The Dimpled Mermaid of Active Pass, Mayne Island (1967)

Active Pass is a narrow channel in the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. The big BC Ferries vessels thread through it on the run between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen. In June 1967, passengers on those ferries had something new to look at.

June 1967. Early evening. A rock at the west entrance to Active Pass.

Passengers aboard the Queen of Saanich looked toward the shore and saw "a long-haired blonde with the lower body of a fish or porpoise." She sat on the rock as if she belonged there. "Long, silver-blond hair and topless condition were generally agreed upon," the Daily Colonist reported. One witness called her attractive, with dimples. A man was firm on one point: "…it was definitely a girl. Definitely."

She had a meal with her. "Several witnesses said the mermaid had a large fish, apparently coho salmon, and one swore she had taken a bite out of it." She did not swim. She did not dive. She stayed put as the ferry wakes broke over her. One witness said "she seemed to enjoy the wake of the ferry washing over her." She was visible for over an hour.

George Harrison, a tourist from Sioux City, Iowa, took a picture from the ferry. The Daily Colonist printed it. Shortly after 7 p.m., a Cobble Hill man flew over the spot and took an aerial photograph. It "corresponded closely" to Harrison's picture and showed "a silvery object on the rock beside the mermaid." That photo was never published.

The Daily Colonist was the only newspaper to carry the story. A follow up named the place as Helen Point, on the northwest corner of Mayne Island. Then came an offer. Charles White of the Undersea Gardens, a Victoria aquarium attraction, put up a $25,000 reward. It would be paid once a "panel of competent marine biologists" confirmed she was real. The mermaid was also offered a contract with "a substantial salary, room and board," and a supply of "the special combs that mermaids use." The paper called her the "dimpled mermaid of Active Pass."

The answer waited almost half a century. In 2016, Times Colonist columnist Dave Obee tracked down Judy Allred. Her first words to him: "You have no life, honey." Then she confirmed it. She had been the mermaid, "49 years ago."

Local residents had wanted a mermaid sighting to promote a fishing derby. Andy Lord and his wife, Lois, made the costume. It came with a blonde wig "long enough to cover her chest." That was the topless look. Allred was taken to the spot by boat, along with a salmon that already had "a chunk taken out of it."

She remembered the hour very differently from the passengers. The costume was "uncomfortable and dangerous." The wake they thought she enjoyed nearly swept her away. "The backwash from the ferries almost pulled me in… I was just screaming for someone to come get me." Obee describes her "hating every second."

The witnesses were not wrong. They described exactly what was on that rock. They simply did not know who was inside the tail. Obee suggested the mermaid "might turn out to be one of Lord's most lasting contributions to local history." Some retellings add a second appearance the following week, but no 1967 source confirms it. The dimpled mermaid now sits beside the Thetis Lake Monster and Cadborosaurus in the newspaper folklore of the Victoria area.