America's Loch Ness Monster

[Greg C.]

Background
Champ is the name given to a reputed lake monster supposedly living in Lake Champlain. While authorities typically regard Champ as legend, some believe it is possible such a big creature does live deep in the lake.

Like the Loch Ness Monster, believers in Champ generally think it as a plesiosaur, an extinct group of aquatic reptiles. A few people believe that the animal is a Tanystropheus, leading to Champ being given an unofficial scientific name, Champtanystropheus, although this theory has received little attention by the mainstream scientific community. A recent sound recording of Champ, consisting of numerous echolocation clicks, suggests that Champ may be a freshwater whale or dolphin. However, sightings of Champ do not describe a dorsal fin.

According to legend and eye witness accounts, a monster dwells in Lake Champlain, a 125-mile-long body of fresh water that is shared by New York and Vermont and just a few miles into Quebec, Canada.

Champ is highly revered by many in the area and has become a revenue-generating attraction. For example, the village of Port Henry, New York, has erected a giant model of Champ and holds "Champ Day" on the first Saturday of every August.

As the mascot of Vermont's lone Minor League Baseball affiliate, the Vermont Lake Monsters, Champ became even more of a star of the team after the team was renamed from the Vermont Expos to the Vermont Lake Monsters after the end of the Montreal Expos. Champ has been the primary attraction of the New York - Penn League affiliate since their inception. Several nearby establishments, including a car wash, use "Champ" as a logo. There is also a town that has a tracking board that records every Champ sighting for the last 100 years; the latest was in 2005.

[Greg C.]

History
According to legend, the first European account of Champ was made in 1609 by French explorer Samuel de Champlain — the founder of Québec and the lake's namesake — who spotted the creature as he was fighting the Iroquois on the bank of the lake. However, in actuality no such sighting was recorded, and it has since been traced back to a 1970 article.

Long before that, however, two Native American tribes, the Iroquois and the Abenaki, are alleged to have talked of such a creature and celebrated its existence. The Abenaki gave it the name "Tatoskok."

Sightings varied over the years, but the next important sighting came in 1883 when Sheriff Nathan H. Mooney claimed that he had seen a “…gigantic water serpent about 50 yards away” from where he was on the shore. He claimed that he was so close that he could see “round white spots inside its mouth” and that “the creature appeared to be about 25 to 30 feet in length”. Mooney’s sighting led to many eyewitnesses coming forward with their own accounts of Champ sightings. Mooney’s story predated the public Loch Ness controversy by 50 years. Since that report, there have been more than 240 recorded sightings.

The reason some believe that Champ may be a plesiosaur like “Old Nessie” is because the two lakes have much in common. For example, like Loch Ness, Lake Champlain is over 400 feet deep. Also both lakes were formed following the Ice Age about 10,000 years ago and both lakes support fish populations large enough to feed a supposed sea or lake monster (Krystek 1).

Champ became so popular that the late P. T. Barnum, in the early 19th century, put a reward of $50,000 up for a carcass of Champ. Barnum wanted the carcass of Champ so that he could include it in his epic World’s Fair Show (Krystek 3). Sightings continued through the 19th and 20th centuries, but no remains or any other physical evidence has ever been recovered.

The most remarkable photo of a Champ appearance was taken in 1977, by amateur photographer Sandra Mansi. The photo appears to show what is said to be a plesiosaur-like neck and body sticking out of the lake.

According to Mansi, she heard her children screaming and turned toward the shallow water by the shore where they were playing. Seeing the creature, she took the photo as her fiancée, Anthony, grabbed her children. Mansi had several photo experts examine the picture and they concluded that the picture has not been tampered with in any way. Those experts also stated that they believe it to be a living creature (Champ 2). Mansi later showed the photo, which is similar to the famous "Surgeon's photo" of the Loch Ness Monster, to Joseph W. Zarzynski.

Zarzynski—founder of the Lake Champlain Phenomena Investigation and a Wilton, New York Social Studies teacher—took the photo to Gorge Zug of the Smithsonian Institute’s Department of Vertebrate Zoology. Zug states that the creature in the photo does not resemble any creature or animal living in Lake Champlain, that he knows of.

The creature has become so famous and so much a part of life in Vermont and New York that both states passed laws to protect the monster. The creature was put on the endangered species list only as a precaution. The law will protect the creature if anyone eventually does come upon a Champ. Quebec has not placed Champ on its list of endangered animals.

[Greg C.]

The History Channel and it's show "Monsterquest" have investigated this several times, and like normal, nothing conclusive is ever found. But it's still interesting.