Is there a monster in Vermont and New York's Lake Champlain? It's a 125 mile long body of fresh water in the United States of America that may be home to a sea monster.
Somewhere in the depths of that lake is a legendary sea serpent that has been rumored for at least a few hundred years, both by later settlers and by the Native Americans of the territory; the Iroquois and Abenaki have their legends of the creature. The Abenaki called their beast the Tatoskok. As far back as 1609, they had accounts by a French explorer by the name of Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec and the lake's namesake. He is reported to have seen the beast as he was fighting the Iroquois on the lake that bears his name today. However, this tale of the brave and fighting Frenchman is nothing more than tourist trappings to get people to come and hopefully see the beast; no such event occurred, but it's a good story for the locals to relate to those tourists who have no idea they are being told a tall tale. The real and actual first sighting of Champ in the lake was in 1883 when the town's sheriff, one Nathan H. Mooney, claimed to have seen a rather large creature in the water at about fifty yards away from shore. He further claimed that Champ at that sighting was 25 to 30 feet long; Mooney's tale predates the legendary beast of Scotland by fifty years.
Most people who describe Champ are pretty certain what they are seeing is a huge animal and by most accounts looks like an extinct marine reptile called the plesiosaur. Lake Champlain is over 400 feet deep and about 10,000 years old. Whether it's a real beast or a great tale to tell to tourists, Champ is here to stay no matter what the outcome.
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