# 🦕 S05E38 - Champ Across the Border

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/monstertalk-162017/s05e38-champ-across-the-border
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/monstertalk-162017/s05e38-champ-across-the-border.md
Podcast: [MonsterTalk](https://stenobird.com/podcast/monstertalk-162017)
Published: 2026-07-06T03:55:01+00:00
Episode link: https://www.monstertalk.org/%f0%9f%a6%95-s05e38-champ-across-the-border/
Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72799258/s05e38_monstertalk.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/monstertalk-162017/episodes/s05e38-champ-across-the-border
Duration seconds: 2738

## Resource

Champ Across the Border: Blake and Karen welcome back historian Dr. Joseph Gagné, a specialist in New France and the French colonial period of North America, to talk about Champ - the famous monster of Lake Champlain. Most of the lake sits between New York and Vermont, but about 7% of it lies in Quebec, and Joseph's upcoming paper in the ethnology journal Rabaska asks a question almost nobody else has: how does the French-speaking side of the border see this most American of lake monsters? The answer involves a fabricated Samuel de Champlain quote, a five-foot fish that really was a monster in its own way, nearly 300 years of digitized Quebec newspapers, and a curious case of cross-border monster pride - because why borrow Champ when you already have Ponik and Memphré ? Plus hoax serpents, colonial werewolf panics, and how Nessie taught every lake monster what a lake monster is supposed to look like. Extended show notes at MonsterTalk.org Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support . Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.

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## Transcript

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