Growing Up Between Two Monster Lakes

My family has spent a lot of time on the two Adirondack lakes most famous for monster sightings. My mother grew up in Ticonderoga, right between Lake George and Lake Champlain, and I spent my childhood on Lake George. We used to road‑trip to Vermont and often took the ferry across Lake Champlain. If Champ was going to make an appearance, we were giving him every opportunity.

He never did. My mother never saw him either. Not even a suspicious ripple.

Champ is the celebrity cryptid of the region — the Adirondack Nessie — and people have been reporting sightings since the 1800s. Meanwhile, my family crossed that lake so many times we practically deserved a loyalty punch card, and still: nothing. Not even a polite bubble.

Champ: The Famous Monster Who Never Showed Up

Champ gets all the attention. Books, documentaries, blurry photos, breathless eyewitness accounts — he’s the star of Lake Champlain. And yet, despite all those ferry crossings, neither my mother nor I ever saw anything that even hinted at a lake monster.

Plenty of waves. Plenty of logs. Zero monsters.

Georgie: The Lake George Monster We All Joked About

Lake George has a monster too, though it’s a much quieter legend. Growing up, we kids always joked about “Georgie,” the Lake George lake monster. I assumed Georgie was just the local version of Champ — a long‑necked creature lurking in the deep water, ready to pop up and terrify boaters.

 

I never knew Georgie had an actual origin story. Apparently most people don’t, because Georgie tends to get lumped in with Champ and Nessie as if he’s part of the same folklore family.

He isn’t.

The Wild, Forgotten Origin Story of Georgie

Georgie was a hoax — and a spectacular one.

Back in 1904, painter Harry Watrous built a ten‑foot lake monster out of a cedar log, complete with a skinny neck, big eyes, a wide mouth, and hemp‑rope whiskers. He created it to get revenge on a newspaper editor who had tricked him with a fake giant trout.

Watrous anchored his monster in Hague Bay and rigged it with a pulley system so he could make it rise dramatically out of the water whenever he felt like causing chaos.

And he did.

Panicked boaters, screaming passengers, parasol attacks — Georgie caused absolute mayhem. Watrous revived the monster again in 1934 just to “spoof the world” one more time. The original Georgie still exists and lives at the historical museum in Hague.

None of this made it into the version of Georgie I grew up with. To us, Georgie was just the Lake George monster — the one we joked about while swimming or boating, the one we pretended might be lurking under the dock. The prank faded, but the idea stuck.

My Family’s Real Lake Sightings (Everything Except Monsters)

And despite all that time on the lake, I never saw Georgie. My mother never saw Georgie. And my brother — who has spent more time on Lake George than anyone I know — has never seen Georgie.

This is impressive, because my brother has seen everything else.

He’s seen rattlesnakes swimming across Lake George. The lake’s had rabid beavers. He’s seen deer swimming across the lake like they’re training for a triathlon. He’s seen strange wakes, odd shadows, weird currents, and fog that makes the lake look like a horror movie set. There have even been water spouts!

Island Camping: Prime Monster Hours, Still No Monsters

My brother also camps out on the Lake George islands during the summer, which means he’s out there at night — prime monster hours. If Georgie were real, my brother would have had front‑row seats.

But no. Not a single monster sighting.

If Monsters Exist, They’re Avoiding Us

Between Champ and Georgie, the Adirondacks are supposedly home to two lake monsters. My family has spent generations swimming, boating, camping, ferrying, and occasionally dodging rabid beavers — and we’ve never seen one. Not even a hint.

If the monsters are out there, they’re clearly shy… or they’ve decided my family isn’t worth the trouble.