80 miles (130 km) long and 25 miles (40 km) wide and covering an area of 1,150 square miles (3,000 square km), Iliamna Lake located in southwestern Alaska U.S., lying west of Cook Inlet and named by the Tanania Natives, the lake was said to be inhabited by a mythical creature that would bite massive holes in canoes. The active Iliamna Volcano (10,016 feet [3,053 meters]) lies northeast of the lake at the head of Tuxedni Glacier. The shores of the lake are scattered with small villages, inhabited predominantly by Alaskan natives; tourism is economically important for the town of Iliamna, on the lake’s north side
Reports of a monster known by locals as "Illie" lurking in its depths have gone back for centuries. The Tinglit people have told stories of a creature referred to as "Gonakadet". The creatures were described as large, water-dwelling animals with a head and tail similar to that of a wolf, and a body like an Orca.
One of many stylized representations of a mythical sea creature of the Northern Native tribes. Known to the Haida people as "Wasgo", and to the Tlingit people, Gonakadet, the Sea-Wolf. This creature, who is part wolf, part whale
Shown above an artist's rendition of pictographs found of "Avanu", a Horned serpent.
The Gonakadet was depicted as a "fish-god", and was documented in pictographs along the Alaskan and British Columbian coasts. Other reports of the monster came from the native Aleut people, who tell stories of creatures they call the "Jig-ik-nak". These monsters were reported to travel in groups and attack canoes. The creatures were feared and not hunted by the Aleut.
Nathan Hill of Kakhonak captured intriguing footage on his cell phone of what looks to be a long serpent with three humps breaking the surface moving in a vertical undulation, with an estimated size of 30-50 ft. Was this creature just one? Or could it have been more than one creature that could be mistaken as one individual?
Nathan Hill's Footage taken on June 18, 2017 (Courtesy of "Alaska Triangle" which aired on the Travel Channel)
Thaniel Keesling, a local fisherman saw a similar creature just yards from him near the same location while on his canoe. Keesling described the creature as looking like a giant snake, as wide as his canoe, around three times the length of his canoe. He also described the creature as having black leathery-looking skin. The movement he described was a vertical undulation as it swam. He also reported seeing a snout pop up to the surface with an arched neck following directly behind it.
The following evening of June 19, 2017, Cherlyn Chockonuk and Sassa Wassilie were at their camp checking the gill netting and saw “strange waves” about a mile offshore between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. They were soon joined by Irene Wilson, and they watched three separate creatures, repeatedly surfacing and submerging, and changing directions for about 40 minutes.
Some candidates for what people might be seeing in the Lake are sturgeons, belugas, sleeper sharks, gray whales, and roaming pods of freshwater seals. According to locals, it is highly unusual that a saltwater animal finds its way into the lake.
Then there is also the problem of freshwater. Beluga's have been reported to occasionally find their way into freshwater. Whales migrate based on the seasons and their needs. To access their food, they may find themselves in brackish water (water with a salt content lower than that of seawater), or even in freshwater. Belugas travel hundreds of miles up the Yukon River, chasing salmon, but every one of the eye-witnesses are familiar with this small white whale and truthfully, they would be seen surfacing on a regular basis as they are air breathers. The color of these creatures do not match the reports and belugas have never been reported in Lake Iliamna. The ability of gray whales to do so would also be a major discovery.
If they are whales, breeding in the lake which normally freezes over would be extraordinarily unlikely. If they migrate, the Kvichak River is the lake’s outflow to the west. It is alternately shallow, braided, and deep, but creatures of such size making occasional or semi-regular migrations into and out of the lake would be hard to hide in the river.
One single seal that could be mistaken for Illie, is a bit of a far stretch. A roaming pod, surfacing and submerging in unison, could account for some reports I am sure, but the movement reported by eyewitnesses and the Hill footage that I have analyzed, do not show usual pinniped behavior.
