Champ is a North American lake monster that is believed by some to live in Lake Champlain - a natural freshwater lake between Vermont, and New York and which crosses over into Canada.

The Lake Champlain region has a history of Indigenous people long said to have lived and hunted near the lake. The Abenaki and Iroquois legends told of a serpent-like creature that inhabited the lake. The Abenaki, who called the creature “Gitaskog.” The legend said that the creature was known to be a man-eater.

The next alleged recorded sightings were by French cartographer Samuel de Champlain. He was attributed as saying that he saw a very large creature matching the more contemporary description of Champ; however, there’s no record of him having ever said this. It is documented, though, that he saw fish “five feet long, which were as large as my thigh; the head being as big as my two fists, with a snout two feet and half [sic] long, and a double row of very sharp and dangerous teeth.” This is a far cry from the 20-foot-long serpent with a head like a horse that he purportedly saw and described. Instead, it appears that he portrayed the common garfish that inhabit Lake Champlain.

In the past two centuries, many sightings have been reported. For example, in 1873, The New York Times reported that a railroad crew had seen the head of an ‘enormous serpent’ in Lake Champlain. After that, with the intent of adding it to his World’s Fair Show collection, the legendary showman P.T. Barnum offered $50,000 in reward money to anyone who could bring him Champ’s hide. In July of 1883, Clinton County Sheriff Nathan H. Mooney reported an ‘enormous snake or water serpent’ he thought was 25 to 35 feet long.

In 1977, a woman named Sandra Mansi was on vacation with her family when she took a photograph of what some believed to be Champy poking its head and back above the surface of the lake. The authenticity of the famous photo has been thrown into doubt because Mansi did not keep the negative and she couldn’t find where she’d taken the photo from. Considering those missing pieces, which precluded further examination into the authenticity of the photo, many believe the object in the photo was just an opportunely-shaped log floating in a lake.

For those looking for more solid evidence, a video was taken in 2005 of Champ. This time, the tapes were available and reviewed by two former FBI forensic image analysts. Their conclusion was that the video had not been altered. More videos taken by other witnesses show strange objects and wakes. These videos can be found online. In 2003, while working on a Discovery Channel show, recorded underwater sounds in the lake that resembled Beluga whales or dolphins. It should go without saying that these mammals don’t inhabit Lake Champlain. All of these encounters are just a few of the hundreds of eyewitness testimonies that have been reported.

So, is there actually an American Loch Ness Monster lurking in Lake Champlain? Well, hard evidence is iffy; however, there have been so many sightings that it’s hard to completely dismiss the idea that something unusual lurks in the waters of Lake Champlain. With all the cellphone cameras out there, hopefully, it’s just a matter of time until we get a clear shot of Champ.