Searching For Champ

It’s an especially sticky day in late July on Long Point, a waterfront community on the shores of Lake Champlain in northern Vermont. The usually crisp New England air is thick with thunder, but even as droplets of rain begin to fall, Sue Lackey remains unfazed. The feisty Vermonter has spent her summers vacationing here for nearly 40 years, and she’s eager to talk about one thing: the day she saw Champ.

Like the Loch Ness Monster, its more famous Scottish counterpart, Champ is a legendary creature that’s said to live in the waters of Lake Champlain. The roughly 120-mile-long freshwater lake briefly enjoyed the honor of becoming the sixth Great Lake before its title was stripped after just 18 days. The still-pretty-great lake forms the boundary between New York and Vermont before heading north into Quebec, where it joins the Saint Lawrence River and ultimately empties into the Atlantic Ocean… read more >