28

The Lady of the Lake and a Possible Sea Monster

After a ten mile ride in the Holden Village bus down a remote dirt road complete with a plethora of switchbacks, the group arrived at the Lucerne pier. Lilly hustled the children and all their gear onto The Lady of the Lake, a weathered white passenger ferry with two decks and several rows of tinted windows.

Lilly’s fears were confirmed when no one pounced upon them demanding that they all wear life jackets. The decks did have railings and the students certainly couldn’t fall overboard from inside one of the observation decks, could they?

Once everyone had dumped their bags into a seat, Lilly gathered the children around her. “Mr. Calvert is on his way to the hospital and should be just fine. We have a two hour journey by boat ahead of us, but this is one of the most scenic lakes in the nation and full of many varieties of fish. So we have a fabulous learning opportunity before us. What would you like to investigate first, the geology of the lake or the animal life within it?”

Soft groans met her words.

Lilly looked over the group, at the students in her care. Their hair was salty with dried sweat and stuck out in all directions. Their skin was covered with mosquito and fly bites and a touch of sunburn and no small portion of dust.

As the Lady chugged out onto the open lake, the storm hit. Wind slammed the windows and chopped the water into frothy white peaks. Storm clouds hung low about them, darkening the day and spitting out raindrops and hail. Lightning sliced through the roiling gray sky, leaving a jagged imprint across the heavens.

Lilly smiled at the children, slumped across their seats, their bleary eyes only half open. “I’m proud of you.” She got a few grins back, but mostly they stared out the windows at the churning lake, looking about three seconds away from passing out. “Have any of you ever heard of Ogopogo?”

Strudel gave a sharp yip and curled up in her lap.

“Anyone besides, Strudel?”

The children shook their heads.

“Well, Native American legends tell of a mighty creature that devoured all the grazing animals on the prairie. When the people appealed to God, He threw a great stone at Ogopogo. Instead of killing the beast, the stone created a vast crater with lovely mountains surrounding it. The crater filled with water, forming Lake Chelan, but the creature remained at the bottom, pinned beneath the massive stone, thrashing his tail and causing mighty waves upon the lake.”

“That seems a little far-fetched,” Emily whispered, her eyes drooping.

“Yes it does. But Ogopogo’s tale does not end there. It also includes a pirate story.”

The children sat up a little straighter and scooted close.

Lilly pulled some bills out of her back pack and grabbed ten candy bars from a snack machine. She handed out the treats and got everyone settled. “Be sure to take note of the stunning scenery as we travel and I will tell you the legend.” She unwrapped a nutty, chocolate-covered confection and took a large bite, chewing slowly. “So in 1812, a Scottish captain from Fort Augustus took a treasure chest and two mysterious female passengers on a long sea voyage. Somehow, a terrible storm flung them into the waters of Lake Chelan.”

“From the Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean?” Juan asked, with perhaps a bit of skepticism in his voice.

“Yes. It’s a legend,” Lilly whispered. “And that is how it goes.”

The kids nodded and scrunched deeper into their seats, some slumping over to pillow a head against a neighbor, or rest a cheek on the table top.

“So, in the waters of Lake Chelan the terrible storm threatens the pirate ship until the treasure chest inexplicably plunges overboard. The captain leaps after and so do his two mysterious passengers. The ship’s crew are startled to see that the two women have fins instead of feet. One goes after the captain and one retrieves the chest, which contains a large and fabulous egg. An egg that could only have been laid by Nessie, Scotland’s fabled Loch Ness Monster.”

The children gasped theatrically, and a few laughed.

“Many different people have claimed to have seen Ogopogo since then. A long neck and head sliding up out of the water, a bony spine breaking the surface of the lake, or even a newspaper account in 1892 of a young man who was dragged into the air by a flying monster. What do you think they saw?”

“Well, what kind of fish are in Lake Chelan?” Logan asked.

Lilly tried to stifle her triumphant smile. “The lake is stocked with cutthroat and Kokanee, but sportsmen can also find Chinook salmon, and lake trout. Some Chinook reach weights of up to twenty pounds. But there are sturgeon in the Columbia River, and sometimes these massive fish can be found in lakes. In 1987, the body of a sturgeon was found in Lake Washington that reached eleven feet in length and weighed six hundred forty pounds.”

“It sounds more like a dragon. Did you hear how Ogopogo flew away in that one newspaper story?”

“It’s just a big sturgeon. That makes the most sense, what with the bony spine breaking through the water.”

“No, a dragon!”

“A sea monster.”

“Can you guys think of any sea monsters that fit these descriptions?”

“What about that long-necked, flippered one?”

“Yes, a plesiosaur had a long neck and four strong flippers. A mosasaur had the body and head of a crocodile, but with flippers.”

“But none of those had wings.”

“True, but these are legends. It could have been a massive fish, or some of the stories might be fabrications created by someone who was sure they saw something when it was dark and they were nervous.”

“Or…a mosasaur with wings!”

“Well, at one thousand, four hundred, eighty-six feet to the bottom, Lake Chelan is the third deepest lake in the United States. It is one of the most pristine bodies of water in our country and a healthy habitat for many forms of wildlife. Who knows what might lie hidden in the depths.”

The children pressed their faces to the tinted window and searched the lake. Their enthusiasm was not rewarded by an immediate mosasaur siting. But Jacob did spot several of the white, shaggy mountain goats that lived high in the mountains surrounding the lake and Natasha pointed out an eagle nest.

These same students had stuffed her hat with gum just a few short days before, and now, all had listened raptly to her talk about the depth of Lake Chelan, and a wide variety of fish species. We’ve come a long way, Lord. Thank You.

Lilly glanced back up-lake. The mountains above Holden Village looked distant now. The Spider Gap Glacier and its two thousand foot cliff and the bright turquoise waters of the alpine lakes scattered below were equally distant. But Lilly felt changed for having viewed them. She had always known that God created fabulous wonders all across the globe. She had viewed glorious photographs in books and stunning footage in various films, but the hike across the glacier had been different somehow. Now she had felt the crunch of glacier snow beneath her sparkly exercise shoes. The burn as ice ground across her skin. The wind tangling her hair and pressing her toward a two thousand foot drop. And her own lungs had clenched with the impossible cold as she’d plunged into an alpine lake.

God was much bigger than she had realized and yet, more immediate and concerned with Lilly herself than she had ever dared to hope. She thought of all the answered prayers, about the hike and the cold and the bears and the ice ax. About her students and how to teach and reach them and how to become the kind of instructor whom they required.

God had clearly walked beside her. Answering prayers in the way that was best, even if that answer meant an uncomfortable hike, honey in her shoes, a bear on the trail, and a fine case of hypothermia. She knew how to teach these children now, which had been the cry of her heart all along. Strange that coming to this place required a good many “no” answers from God to get to that great, big fabulous “Yes.”

Lilly pillowed her cheek against her arm and watched her students.

Some with eyes alight, pointing at a delicate doe, bounding away from the shore. Some scrunched up in their seats, slowly drifting off to sleep. Mason, Juan, and Logan were coloring homemade tattoos of marmots and sea monsters on each other’s arms. Strudel stretched and jumped off her lap. He sauntered over and burrowed under Mason’s arm until the boy scooped him up for a snuggle as he drifted off with his head against a crumpled sleeping bag.

Lilly smiled. Thank You, Lord, for the beautiful students You have given me. Even though it defied all my expectations, this trip did turn out to be ‘fabulous’ after all. She pulled out a notebook and started a math lesson titled: Twenty-Five Near Death Experiences That Can Be Made Into Fascinating Math Problems. She flipped to another page and titled it: Forty-Six Fascinating Nature Facts To Spur The Young Mathematician’s Mind. Lilly wrote a number one on the first page and wrote out the first problem.

For the optimal backpacking experience, a hiker must carry 20% of their weight. If Marilyn weighs 120 pounds how many of the listed items can she pack for her trip: 1 tent weighing 8lbs, 1 camp stove weighing 3lbs, 1 sleeping bag weighing 4lbs, 1 small dog weighing 6lbs, 1 collection of dried food weighing 3lbs, clothing for 3 days weighing 6lbs, a first aid kit weighing 2lbs, 1 carton of dog food weighing 4lbs, doggy coats and hair bows weighing 4lbs, makeup and hair accessories weighing 2lbs, hand sanitizer and wet wipes weighing 3lbs, high protein granola bars weighing 5lbs, and emergency reading materials weighing 7lbs.

What exactly would her students choose to pack? The snacks, the stove, the small dog? Lilly smiled and couldn’t help the thought that perhaps she had managed to come up with a math problem that real, live sixth graders would actually enjoy solving. And it was all because of this ridiculous trip. Truly, the Lord worked in mysterious ways.