JOHN MAHONEY
Newport, Vermont

the recent sighting of Lake Memphremagog's mystery monster by a number of diners at the lakeshore East Side Restaurant has created quite a buzz amongst aficionados.

Summer is not complete here on the Vermont/Quebec border without at least one public appearance by Memphré, the copyrighted name affixed to our legendary lake monster by Crypto-dracontologist Jacques Boisvert of Magog, Quebec. He is the founder and head of the International Society of Dracontology of Lake Memphremagog.

Memphre, of course, is a Canadian monster because that is where the lake is deepest but he oftens swims down Lake Memphremagog to visit the United States, where the water is shallow. Exactly where he (or she, or they) live is a matter of much speculation but consensus is that the monster lair is in a large dank cavern inside Owls Head mountain. Some opine that connecting tunnels radiate from the mountain to all the lakes in the region but this, of course, is pure conjecture and perhaps even horse-pucky.

Bosivert, a noted historian of local lore, has made nearly 5000 dives in Lake Memphremagog with scuba gear and has yet to personally see Memphre. However, he says he has seen mysterious clouds of bottom sediment at times -- more about these clouds in the following report.

When Boisvert hears of a sighting he attempts to track down the eyewitness and carefully tapes their observation report. Here is a synopsis of his interviews on the July 27 sightings:

JACQUES BOISVERT
Magog, Quebec

Louise Doyon and Jean-Jacques Gauthier, who live near Orford, Quebec, were having dinner with Colette and André Héroux at the East Side Restaurant on Sunday, July 27. They were seated by a window in the Pub. At around 5:30 p.m.

" we saw the persons sitting at the table next to us getting all excited. A woman and a man standing up and looking outside the window and they were getting and getting more excited.

We all looked, the four of us, sitting at our table, and we saw a huge black creature (une masse noire) doing a wave of about one foot to one foot and a half right in front of the wharf of the restaurant at about 100 feet from the northerly end, going in a northerly direction. The creature was going towards Prouty Beach.

There is from 10 to 12 feet of water at that place...we came to the restaurant from Canada with our sailboat. The lake was very calm. The wave was breaking and leaving bubbles. We saw it at a distance of between 200 to 300 feet...the wave was rolling and we could see that it was done by a black object."

Gauthier added: "The neighbors were trembling when they stood up to watch what was going on... we have been a users of the lake for twelve years...about ten years ago a scuba diver from Beloeil [Quebec] came to dive at Knowlton's Landing and I met him when he came out of hisdive with his partners...[he] told me that he: 'saw a huge black mass lift up at the bottom of the lake, doing clouds of dust.' He was so fearful that he said to me that he would never dive in this lake again."