List of miscellaneous Canadian cryptids

In the early 1970s, a former RCMP member Tommy Tompkins filmed what appears to be a moose that is near twice the size of an average specimen in the Nahanni Valley. He claimed its antlers were 12 ft long. Although the footage of the moose is not lost, I can’t find it.

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In 1904, a Secwepemc (sek-wep-mick) hunter killed a Tazamsha (Water grizzly) in Shuswap Lake and skinned it. The hide was sold for 60$ (or 2000$ in 2020). It was 10 ft long, mole-like with long legs and strange feet.

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Legends of semi-aquatic big cats similar to cougars or lynxes called Mishibizhiw were told by the Ojibwe, which may be a northern variant of other "aquatic big cat" cryptids like the water tiger in the Amazon.

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Various tribes in south-central BC have folklore of atunkai, gigantic otter-like creatures, similar to Amazon giant river otters.

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In the 1950s, some children in the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation in Manitoba reported seeing a large red snake on a logging road moving the same way sidewinders do, which are only native to northwestern Mexico and the southwestern USA. It may have been a known species that was run over by a vehicle, as they often spasm and writhe around before dying.

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According to locals from the Berens River in Manitoba, there is an unknown species of small mammal similar to a muskrat that is carnivorous and is extremely aggressive. Known as “dry rats”, due to the dried-up swamps they inhabit, they swarm in large groups and leap at their prey’s neck, genitals and face and rip and tear at their flesh. Although only 50 or so cm long, they are said to be able to take out elk and allegedly, people.

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A man from Manitoba had an unusual encounter when he was working with a survey crew near Baker Lake, Nunavut. He claimed that at one point when he was carrying a large drill, he had to go across a small creek that went up to his chest. As he was wading in the water, a snake-like creature he didn’t notice got startled, and watched as it very quickly swam away on the surface. He claimed it was several feet long, but the strangest detail is that it was covered in fur, almost like a winter hat. The fact that the animal the man saw was covered in fur and was in Nunavut, more north than any known snake population, it was likely some other kind of animal. If it was a mammal, its alleged limblessness and side-to-side motion are completely unrepresented in any living mammal, or in the fossil record for that matter. (John Warms)

In 1870, A Mi’kmaq fisherman in Nova Scotia found what he called a baby sabawaelnu stranded on the beach at low tide. He described it as a tiny human-like creature, with its head being only 3 inches in diameter. He released it into the tide. Sabawaelnus, or “halfway people” are merfolk in Mi’kmaq mythology with their upper bodies being human, but their lower being fish-like with a tail. Whatever he actually caught is unknown.

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In 1978, John and Joanne Moore saw a “porcupine the size of a black bear” in the Nahanni Valley.

A man from Berens River First Nation in central-eastern Manitoba was planning to set an otter trap in a large crack in Canadian Shield rock. When he got to the spot he was planning to place the trap, he saw an enormous hairy, black spider. Its legs were as thick as a man’s thumb and its two largest eyes were the size of coins. He guessed the body size was about a foot in diameter and when it raised its body off the ground it was nearly a foot high. Strangely, he claimed it had a “tail”, although it may be a misidentified spinneret or a strangely shaped abdomen. Based on its appearance and location, it seems to be some kind of giant dock spider.

In a 2007 report by the Innu Traditional Knowledge Community, it mentioned important details about the uenitshikumishiteu, but also featured various completely unknown cryptids. Including an unknown species of parasitic insect that lives in the throats of caribou called the puîtūtikuân, and a sandpiper-like bird called the aiapish.