Here be Monsters: Sea Serpent at Fortune Harbour
Imagine this: You’re a fisherman, alone in your boat as evening settles over the bay. The water is flat calm, the light soft and golden. It’s the kind of quiet that usually means the day is winding to a peaceful close.
Then the surface breaks — and something unbelievable rises into view.
It’s not a whale. Not a herd of seals. Not a school of fish.
It’s something else. Something bigger.
It surfaces just long enough for you to see it — and it’s moving faster than anything that size should.
Suddenly, the quiet isn’t comforting anymore. It’s terrifying.
You’re alone on the ocean with a massive creature, and you have no idea what it is… or what it wants.
For a group of fishermen near Fortune Harbour, that wasn’t something to imagine. It happened — in the summer of 1888.
Fortune Harbour Sea Serpent
Daily Colonist, September 15, 1888
On August 27, 1888 several fishermen off the shores of Fortune Harbour spotted an enormous creature in the water. It had an enormous head and two large dorsal fins spaced about 40 feet apart. The men estimated the creature to be roughly 120 feet long — longer than even a blue whale— and it moved, “as fast as a bird on the wing.”
The next day, the animal was seen again.
This time, the creature appeared near a small fishing boat. Understandably alarmed, the fisherman began rowing toward shore — but the animal kept pace for nearly 50 yards, never getting too close, but not backing off either. The fisherman said, it appeared to be curious, sometimes lifting its head two-to-three feet out of the water.
The fisherman, who newspapers described as ‘pretty well scared’ said the creature was dark brown with a brassy-coloured underside. It had a long, eel-like body and a head shaped — quite oddly — like that of a bull-terrier. It appeared to be covered in what looked like slimy fur or bristles, with a fin running from behind its head to a large central hump.
This time, it was estimated to be about 85 feet in length. Still massive.
No photographs exist, no physical evidence was recovered, and the creature never returned — or at least, no one ever reported seeing it again.
But for two days in 1888, something stirred in the waters off Fortune Harbour — something real enough to rattle the men who saw it, and strange enough that we’re still talking about it more than a century later..
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Notes from Fortune Harbour, Daily Colonist, September 15, 1888
Here Be Monsters
On Newfoundland’s foggy coast, not everything strange is imagined—and not everything real can be explained.
The Here Be Monsters series dives into historical sea monster sightings reported in Newfoundland’s headlines — real accounts from people who lived and worked on the water. These stories may not all point to undiscovered creatures, but they remind us that even in well-known harbours and fishing grounds, the sea still has its secrets. And those secrets can surprise, unsettle, and leave even the most seasoned mariners with more questions than answers.
In 1912 Josiah Sheppard was fishing off the Bay of Islands when something strange and powerful surfaced beside his small dory. What happened next is a rare and almost unbelievable escape from one of Newfoundland’s mysterious sea creatures.