There was no question that John Lee’s skiff had seen better days. Still, each summer during the mid-1950s, he dragged the rickety little boat down from the village of Iliamna in Southwest Alaska to the shore of the lake that shares the village’s name. While his father minded the family store, the Iliamna Trading Co., Lee—with the sort of resolve often seen in eight-year-old boys—aimed to explore Alaska’s largest body of fresh water. What he most wanted to see was the creature some called the Iliamna Lake Monster. Alaska’s vastness has all the makings of great tall tales—untamed wilderness, rich and varied Native culture, exotic wildlife, colorful characters, jaw-dropping magnitude. There are many stories: whole herds of mastodons preserved in a glacier, utopias born of ice and snow, strange disappearances, tides that swallow men whole. Some are too fake to be real, others too real to be fake. The common trait of these myths and mysteries is endurance. The Alaska version of the Loch Ness Monster is only the beginning. “It was referred to as ‘the big fish’ or ‘the mystery fish’ by the locals,” Lee recalled recently. “It was seen (from the air) by several credible pilots. But a lot of them didn’t like to talk about it much because they were afraid people would think they were crackers.”
View: Full Article | Source: Alaska Magazine
