Ogopogo copyright repatriated to Sylix First Nation
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The copyright for the legendary Okanagan Lake monster Ogopogo is heading home to the Sylix First Nation.
Vernon council has held the copyright since 1956 after local broadcaster (CJIB) Gil Seabrooke took out the copyright in 1952 and then granted it to the City of Vernon.
Vernon recently gave local author Don Levers the rights to use the Ogopogo in a second children’s book about the Ogopogo two weeks ago, which started a conversation about the trademark.
In Syilx culture, the serpentine Lake Okanagan is embodied by the n ̓x̌ax̌aitkʷ (n-ha-ha-it-koo) in the nsyilxcən language, meaning “sacred spirit of the lake.” To the Syilx people, there is a spiritual form of the water and a physical form of the water. In their culture the waters of the narrow snake-like Okanagan Lake have a spirit.
