Lake Memphremagog sits stretched across the U.S., Canada border, a long, cold ribbon of water surrounded by forested hills and quiet villages. It is a lake shaped by Ice Age retreat and deep glacial gouges, with channels that drop to more than 350 feet. Fishermen speak of thermoclines that shift suddenly, divers describe darkness that begins only a few meters down, and locals talk about something else entirely, a creature said to inhabit the lake for more than two centuries. The Lake Memphremagog Monster, often called “Memphre,” is one of North America’s most enduring aquatic mysteries, with sightings that range from the dramatic to the unsettlingly consistent.
The earliest recorded account dates to the 1810s, when settlers along the Quebec shoreline reported seeing “a large serpent-like animal” rise and fall along the water’s surface. A similar description appeared in an 1816 travel diary, describing a long, dark back rolling in the waves. Throughout the 19th century, these stories multiplied. Some spoke of a creature with the head of a horse and the body of a massive eel. Others described a bulky form like an overturned boat moving against the current. While details varied, the core features remained nearly identical: a dark, elongated shape, gliding just beneath the surface, capable of sudden bursts of speed.
One of the most widely discussed sightings occurred in 1873, when a steamer captain claimed a creature nearly forty feet long surfaced ahead of his vessel. He insisted it moved with a muscular, undulating motion, throwing up a wake large enough to rock his ship. Crew members standing nearby corroborated the report, describing a serpentine body that arched and dipped in several curves before disappearing in the deep center of the lake. At the time, newspapers framed the story as another “lake serpent tale,” but the consistency across witness accounts pushed the sighting into local legend.
In the 20th century, the reports became more detailed. During the 1930s, a group of swimmers near the Newport, Vermont, side of the lake claimed a creature surfaced within a few dozen yards of them. They described a dark, rounded hump about the size of a barrel, followed by a long, tapering tail. The water churned around the creature as it dove, leaving a widening patch of foam. A decade later, a pair of fishermen claimed they watched a massive “log” drift against the wind before suddenly submerging with a flick that sent ripples across the calm water.
One of the most intriguing modern encounters occurred in 1971, when a Quebec police officer reported seeing a creature with a head “like a snake or seal, but far larger,” rising several feet above the water. The officer, trained in observation and familiar with the lake, insisted the sighting lasted nearly a full minute — long enough to rule out floating debris or a misidentified animal. His testimony prompted a brief wave of public interest, and several additional witnesses came forward describing similar sightings within weeks.
What sets the Lake Memphremagog Monster reports apart from other lake cryptid stories is the cross-border consistency. American and Canadian witnesses, often unaware of each other’s accounts, described the same general features: a long, flexible body; a series of humps or arches visible above the surface; and a movement pattern that looked neither like a fish nor a mammal, but something in-between. Many noted that the creature never breached fully like a whale nor splashed like a diving sturgeon. Instead, it glided, smooth, silent, and powerful.
Biologists have offered explanations that range from misidentified moose swimming between shorelines to sightings of large sturgeon. Memphremagog is known to contain lake trout, burbot, and other deep-water species capable of reaching impressive sizes. Yet the “multi-hump” movement described by witnesses does not match known fish behavior. Likewise, the length reported, often over 20 feet, exceeds the size of sturgeon historically found in the region. Some researchers point to the lake’s depth and unusual underwater structures as potential habitats for rare or relict species, though no concrete evidence has ever been captured.
In recent years, kayakers, boaters, and shoreline residents have continued submitting stories. Most describe a dark shape moving just beneath the waterline, too large to be a submerged log and too controlled to be drifting debris. A handful of boaters have reported sonar anomalies, long, continuous returns that rise and fall through the thermocline before vanishing into the depths. While none of the data is definitive, it fuels speculation that something large, or several somethings, inhabit the deeper sections of the lake.
Today, Memphre lives on as a symbol of Lake Memphremagog itself: part folklore, part puzzle, part natural wonder. The sightings that continue into the present day suggest that whatever people have seen in the lake, it is not limited to one generation or one era. Whether a rare fish species, an unusually large eel-like animal, or a phenomenon shaped by the lake’s dark and shifting waters, the creature remains one of North America’s most persistent aquatic mysteries, surfacing just long enough to leave another witness wondering what, exactly, moves beneath the cold waters of Memphremagog.
Sources & Further Reading:
– Early 19th-century travel diaries referencing Lake Memphremagog serpent sightings.
– Local historical societies of Quebec and Newport, Vermont, documenting multi-witness encounters.
– Newspaper archives covering steamer captain reports (1870s–1930s).
– Testimonies from modern fishermen, boaters, and police officers (1970s–present).
– Limnological studies on Lake Memphremagog’s depth, fauna, and sonar readings.
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee — where mystery, history, and late-night reading meet.)
