The Beast of White Lake Ontario and the Burlington Name Game

 Photo by Joel Bedford via Flickr/Creative Commons

 

In the summer of 1907, residents of White Lake village in Ontario, Canada, reported seeing a strange “beast” on the main road south of town.

The animal, described as white and the size of a sheep, moved like a cat and was often seen crossing one particular section of the road. The animal was never spotted in daylight and seemed unconcerned by observers. And while cat-like, local farmers did not report any attacks on their animals so it didn’t seem to be dining locally.

The strange behavior and the repeated sightings in the same location led many to suspect it was supernatural in origin. Eventually, the creature stopped appearing and vanished into the mist of local legend.

Identifying this particular cryptid is a bit of a puzzler. Very little information is available and the description seems to match no known animal or sighted unknown animal. Mountain lions do live in Canada but certainly are not the size of a sheep and are well known enough to seemingly defy mis-identification. Canada also has bobcat and lynx but the same problem applies – one would think that at least one local would recognize the common animals, especially in rural, turn-of-the-century Canada.

The reportedly white color is also confusing, but while albinism is rare there is no reason it couldn't show up in big cats.

So what was it?

I came up empty trying to find a genus cryptii for this particular critter but one curious creature that might relate to these sightings is the strange long-legged cats of neighboring Burlington, Vermont, as detailed in Joseph Citro and Stephen R. Bissette’s book The Vermont Monster Guide. I even found a 2006 police report:

At 1:10 p.m., the police responded to a call from a residence at the intersection of Maryvale Road and Skilton Lane about citing [sic] a strange animal that resembled a cat with long legs. The police was unable to locate an animal of that description upon arrival.

Weird huh? Well, that report is from Burlington, Massachusetts - about 200 miles southeast of the Burlington, Vermont sightings. So maybe these critters have a pretty wide habitat. Or maybe their habitat is the Twilight Zone – Ontario also has a city named Burlington.

Long time Fortean researchers and other students of the weird will recognize here the Name Game, the strange propensity for similar place and proper names to show up repeatedly in accounts of strange events. I think we need to add Burlington to the list.

Even the name 'Burlington' is a bit of a mystery. No one is sure why the town in Vermont has the name and historians in Burlington, MA don't know why their town is called Burlington either. The Ontario Burlington is named after the nearby bay and common wisdom has it that the Bay is named after an alternate name of the town of Bridlington, Yorkshire, which is often referred to as Burlington.  Why does Bridlington have an alias? No one seems to know. What does the name Bridlington mean? Again, no one knows.

Bridlington is very old and is thought to have been a Roman town in antiquity. One of its most famous citizens was Sir George Ripley, the 15th century alchemist who wrote his alchemical books in verse, which is probably like reading chemistry in haiku. Bridlington also sits at the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, an area noted for its mysterious cat sightings and home to the Barghest, a large ghost dog said to sometimes take the shape of a white cat.

So we're back where we started - strange cat-like creatures in the woods. And a whole lot of Burlingtons.

Obviously, there are a lot of Burlingtons in the United States. Wikipedia lists over twenty five states with towns called Burlington and Wisconsin has two. So weird things probably happen in Burlingtons just as they happen anywhere else.

Like Burlington, New Jersey  - the legendary birthplace of the Jersey Devil. The Jersey Devil is also sometimes referred to as the Leeds Devil in reference to its supposed mother, Mother Leeds. Leeds is also a place in England.

It's in Yorkshire. Not far from a town called Burlington.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I finished this post I found a new story on Cryptomundo concerning recent sightings of a Bigfoot-type creature in the woods of Maine. The town? Leeds.

Sources:

Ottawa Citizen,  Nov 28, 1936

The Annals of Yorkshire from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Volume 2, Henry Schroder, George Crosby, Leeds, 1852

The Vermont Monster Guide by Joseph Citro and Stephen R. Bissette