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Years ago, on Lake Champlain, on a very windy day with a choppy fetch coming from the south, we could see that “something” swimming into the fetch — and leaving its own wake. It was very obvious to all the campers on that part of the lake. You couldn’t see an actual fish, but even in that choppy water there was something making that wake. When a boat went out to see what it was, whatever it was must have dove down, and altho it was only about 30 feet there, whatever it was couldn’t be seen. And — the wake stopped. Sturgeon?

My family has lived on Lake Champlain since 1807. So we have records of family members seeing Champ. I, my sister and my mother saw it in 1950 just south of the Fort Ti Ferry at then Scuderi`s Point.
My sister and I were clamming and there were drop-offs there. So we could walk out 25- 50 feet and it would be shallow, but then dropped off suddenly to 10-20 feet. We were following the clam trails on the clear bottom in a foot of water or so and then we would reach down at the end of the clam trail and grab the clam.
I happened to look up and saw a black head with 2 humps out of the water, coming around the point. It stopped there and look at me may be not even 50 feet away. It had a black head, but oblong sideways, like a flattened ellipsoid, with 2 little black eyes but no ears. Its head was out of the water about 4 feet or so.
I estimated it musta been 30-50 feet long coz it had come out from behind the point and I knew how long the point was. I then yelled to my mother who was on the shore, “Ma! Look at that big snake!”
She ran quickly out into the water and grabbed me and put us both in the car and sped off.
When I asked her about that sighting years later, she said, “Oh that thing.!” In 1990`s my nephew saw it break thru the ice in wintertime as his house was on the lake but up 50 feet high on the bluff south of Fort Ti. Lotsa locals have seen it just under the water around the fort as do the big northern pikes lay there with their mouths open waiting for trout and salmon to come down the La Chute River and other small brooks emptying near the fort but they don`t tell visitors nothin`. I even heard about stories for 50 years from Bulwagga Bay. A 1928 newspaper article says that Champy`s underwater cave is on the Vermont side of the Lake opposite Bulwagga Bay.