Saskatchewan’s own Nessie? The tale of the Turtle Lake Monster

August 1985.

“The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis & The News was still spinning on the radio. The Goonies had just hit theaters. On TV, The Cosby Show ruled the ratings, while a certain DeLorean had just broken time barriers in Back to the Future.

In central Saskatchewan, where the boreal forest brushes up against the endless sky, Robert Grosse was 11 years old. His brother Dave was nine. They were boys with sunburned noses and endless freedom.

Sunburned noses, tangled fishing lines and a lake full of legends. The Grosse brothers chased adventure in the summer of 1985. (Submitted)

That summer, at the tail end of their golden boyhoods, they came face-to-face with the mystery that has haunted Turtle Lake for nearly a century.

They saw the monster.

Listen to the story on Behind the Headlines:

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The legend that rose from the lake

The Grosse family had been coming to Turtle Lake since 1978.

“It was just a modest cabin,” Robert recalled of their lakeside abode, “but it was the greatest memories we ever had. The forests, the sunsets, the lake… we spent 10 years up here. They were magical years.”

That early August evening was quiet, the lake perfectly still. The sun hadn’t yet set, but supper was being stirred on stovetops across the beachfront cabins. Robert and Dave were still out, wringing every last minute from the day.

“We were sitting on the beach,” Dave remembered, pointing out across the water. “And looked across and were like, ‘Is that a log floating there?’ Because it looked like a log.”

“It looked like a power pole,” Robert agreed. “We thought ‘Somebody’s gonna hit it.’ Power boats go through here all the time. Our thought was, ‘Let’s just pull it back to shore.’”

The Grosse family’s modest summer trailer was the launchpad for 10 years of magic, mystery and monster lore. (Submitted)

So they did what any curious brothers with a beat-up canoe and an outboard motor would do — they hopped in their boat and headed straight toward it.

Robert was at the engine. Dave was at the bow with the rope, ready to loop it around the piece of wood.

But the closer they got, the more the thing shimmered. Not like bark, but like wet, living skin.

“It was not like anything we had ever seen before, ever,” Dave recalled, his eyes wide with the memory. “It was dark green. It had like scales on it, and it had this pointy fin. It looked like a monster.”

“We were absolutely dumbfounded and shocked when we pulled up to it that it was an actual fish-like creature,” Robert added. “It was not a pole in any way, shape or form. We were literally 10 feet away from it.”

And that’s when it hit them. They’d heard about this their whole lives — whispered stories, adult talk, decades of lakeside sightings.

“We knew of the legend,” Robert said. “We’d heard it many times around the lake, even as kids, so we knew instantly what it was. We didn’t know what kind of creature it was, but we knew it was the Turtle Lake Monster.”

The original hat from that legendary summer. Robert bought it shortly after he saw the creature, and has kept ever since. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

They didn’t see the head. But they saw the back, the fin, and a massive tail that rose above the surface once before disappearing beneath the murky water.

“That was the moment we freaked out,” Dave said.

They raced back to shore and ran to their trailer, dragging their parents down to the beach. Their dad scrambled to grab his camera, but by the time they returned to the sandy shore of Turtle Lake, all was still again. Silent. As if nothing had ever been there.

“We didn’t have cell phones in our pockets like kids would nowadays,” Robert shrugged. “I wish we did. I wish to this day I would have had a camera with us.”

Robert’s journal, 1985: A boy’s handwritten account of the impossible. (Submitted)

“It’s as real as you and I standing here.”

Decades later, Robert Grosse describes himself as pragmatic, even skeptical. But the memory of that day on Turtle Lake has never left him. It became the spark that drove him deep into research, reading through newspaper archives, scouring scientific articles and collecting firsthand accounts.

“Well, officially,” Robert said, “if you want to use the proper scientific term, it has to be considered a cryptid right now, because it hasn’t been seen and documented.”

A cryptid — a term used in cryptozoology — refers to any creature whose existence is claimed but not scientifically proven. Think Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. They’re creatures rooted in stories, sightings and folklore, but lacking concrete evidence.

“The day it’s photographed, seen and recorded in detail,” Robert continued, “that’s when it flips from being a cryptid to something accepted by science.”

Years have passed, but Robert and Dave Grosse still return to Turtle Lake — drawn by the memory of what they saw, and what might still be out there. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Robert’s research traced the Turtle Lake Monster through decades of local stories. The creature has been part of regional lore since the 1920s, with documented reports surfacing throughout the years.

One discovery came from a 1947 article in The StarPhoenix, which directly referenced the monster. Robert also uncovered reports of torn commercial fishing nets, damage far beyond what rocks or logs could cause.

It’s not just Robert’s family that has stories. Don Wiley, a neighbour of the Grosse family, had his own sighting detailed in a now-yellowed newspaper clipping.

Seija Pulkinen, a friendly Co-op cashier with deep roots in the community, shared a story handed down from her father, John Pulkinen.

“My dad and my grandpa were out fishing,” she said. “He tossed his line and got a bite. When he reeled it in close, he saw it — and it snapped his rod clean in two.”

Dave, a cabin owner at Turtle Lake, reflected on the many tales that swirl around the lake.

“I don’t know of anyone straight off the top of my head that’s actually seen it. But I mean, people have been out on the lake and felt waves come from nowhere,” he said. “I’m sure some have hooked onto it. I’ve heard, from being up here so long, that there’s more than one in the lake.”

Murky and mysterious, Turtle Lake holds just the kind of water where something big could hide for a century. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

And those are just a few voices in a chorus of stories — tales passed around campfires, whispered down docks or overheard at the Co-op. Everyone seems to know someone who’s seen something.

Even now, decades after his sighting of the creature, Robert doesn’t hesitate when asked if the stories are true.

“It’s as real as you and I standing here, talking right now,” he said. “It’s real. It’s just a question of… what is it?”

The sturgeon theory

Turtle Lake is large — five miles wide and thirty miles long — and deceptively deep in places. It connects to the North Saskatchewan River via the winding, unassuming Turtle River.

“More like a creek this time of year,” Robert said.

Still, it’s plausible that a juvenile sturgeon could have made the 65-kilometer journey upstream decades ago and become trapped in the lake, growing in isolation.

Sturgeon are ancient fish, bottom dwellers, armoured in bony plates, capable of growing up to 10 feet long. Some can live for a century.

“That would line up with the sightings dating back to the ‘20s,” Robert said.

Robert points to the place where they saw it — the back, the fin, the tail. The cryptid that made believers out of two young boys. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

According to Jason Matity, a Saskatchewan-based fishing expert and founder of GetFishing.ca, lake sturgeon were once a rare catch in the province, overfished in many areas and absent in others. But conservation efforts in recent decades have seen their numbers rebound in the North and South Saskatchewan rivers.

The provincial record for sturgeon sits at over 260 pounds, caught in the 1960s in the South Saskatchewan River system.

Even so, sturgeon aren’t officially found in Turtle Lake. Not in fishable numbers, and not on paper. A sweep of the lake with test nets back in the 1960s turned up nothing.

But Robert isn’t convinced.

“Just because it hasn’t been caught, doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” he said.

The quiet, winding Turtle River is just a trickle in August, but is possibly the pathway that brought the legend to Turtle Lake. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

And he’s not the only one who believes. There are more stories — quiet ones. A man who claimed to pull a small sturgeon from the Turtle River. A few who whisper of similar fish in Candle Lake. Robert himself has pored over aerial photos that appear to show large shapes just beneath the surface. Still, no one’s landed one. Not officially.

But that doesn’t rule it out. Something could still be down there, gliding silently beneath the waves, just out of reach.

Move over, Ogogpogo — there’s another lake monster in town

Whether the creature is a sturgeon or something else entirely, the brothers still call it a monster.

“Even if it turns out to be a giant sturgeon, it’s still a monster,” Robert laughed. “Ten-foot-long sturgeon? That’s a monster in my book.”

From wide-eyed kids to seasoned skeptics, Robert and Dave Grosse still carry the memory of that August evening. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

And yet, as the brothers recall the encounter, the strongest feeling isn’t fear. It’s gratitude.

“I still to this day, feel so privileged and honoured to have seen it,” Robert said, his voice catching just slightly. “We were just at that age where everything was magical… We had a magical experience at a magical lake. It just made our childhood amazing.”

Now over 50, Robert has rekindled the old lore. To keep the story alive and connect with others intrigued by the mystery, he started a Facebook page dedicated to the Turtle Lake Monster. It’s become a space for sharing sightings, stories and research, a digital campfire for a legend that refuses to be forgotten.

From legend to local lore — even the Co-op’s in on it. This souvenir nods to the mystery beneath the waves. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

He’s even submitted the Turtle Lake Monster for consideration as a Canada Post stamp.

“Ogopogo got one,” he said with a smile. “Why shouldn’t we?”

And maybe, just maybe…

Maybe it was a sturgeon. Maybe it basked at the surface that warm, still day, like these large fish are rumoured to do. Or maybe — just maybe — Turtle Lake holds a secret that’s older, deeper and stranger than we can explain.

The boys who once saw a monster are now grown, but the memory lives on.

And on those rare, windless days when the lake turns to glass and time seems to stall, you might catch a ripple. A glint of movement. Something dark. Something old.

And perhaps, just for a moment, you’ll believe too.

Still. Quiet. Waiting. Turtle Lake doesn’t give up its secrets easily. But sometimes, it shows just enough to make you believe. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)