Memphre is a lake monster that is believed by some to lurk in the murky Lake Memphremagog in Canada.
Description
Memphre has been described as a whale or a sauropterygian-like animal, a cliché commonly brought up for other lake monsters.
Habitat
Lake Memphremagog is a 33 mile long finger-like running south from Magog, Quebec (near Sherbrooke) across the Canada/US border to about Newport, Vermont. Nestled in between mountains, the lake is both deep and cold. Four of the twenty islands are completely in the United States with the largest Province Island, that sites on the 45th parallel and has the International border running across the southern top between Vermont and Canada.
Sightings
According to research released by Sonia Bolduc of the University of Sherbrooke there have been (to 1997) 215 well documented sighting of the Memphre.
In 1961 two fishermen saw a black creature about 40 feet (13 metres) long swimming, partially submerged, past their boat. In 1994 four persons in two separate boats reported a 30-foot long, black, three-humped creature.
Quote
One of the best descriptions of the creature was produced by Norman Bingham in his novel, The Sea Serpent Legend, in 1926. In the book he revives old legends with a brief description in a poem as follows:
- They saw a monster dark and grim
- Coming with coiling surge and swim,
- With lifted head and tusk and horn,
- Fierce as the spirit of Hades born.