Lake Erie should have its own apparition from the depths — but it has to be friendly. Last week, Lloyd Brown-John unveiled his ideas, drawings included, of the Lake Erie creature to Leamington council, name and all. It will be called "Mishepeshu" (mish-ee-pesh-u) and as a tourist attraction Brown-John suggests that Leamington's adoption of the lake monster upstages even "our U.S. friends." "The idea is a tourist attraction," acknowledged Brown-John, a professor at the University of Windsor, and involved in several local community events. He notes that lake creatures are well-known in the folklore of at least three other Canadian centres. "If Barrie can have a lake monster in a little bay in Lake Simcoe surely Lake Erie can have one," said Brown-John. He said he was asking council to "consider adopting (Mishepeshu) as its official lake monster." Creatures are often associated with large bodies of water, and Lake Erie is no different. Brown-John says such a monster in Erie was first reported as far back as 1792 near Ohio's Snake Island, when a schooner captain reported a "huge sea serpent wrestling about in the water."

As well, native peoples have drawn images of Mishepeshu on rocks and the creature was never spoken of in the summer, only in the winter, when locked under the ice. Is there a Mishepeshu? "Whether I believe it exists is not material," says Brown-John.

View: Full Article | Source: TheStar.com