Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 1812
Vanant St. Germain sat down at the bar and nodded at the bartender. “One mug, Samuel,” he said firmly.
The young man moved swiftly behind the counter, filling a mug until the foam reached the brim before setting it in front of the weathered man looking back at him.
“You did it, huh? You actually went before the Court of the Kings Bench and signed an affidavit claiming you saw that creature?” Samuel asked, shaking his head.
“You’re dang right,” Vanant said sternly before taking a swig of the beer. “It may have been 30 years ago, but I can still see that thing in my mind like it was yesterday.”
Samuel shrugged, “If you say so.”
“I do say so,” Vanant replied stubbornly. “And you’d be smart to respect things you don’t understand.”
“You’re a crazy old coot, ya know that?” Samuel said as he moved toward a customer at the other end of the bar, leaving Vanant with his mug of brew and his thoughts—thoughts that took him back to that strange day.
Pie Island, Lake Superior, May 3, 1782
Vanant and his three-man crew had set up camp on Pie Island on Lake Superior. The men, tired from trapping all day, sat around the fire enjoying some much deserved rum. It took the edge off the aching in their backs from portaging so many miles the day before. A kettle warmed over the fire. The woman, their Ojibwa guide, stirred it occasionally.
“I’m going down to check the fish nets,” Vanant said.
“Find us a trout or a nice juicy walleye to go with our beans,” one of the men said.
“Or a lobster,” added another. He tilted his back as he raised a leather canteen to his lips.
“Maybe I’ll wrestle a wild boar on the way and bring you back a ham roast,” Vanant replied. He reached down and grabbed the skin of rum from the man’s hand. Then he took a long swig.
“I do like ham,” the man replied.
Vanant laughed as he dropped the container back into the man’s lap. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The fire crackled about 100 yards behind Vanant as he neared the edge of the water. The moon hung high in the clear sky, its light shimmering on the deep, dark water that stretched before him. The stillness of the night made the surface of the lake look like a sheet of dark glass. But something in the moonlight caught Vanant’s eye.
About as far in front of Vanant as the camp was behind him, there appeared to be a person bobbing about. Cocking his head to one side, Vanant squinted his eyes.
That form, it wasn’t quite a person. It was child-like in stature and appeared to have brown skin that glistened in the moonlight. Curly hair covered its face, and large, dark eyes stared back at Vanant.
Slowly, the thing raised one arm into the air and placed the other on its hip.
Vanant stumbled backward, not believing his own eyes. Although much of the creature’s lower half was immersed in the lake, Vanant could see that its hips and upper thighs appeared to belong to a fish.
“Hey! Come see this,” Vanant yelled toward the camp. “There’s a creature …” He ran quickly back to the fire and retrieved his musket.
The others stopped talking to watch his odd behavior, amused expressions on their faces.
“There’s a creature,” he gasped, “in the water. Part human. Part fish!”
At the look in his eyes, the men stopped laughing.
“Maymaygwashi,” the Ojibwa woman said in awe, almost to herself.
The others barely noticed. The men hurried after Vanant.
But the woman moved faster, reaching him first.
At the shoreline, Vanant raised his gun to take aim at the creature that still bobbed in the water.
“No,” the Ojibwa woman cried. She tugged hard at Vanant’s sleeve, throwing off his aim. “You must not shoot the god from water and the lakes!”
Vanant studied the woman, whose hands still clutched desperately to his arm. Then he looked back to the water, just as the creature slipped below the surface. Only a rippling circle remained in its wake.
“What was it?” Vanant whispered.
“Maymaygwashi,” the woman replied. She released her hands and cast her eyes to the ground. “If you killed it, you would be cursed forever. Just raising your gun at it will cause a terrible storm to strike us.” She looked to the sky with worry.
Vanant gazed toward the cloudless sky; it was so clear that the stars sparkled like a layer of fairy dust. He shook his head. Over the years that he’d been trapping and trading, his respect for the Ojibwa had grown. But the idea that the creature was a merman god who would now cause a terrible storm on a perfectly clear night was beyond his ability to believe.
In the early morning hours, the rain rolled in. The heavens echoed with thunder, and the sky was electrified with lightning. The waters of the vast Lake Superior rose so quickly that the trappers and their guide had to rush for higher ground. They hardly had time to rescue their canoes and equipment from the thrashing, rising waves.
They stayed for three days before the rains finally relented and the waters calmed enough for them to leave the island. As they canoed away, Vanant looked back, filled with unease. He surveyed the water for any sign of the merman. He only saw dark water and foam, churned by the water’s constant lapping against the rocky ledges.
The image of the creature would be burned in his memory forever. He vowed to never again raise his gun at a Maymaygwashi.