore in the strait, the surviving text does not say. Nor does it record colour, head shape, humps, or how long the couples watched.

An Associated Press story datelined Victoria carried the news south. The Sunday Star of Washington, D.C., printed it on 22 April 1934. "Old Caddy and Amy Hiaschuckaluck Cadborosaurus, Pacific Northwest sea serpents, have been visited by the stork, Jordan River people believe," it reported. "Mr. And Mrs. Charles Linder and Mr. and Mrs. A. Cox reported they saw the infant, which was about 25 feet long." The tone was playful, as much Caddy coverage was. But four people had put their names to what they saw.

November 1934. Henry Island, near Prince Rupert, at the far north of the British Columbia coast. A fisherman, H. Sunderstrom, found a decomposed carcass some 30 feet long. Dr. Neal Carter, director of the dominion fisheries experimental station, brought it to Prince Rupert. He said it had been dead about two months, and that its red flesh placed it among mammals rather than fish.

The Associated Press reached back to April. It said the carcass matched what the Jordan River witnesses had seen, and it called the remains Jorda too, "the daughter of 'Hiaschuckalick Cadborosaurus,' an 80-foot serpent, and his mate 'Penda,' a 60-foot monster." Within days the Vancouver Sun had a verdict. "'Sea monster' basking shark, says fisheries expert."

No one proposed an explanation for the Jordan River animal itself, and no hoax allegation against the Linders or the Coxes has surfaced. For Caddy reports in general, suggested culprits include conger eels, humpback whales, elephant seals, oarfish, basking sharks and sea lions swimming in a line. Zoologist Darren Naish says the accounts "are most parsimoniously interpreted as descriptions of many things." The November carcass points to one candidate. Yet nobody in 1934 applied that answer to the living animal.

Today Jorda survives in two versions. The Library of Congress revived the April brief on its blog in 2022, witness names and all. PBS's Monstrum, hosted by Emily Zarka, told only the carcass story under the name in 2024. The living animal of Jordan River, 25 feet long and seen by two couples one spring, remains a small, stubborn entry in the long Cadborosaurus file. No photograph. No film. Only four names and a wire story.