Story-A-Day #338: Mugwump

MUGWUMP

My grandfather was an avid fisherman, more at home on the water than he was on dry land.  When I was young, I remember him swimming across the lake and back every morning as part of his daily ritual.  His broad, shoulders and powerful arms would cycle effortlessly, pulling his body through the often choppy water with ease.  He was a big bear of a man, but he definitely seemed at home in the water.  That's what makes his disappearance so suspect.

Lake Temiskaming is a deep one, cold and brutal when she wants to be.  She has claimed many lives over the years, just as she has claimed her stake in the glacier carved Canadian Shield of Northern Ontario.  She can be a fierce mistress, but she is one that my grandfather had undoubtedly tamed.

When they found his motorboat, abandoned and turning in a slow, endless circle, they assumed that he had fallen overboard, possibly bumped his head on the way into the cold autumn waters.  They never did find his body, but they chalked it up to an accidental death by drowning.

It's nonsense of course.  He was strong and fit.  I've watch him effortlessly pull in a 24-pound pike in a canoe, so nothing could have caused him to lose his footing, fall into the lake, and bang his head on the side of a fifteen-foot aluminum.  He was simply too much of a man to succumb to such a mundane death.

My grandfather was tough and rugged, but he was also a gifted storyteller.  He would concoct great fables about his escapades, and when he did, he would tell them with great conviction.  The only sign that he was telling one of his fables was the inevitable twinkle in his eye.  That twinkle was his tell.  Still, there was one story he would tell that was different, one that he would tell with equal conviction, but without the mischievous gleam in his eyes.

Legend has it that a great beast lives in the dark and murky depths of Lake Temiskaming, one that locals on both the Ontario and Quebec shores refer to as Mugwump.  The descriptions vary, but my grandfather's is the one I stand by because I am quite certain he had encountered Mugwump as a younger man.

He described the beast as a serpent, although broader than a typical snake, and far larger - at least 40-feet long by his recollections.  He told me a story about how he had been fishing early one morning, and was reeling in a great catch.  It was an epic battle of man versus nature, the great pike leaping from the waters as it fought to dislodge his hard planted hook.  On one of those leaps, an even greater prize erupted through the surface and caught the fish in mid-air.  the splash as Mugwump tumbled back into the waters almost tipped his boat.

He told me how he had leaned over the side of the boat and watched as the great beast passed beneath, it's cold black saucer sized eye staring at him as it passed below.  The monster, my grandfather had assured me, had issued a challenge; one in which there would only be one true victor.

It might sound crazy, but I am positive that Mugwump returned and that my grandfather failed that challenge.  I think Mugwump had her revenge.  As I stare out over these cool autumnal waters today, I can almost feel her presence, a forbidding challenge that rises up from the deeps.  I almost feel as though she is calling out for a new challenger, one who might do better than the man who tamed the untamable depths of this great prehistoric lake.

I am afraid that I am not that man, but I will try.  It's what my grandfather would have wanted...