Monster in the St. Lawrence River?

Quite dug, with a grain of proverbial salt, this fun youtuber doc, Monster in the St. Lawrence River?

Admittedly, it uses too much re-hashed waterway footage about giant sea serpent sightings in the St. Lawrence, but the accounts are interesting, if a little repetitive. Many lack opposing arguments (for example, an elk in the water can appear bizarre, huge, and with horns and humps), with the exception of a  McGill university professor easily exposing a purported specimen as a hoax in 1895).

Still, there's a fine Indigenous storytelling connection to ground the whole works, the traditional Kahnawake Mohawk belief regarding the giant water snake of the St. Lawrence. The doc recounts lots of sightings near Saguenay and Gananoque, Quebec.
I grew up not far from the St. Lawrence. You can see it from Second Street, which runs somewhat east to west along the southern edge of my old neighbourhood. The idea of sea serpents in those waters and sea serpents as a concept fired up my imagination early on, when I was a grade school kid. I drew it. I might have dreamt about it. One of the stories in my book Fear Itself includes such a creature lurking that very river.

And I knew it! I recalled a sea serpent story I heard when I was  growing up. In this mini-doc, at about the 40-minute mark, there is a reference to a 1936 sighting of a sea serpent near the Long Sault Parkway, about 15 klicks from my hometown of Cornwall. The narrator mispronounces "Massena", but their (cryptozoological) heart is in the right place. Locals affectionately nicknamed the purported creature "Oscar". Oscar!

Some horned serpent sightings in the doc sound a lot like they could be elk. Before the Seaway was built, creatures could enter the river from oceanic waters. There's an early 1900's Mohawk story, the Legend of Sa’ronkwa’sen, about a kid, Kahnawake, who piggy-backed the serpent and was spotted later near Cornwall Island by Akwesasne Mohawks. I am more inclined to believe Lake Ontario has older creatures, being in the Monster Belt, the same latitude around the world where many witnesses have spotted purported sea serpents. It corresponds to roughly between 45 degrees and 60 degrees north latitude. 

That said, I still like the idea, however improbable,  of something being in the river, or that at least used to be.

Anyhow, I am courageous enough to admit it—I still adore sea serpents. I might dream about them, still. The Plesiosaurus is my favourite dinosaur, as an adult. Dinosaurs remain proof that monsters, great creatures, roamed this big blue marble for many, many moons before we appeared and for far longer. And I consider this discovery marvelous—synchronicity at its most startling.

Documentary text is here, too.
https://mysteriesofcanada.com/quebec/monsters-of-the-st-lawrence-river/

Queer Indie Authors at T's Pub

Queer Indie Authors at T's Pub
Featuring:
AJ Dolman
Natalie Hanna
Chris Johnson
Stevie Mikayne
James K. Moran
 
T's Pub or tspub.ca
Ottawa, Ontario.
Thurs., Aug. 21. 
Doors "open", 5:30. 
6:00pm start.
Free event.
Y'all are invited.

That's how the pros do it, true believers. We've got it all—poetry, horror and other speculative fiction, mystery and fab host Eden Moore, to boot! 

AJ Dolman’s (they/she) debut poetry collection is Crazy / Mad (Gordon Hill Press, 2024). They previously authored Lost Enough: A collection of short stories (MRP, 2017), and three poetry chapbooks, and co-edited Motherhood in Precarious Times (Demeter Press, 2018). Dolman’s poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. A bi/pan+ rights advocate and founder of Bi+ Canada, they live on unceded, unsurrendered Anishinaabe Algonquin territory.

Chris Johnson (he/him) was born in Scarborough, ON, and currently lives on unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. He is the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine and Editorial Assistant at Nightwood Editions. Chris' latest chapbook is 320 lines of poetry (counting blank lines) (Anstruther Press, 2023).

natalie hanna is a queer Ottawa lawyer of Middle-Eastern descent, working with low income populations. She runs battleaxe press, and her poem “light conversation” received Honourable Mention for the 2019 Diana Brebner Prize. She is the author of thirteen poetry chapbooks, including titles with above/ground press and Baseline Press. Her 2021 chapbook, machine dreams (Collusion Books), co-authored with Liam Burke, was nominated for the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Her first full-length collection, lisan al'asfour (ARP Books, 2022), was a finalist for the 2023 Ottawa Book Awards.

Stevie Mikayne is a queer writer of romantic mysteries. Her work is inspired by that time she was allowed to crash a Private Investigator School, coupled with her natural resistance to being told that she can't blend genres. She is a two-time Lambda Literary Award Finalist as well as a Golden Crown Literary Award Finalist. In her real life, she is a professor of creative writing at the University of Ottawa and a mum to a fabulous almost-teenager.

James K. Moran, a writer of many bi lines, has published speculative fiction and poetry in Burly Tales: Finally Fairy Tales for the Hirsute and Hefty Gay Man, Bywords, Glitterwolf, On Spec, and elsewhere. Moran’s collection Fear Itself and small-town Canada horror novel Town & Train were published by Lethe Press. For over 15 years, he was a freelance contributor for Xtra Magazine (née Capital Xtra!). He reviews for Arc Poetry Magazine, Plenitude: your queer literary magazine and Strange Horizons. Findable at jamestheballadeer.