Previously on “The Secret History of Vermont”

Introduction
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Chapter 4: The Lake Champlain Monster

For many years there have been rumors and occasional dubious sightings of a possible dinosaur-like monster living in Lake Champlain, much like the monster rumored to live in Loch Ness, Scotland. The Lake Champlain Monster has been affectionately baptized as “Champ” by the Vermont Department of Tourist Management and has occasionally been used as an excuse to visit Vermont by Flatlanders who, upon arrival, stare intently at the lake for about 30 seconds and then express an interest in the possible remnants of the historical Institutes of Adult Entertainment in Richford.

The facts of the matter are that these rumors are incorrect. There isn’t a monster in Lake Champlain. There’s a whole family of them. None of them are named “Champ”. And there are no more Institutes of Adult Entertainment in Richford.

Monsters are not native to New England waterways. Back in the time of the great Republic of Vermont, when Vermont was an Independent Country and besieged by imperious New Yorkers, it was Ethan Allen, a man of many fine accomplishments despite his eventual support for joining the Union, who formed a Secret Society charged with the clandestine importation, with total disregard to EPA regulations, of a breeding pair of monsters from Scotland. The purpose and training of which was to harass the New York Navy on Lake Champlain should it ever prove necessary.

The monsters, a common variety of Plesiosaur, were secured and trained to surface only at night and in response to their proper names, which are Gaelic, not renderable in the English alphabet, and secret from even Native Vermonters. It is not known for certain, outside of the Secret Society, whether the underwater monsters were ever activated. Perhaps one day a Secret History of New York will be published with tales of terrifying attacks on arms bearing freighters and vessels of war on Lake Champlain by Beasts as if from the Apocalypse. Then the Secret History of Vermont will have to be updated to respond with, “What rubbish.”

Plesiosaurs are psychologically much like well-kept dogs: happy, trainable, and eager to please. Training is accomplished by being firm when they do it wrong and affectionate and rewarding, with fish, when they do it right. The first thing one trains a plesiosaur to do is, “Stay Down!” Having 20 tons of cold-blooded reptile playfully crash down on your boat is enough to ruin your whole day. Training for military action is the opposite of what one might think. Instead of associating ships, cannons, and a particular flag design as bad things that must be treated aggressively, the monsters are trained to see them as “things to play with that it’s OK to jump on”. I doubt that the chronicles of the survivors of such an “attack” would mention just how happy and excited the monsters appeared as they inadvertently crushed their new playmate into splinters.

Over the years the monsters were trained to recognize the naval flags of whatever entity seemed to be a threat at the time. After New York was subdued, England, Canada, France, the Confederacy, Germany, Japan, Italy, Korea, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, and Quebec all took turns being on the monsters’ play list. At one point a pair of adolescent monsters were moved from Lake Champlain to Lake Memphremagog to guard the border in north central Vermont, much to relief of their parents. Rumors that the dome of the Vermont capitol building in Montpelier is plated with gold found in a Nazi submarine captured in Lake Champlain by the monsters during the latter part of World War II remain unsubstantiated at this time.

The Secret Society still keeps the existence of the monsters a secret lest they be discovered by the Montpelier Legislature and taxed to create a Department of Monster Management. Occasionally a young monster surfaces during the day, on a dare from other young monsters, and gets its picture taken. The Secret Society then goes into emergency mode and floods the media with stories about how logs, waves, boats, seagulls, schools of fish, single fish, shadows, clouds, and mirages can all be made to resemble a hypothetical monster if you squint your eyes hard enough. For those who refuse to take the hint and keep on harping about what they saw the Secret Society demonstrates these nifty pen-like things they have that flash red and … what was I writing about?