In honour of Halloween this Friday, here are three stories, myths, and fascinating facts about the North Saskatchewan River. An earlier newsletter mentioned the Giant Beaver that roamed these parts over 10,000 years ago, which was said to weigh 160 kilograms and stand almost as tall as an adult human—now that would be a spooky sight! Happy Halloween from your neighbours at the NSRVCS!
Photo credit: Renee Lammers/Gord Court/Canada Post
The Four Theories Behind the Pink Eye River Monster Sightings
Legends of the river monster "Pink Eye" began near Rocky Mountain House in 1939, near the confluence of the NSR and the Clearwater River, where eyewitnesses first claimed the creature had reddish-pink colored eyes. In July 1942 a group of boys swimming in the river mistook a strange, bobbing object for a log and began throwing rocks at it. When one rock hit, the object—later identified as the fearsome monster Pink Eye—began thrashing, swam toward the boys with menacing intent, and forced them to scramble ashore in terror. The terrified group described the beast as "huge, ugly, and gray," with headlight-sized eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth capable of crushing a boy.
Following initial sightings, the creature known as Pink Eye continued to terrify locals, with one young man reporting a vehicle-sized beast with grayish-black skin and red eyes chasing him and a friend from the North Saskatchewan River. Around this time, livestock, including sheep and calves, began disappearing from farms near Rocky Mountain House and Edmonton, a phenomenon widely blamed on the monster after search parties found partially eaten carcasses. The monster was finally confirmed as the culprit on October 18, 1946, when farmer Robert Forbes witnessed a nearly 20-foot-long, gray creature with red eyes and horns snatch a calf from the shoreline, a sighting later corroborated by a 1947 report of a large creature and its smaller baby in the river.
The four main theories regarding the Pink Eye monster range from a genuine, large aquatic river creature potentially related to Canada's Ogopogo, to three possible misidentifications. The monster could actually be a swimming moose with its calf, whose massive, wet head and antlers could easily be mistaken for a frightening beast, especially given the murky river water. Alternatively, Pink Eye may simply be a misidentified large lake sturgeon, an ancient, gray, bony fish that can live for over 150 years and grow to immense sizes, or, most likely, the entire legend is a hoax fabricated by local newspaper reporter Grace Schierholtz to generate fame for Rocky Mountain House.
Photo credit: Global News Edmonton
The Valley Line's Very Bad, No-Good Concrete Cube 🏗️
In the simpler times of 2018, Edmonton's Valley Line LRT construction hit an unexpected, and spooky, roadblock: nine meters under the riverbed, crews found a mysterious concrete slab … “We encountered an unknown object, it turned out to be a large concrete mass that has put us behind schedule,” Dean Heuman with TransEd said Thursday. Officials said they can’t move or break the slab of concrete that they estimate could be as big as a car. Plus, they’re not sure how old it is or why it’s there.
While most Edmontonians would take the news at face value and maybe express frustration over the potential construction delays, one Reddit user decided this anomaly needed a proper Halloween-worthy backstory. Enter Pete, a fictional project manager, who chronicled the cube's terrifying secrets in a viral post that gave new meaning to construction headaches.
According to Pete's harrowing account, the mystery cube was no simple slab; it was emitting a dreadful "hum" (infrasound) that caused severe nausea, plagued the crew with apocalyptic nightmares, and drove foreman "Bill" to a frantic breakdown. The final, chilling detail was the phrase "What now?" etched into its surface. Despite the cube potentially being an ancient, world-ending entity, the city's solution was perfectly pragmatic and Edmonton-appropriate: ignore the humming doom and build the bridge support right on top of it! The real lesson? Nothing stops a transit deadline, not even an angry, city-sinking monolith.
Photo credit: Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM
The Humorous History of the Turtle Lake Monster 🐢
A little further down the North Saskatchewan River in neighbouring Saskatchewan, there is the winding, unassuming Turtle River that connects the NSR to Turtle Lake. Turtle Lake is large — 8km wide and 21km long — and deceptively deep in places, up to 14 metres. It may also be home to another legendary creature, the aptly named Turtle Lake Monster, whose legend has swirled since the 1920s.
However, the tale truly hit its peak in the "magical" summer of 1985 when brothers Robert and Dave Grosse, then 11 and 9, spotted a strange "log" while enjoying their golden childhood freedom. Doing what all smart boys with a boat would do, they motored right up to the object to "pull it back to shore." Imagine their surprise when the "power pole" turned out to be a massive creature with dark green, scaly, fish-like skin and a pointy fin, causing them to instantly panic and flee back to the safety of their sun-drenched childhood trailer.
Decades later, the brothers are still haunted by the memory, with Robert now leading the charge to get the "cryptid" scientifically accepted—or at least get it its own Canada Post stamp (because Ogopogo got one, obviously). Theories about the creature range from a centuries-old Lake Sturgeon (a ten-foot fish that Robert insists is "still a monster in my book") to something completely unknown lurking in the deceptively deep waters. Whether the monster is a real cryptid, a sturgeon that took a wrong turn, or just a great way to sell souvenirs at the local Co-op, the legend ensures that on still, quiet days, every mysterious ripple on Turtle Lake remains a perfect excuse to worry.
Photo credit: Jak Wonderly / “Caught by Cats”
Why Your Outdoor Cat is Still a Top Threat to Canadian Birds
Forget Frankenstein; the true horror lurking in Canada’s neighbourhoods is the domestic cat, the tiny terror responsible for a terrifying avian massacre. A decade ago, the scientific community revealed the original statistic: these nocturnal hunters were believed to be dispatching up to 348 million birds annually, crowning them the undisputed "leading measurable cause of bird mortality" in the country. It was a chilling number that made every bell-wearing feline look like a miniature, fluffy Grim Reaper, turning Canadian backyards into a genuine ornithological house of horrors.
The latest investigation, which employed more accurate field surveys and even animal-borne cameras (the best way to track a stealthy phantom's kill rate), has drastically cut the size of the cat-induced carnage. The updated estimate suggests the annual bird body count is now between 19 and 197 million (with a median of 60 million). This 71% drop in the "ghost count" is not because the cats suddenly got lazy or more ethical, but primarily because the researchers found a more precise way to count the actual outdoor cat population than relying on older pet owner surveys and media reports.
While conservationists may breathe a small sigh of relief that the initial estimation was overly dramatic, this is hardly a cause for a spooky celebration. Even at the lower end of the new range, millions of birds are still meeting a grisly, Felis catus-shaped end. The document stresses that outdoor cats, the cute yet deadly invasive species, remain a "serious concern" for native bird populations. So, this Halloween, while your cat may be dressed as a friendly pumpkin, remember that their ancestral instinct still makes them one of the most effective, unyielding predators in the Canadian ecosystem.
Balwin Playground by AJA Louden -
A northeast neighbourhood is now home to Edmonton’s 300th piece of public art.
The Edmonton Arts Council, a non-profit organization that supports the city’s arts community and manages its public art, unveiled Piney’s Playground. The playground designed in collaboration with artist AJA Louden is the 300th artwork in the city’s Public Art collection. The joint effort is a first for Edmonton.
The space inspired by nature and science fiction is located at Balwin Park, 12904 74 St. NW.
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