Cadborosaurus: The Langley and Kemp Sightings off Victoria, 1932 and 1933

The Chatham Islands are a small group east of Oak Bay, at the southeast tip of Vancouver Island. Here Baynes Channel meets Haro Strait, with Cadboro Bay just to the northwest. The tide runs hard. At spring tides the ebb near Strongtide Islet reaches nearly six knots.

In 1933 the Loch Ness monster had become big news. Victoria was about to get a serpent of its own.

About 1 October 1933. Major William Henry Langley was sailing with his wife off Chatham Island. Langley was a Victoria barrister and Clerk of the British Columbia Legislature. He had also been whaling.

They heard it first: "A grunt and a snort accompanied by a huge hiss." Then they "saw a huge object about 90 to 100 feet off." Langley said, "The only part of it that we saw was a huge dome of what was apparently a portion of its back," and that it was "every bit as big as the back of a large whale, but entirely different in many aspects." Its colour was greenish brown, with serrated markings along the top and sides, and then it dove. Langley insisted it was not a whale; he is reported to have sworn an affidavit, said to be held at the Maritime Museum of B.C.

Langley's story brought another witness forward. F. W. Kemp, an employee of the Provincial Archives, had kept quiet for more than a year. On 10 August 1932 he was on the beach on Chatham Island with his wife and son. "The channel at this point is about 500 yards wide." Something was swimming toward the steep rocks of the island opposite.

"The creature shot its head out of the water on to the rock, and moving its head from side to side, appeared to be taking its bearings. Then fold after fold of its body came to the surface." Toward the tail it looked serrated, "like the cutting edge of a saw," with something moving flail-like at the end; "the movements were like those of a crocodile." A mane drifted round the body "like kelp." Kemp judged it over 60 feet long and at least 1200 feet away; after several minutes it slid off the rocks and swam away, and he drew a sketch of what he saw.

The Victoria Daily Times ran the story on 5 October 1933. Editor Archie H. Wills took up the name Cadborosaurus after a letter from "I. Vacedun," and popularized it on October 11. Other names were offered, among them "Amy" and "Hyaschuckaluck," given as a Chinook term for a large water snake. Coverage spread across the continent, and more sightings followed.

Neither sighting left photographs, film or physical traces. Seattle fishermen in 1933 blamed giant conger eels. Sceptic Daniel Loxton later argued that both witnesses most likely misjudged marine mammals at a distance, calling Kemp's view "extremely uncertain because of the tremendous distance involved." He noted that King Kong, with its swimming sauropod, had opened in Victoria about six months before the reports were published. He found the parallels with Kemp's sketch "striking."

Others took the reports further. In 1995 LeBlond and Bousfield named the animal Cadborosaurus willsi, honouring Wills, and proposed a surviving serpent-like plesiosaur. Darren Naish later listed "factual errors and strange, embarrassing mistakes" in their anatomy.

Caddy went on to gather carcasses, photographs and video. The 1937 Naden Harbour carcass. The 2009 Kelly Nash video from Alaska. None has settled the question. It all began with a hiss off Chatham Island and a head raised onto a rock.