Champ

In American folklore Champ or Champy is the name of a lake monster that is said to live in Lake Champlain, a 125—mile (201 km) long freshwater body shared by New York and Vermont , with a portion extending into Quebec, Canada.

The original story is connected with the legends of the Iroquois about giant snakes, which the Mohawks called Onyare'kowa.

French cartographer Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec and the namesake of the lake, is often called the first European to see Champ in 1609.

The earliest source of this statement is the summer issue of Vermont Life magazine in 1970. The magazine quotes Champlain, who documented "a 20-foot snake as thick as a barrel and with a head like a horse." There is no evidence that Champlain ever said that. In the translation of his journals of 1878, it is explained that Schaufau refers to the gar (or gare pike), in particular to Lepisosteus osseus (long-nosed pike).