As a researcher of unusual historical phenomena, I investigate strange stories, but I had no intention of doing it in Alberta, Canada. However, I came across something really strange in the small vacation town of Banff.
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I stopped at a hunter shop called the Banff Indian Trader Shop. At the back was a display case that housed a strange looking mummy, supposed to have belonged to a merman. Just looking at it, it was obviously fake: different animal parts combined to create a creature that probably doesn’t exist.
The strange Newt from Banff, Alberta (Canada). Image courtesy of the author, © Ken Jeremiah
A newt in Lake Superior?
However, in the same case there was an article titled A Triton on Lake Superior which had originally been printed in the Canadian Magazine and Literary Repository in 1824, and a story credited to Stoney Nakoda called Enoch Baptiste, which was translated by Horace Holloway in 1954. This is the story as it appears in the case:
“To the northeast of Lake Minnewanka is a mountain with a high, sharp, towering peak. From a great distance you can see snow on its top, but there is never snow on its side. The mountain is so steep that the snow does not stay on it. Because the spirits lived on top of it, the Indians called it a spirit mountain.
They called the nearby lake Minnewanka, which means Water of the Spirits. Every time they traveled in the vicinity of the lake, they heard the voices of the spirits. As they passed, they couldn’t see anything that was making the sounds, but they could hear the sounds.
Once when our people were camping near the lake, my father heard what seemed to be the sound of a drum. The noise seemed to come from the water. He could also hear voices in the lake. He soon realized that the water was reaching the shore. He walked over to the camp, and then came back again.
Soon my father saw, near the center of the lake, a strange creature coming out of the water. He was half fish and half human. He had carried the water towards the shore and then had risen to the surface. As my father watched, the fish-person sank back into the lake.
Other people also saw the strange creature. They were so scared that they broke camp and never camped there again. All the Indians stayed away from that water. There was no fishing or canoeing on Lake Minnewanka until the whites came.
Strange creatures in other lakes were sometimes killed by lightning, but I’ve never heard of this one being killed.
Many Indians are still afraid of the lake. A few years ago, some Indian children were working there, helping to build a dam. They did not want to work in that place, because they had heard about the strange fish-person. One of the boys died in a freak accident. Some people say that the accident happened because the spirits did not like that the trees near the lake were destroyed.”
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Obviously a strange story, there is no information available as to whether this story is legit or not, if it is in fact a Native American legend. Assuming it is, we have to look at the elements of the story to venture to guess why it was created. The first possibility is unlikely: that a creature was actually seen in the lake. Another is much more plausible: the mountain near the lake and the lake itself were considered sacred places, places called Spirit Mountain and Spirit Water, but according to the legend of Stoney Nakoda, the indigenous inhabitants were afraid of the place and avoided it; only invaders frequented the place. The legend of a supernatural creature could have been created to keep settlers away from a seemingly numinous place.
Was a mysterious creature seen in the lake, sparking the Native American legend? Image courtesy of the author, © Ken Jeremiah
Although this is certainly possible, there are other, more modern stories to explain the merman at the Indian Trading Post, located near the Banff Avenue Bridge. The townspeople have varied explanations, such as coming from England in the 1940s and being created as some sort of freak attraction; But the executive director of the Whyte Museum in the Canadian Rockies has proof that another story is true: Norman Luxton (1876-1962), an important figure in the development of the city of Banff, was the original owner of the store.
The strange makeshift creature, where did it come from? Image courtesy of the author, © Ken Jeremiah
The other document in the case (A Newt in Lake Superior) mentions the possible existence of many unusual creatures that witnesses claim to have seen. Asking the question, “Does it exist?” its author ventures an answer:
“It’s rarely seen, and it’s little known, it’s not an argument against it; for, though the ardent spirit of inquiry has made many discoveries in later ages, these have only served to establish more firmly the fact that ‘myriads of beings possess this world invisible to mortal eye’. The hidden things of this world, the more man advances, the more extensive a field opens to his sight for his investigation; and only a brief progress in the course will force him to confess that there are more things in this world than are dreamed of in our philosophy.”
In other words, it’s possible that a variety of unlikely creatures actually exist, even though they’re rarely seen.
Today, the Banff merman is featured on websites, including the one run by the Banff Indian Trading Post, and even appears to have his own Twitter account (btpmerman), where his self-introduction reads: “My name is Herman the Merman. I enjoy swimming in the lake at sunset and shopping at the Banff Indian Trading Post.”
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