Odziozo of Lake Champlain
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Jeff, what a perfect summer day to be out here on Lake Champlain. Oh, it is. Summer's here. There's few better places to be than on or near the water. Now, I suppose we should keep our eyes peeled for Champ, the lake monster. We absolutely should keep our eyes peeled for Champ. We went out here looking for him before, but we did indeed strike out. We did.

Though plenty of others have seen Champ, reliable folks who live and visit this lake, but I don't think the odds are with us. No, probably not. Now, what are we looking for today? So, Ray, we've come to the Vermont side of Lake Champlain, searching for a different Lake

lake monster not champ not champ okay this monster is both ancient and massive and i dare say there have been far more witnesses of this creature than champ really i'll even go so far as to guarantee that we'll see it while we're out here on lake champlain today all right well now i'm listening ray we've come to vermont to search for the udsy otso

Hey, I'm Jeff Belanger. And I'm Ray Ogier. Welcome to episode 403 of the New England Legends podcast. Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. We're always on the hunt for monsters, ghosts, roadside oddities, eccentrics, and all the other wicked strange weirdness that makes New England like no other place. Most of our story leads come from you. So please reach out to us anytime through our website with your story leads.

Just a reminder that Ray and I want to hear from you about your own personal stories of strange encounters with ghosts, monsters, UFOs, and other unexplained mysteries in New England. Please contact us through our website or email us info at ournewenglandlegends.com. We'll go searching for the Utsi Otsu right after this quick word from our sponsor.

Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. Now through July 15th, stock up on all your favorite personal care brands and earn four times points to use on later purchases for discounts on groceries or gas. Shop in-store or online for items like Pantene Shampoo, Old Spice, Total Body Deodorant, Tampax Pearl, Venus Razors, Head & Shoulders Shampoo, Olay Body Wash, and Pantene Conditioner and earn four times points. Hurry before these deals are gone. Offer ends July 15th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit Safeway.com for more details.

As we said earlier, this isn't our first trip to Lake Champlain off the coast of Vermont. No, it's not. Now, Lake Champlain is huge. Absolutely massive. It's about 125 miles long, just over 14 miles at its widest point. Covers about 500 square miles and borders Vermont to the east, New York to the west, and a good chunk of it is located in Canada to the north. Yeah, like we said, it's big. A lot of room for monsters to hide. A lot of room.

Do you ever wonder how Lake Champlain was made? I'm assuming it was formed as the last ice age retreated north, the Atlantic Ocean retreated, and land rose, leaving behind this massive body of water.

Well, yeah. I mean, that's what the geologists tell us. Okay. And you're probably right. But when you look at the mountains around us, the massive lake, it's easy to wonder if maybe something bigger had a hand in this. Like the hand of God? Sure. Or some other kind of divine creator. Any place this beautiful, this bountiful, with food in the form of fish, fresh water to drink, water that draws in game you can hunt...

I mean, this must be a gift of something bigger. Well, when you look at it that way, yeah, it wasn't long ago that this would have been an obvious place to live, provided you could stay in the winters. A place of abundance and beauty. For me, it's easy to see the hand of a creator when I'm surrounded by all this. Oh, look at you getting all spiritual and mushy. Sometimes I just can't help it.

Okay, let's take the boat that way. Which way? Over there, past the point, to the left-ish. You mean starboard? Right. Left. Port? Oh, God. Okay, okay, I got it.

So we're heading out past Shelbourne Point, just off the coast of South Burlington, Vermont. So right over there is Juniper Island. It's about a mile from us. Yep, there's a small lighthouse on Juniper Island. It's one of the larger islands on the lake. Is that where we're headed? Not quite, but that direction, yeah.

Okay, you see that rock sticking out of the water just coming up ahead? Oh, yeah, I do. There's not much to see. I imagine at night that rock could be a real danger for boats, though. Well, today it's called Dunder Rock, and it's what we're here to see. Let's stop the boat here so we can get a little bit of distance between us and the rock. All right, got it. So Rock Dunder, is that like Dunderhead? That is the origin of the name of the rock, yeah.

So the story goes that during the War of 1812, there was the Battle of Plattsburgh, New York, which is just a bit northwest of us on the New York side of the lake. The battle took place in September of 1814. Now, during the fight, the British had set up a naval blockade on the lake. The fighting had stopped for the night, and the Brits figured they could finish the battle in the morning. But some Americans snuck out on the lake and placed a lantern on top of this rock behind the blockade.

As the fog rolled in, British warships could see the glowing lantern. Figuring maybe reinforcements were coming up, it said they turned their ships around to face the threat. Certain they had an enemy ship in sight, they fired. And fired again. They hit the rock, the lantern fell into the water and extinguished, and as the British ship drew closer, one of the officers looked over the rail to assess the damage and cried out, It's a rock by Dundah!

The blockade had been tricked, Americans got through, and the name stuck. That's kind of funny and clever on the part of the Americans. It was. But to the people who were here many centuries earlier, it was an affront to something significant and sacred. Now, what do you mean by that? It's just a rock, right? Well, so the Abenaki people lived in this region for about 12,000 years. And what's modern day New England and Quebec was their land.

This mighty lake was the western boundary. The Abenaki were also taken in by the beauty of the lake and the mountains and the region. So they have this creation story about Utsu Otsu. Utsu Otsu is an ancient being, not quite a creator god, but definitely had a hand in transforming the landscape. Utsu Otsu was this massive creature who lived before the animals had evolved legs. This creature had long arms, a massive body, and he would drag himself along the ground, forming hills and valleys in his wake.

So, Utsuotsuo spent much of his time carving out a deep valley right here. He formed the mountains nearby, dug out the lake bed, then continued south following a flock of geese into modern-day Madison, Connecticut down by the coast. There, he dug up a clump of land and flung it about a mile south to where it landed in what is now Long Island Sound.

That chunk of land became known as Tunxis Island, and the identical-sized pit in Madison filled with water and became Tunxis Pond. When the region up north flooded, forming the mighty lake and river, Udsi Otsu returned to this lake because it was his favorite creation. Once he found the perfect spot in the lake, he lifted his head just above the water so he could admire the view, and then turned himself into stone.

What we see here in front of us is Utsu Otsu's head, still poking out to admire his favorite view all these countless generations later. That's a great story. Now, when I look at the rock here at the lake from the right angle, it does almost look like a giant turtle head poking out of the water. Yeah, it does. A nod back to a very ancient time.

Now, for a long time, it was said that the Abenaki people would take boats out to Utsu Otsu and offer him tobacco. If Utsu Otsu smoked, it calmed him down, meaning the lake waters would be favorable for travel. Now, do you know just a few weeks ago on June 14th, the Lake Champlain Yacht Club held their annual Utsu Otsu boat race? The race began in 1982 as an event where various boating clubs from around Lake Champlain could get together and compete. Over 40 years later, the race still continues.

Today, countless boaters and visitors to the shores of South Burlington on Lake Champlain have seen this rocky head of Otzi Otzo poking out of the water. I'm sure if you're far enough away, you might think it's champ. Sure, yeah. But if you stare long enough, you realize it's not moving. You know, it's not the famous lake monster, but something else. Otzi Otzo is small enough that it commands your respect, especially if you're a boater. It's not something you want to run into on a foggy day or night. No, it's not.

Still, I love the idea that when you know the story and see this rock sticking out of the water to admire the beauty all around it, maybe it also reminds us to stop and admire the abundance and beauty that's right here. And maybe we too will see the hand of something bigger than ourselves at work.

There's always another way to look at a rock and another way to look at a story. And that takes us to After the Legend, where we take a deeper dive into this week's story, sometimes veer off course. After the Legend is brought to you by our Patreon patrons. This group is our inner circle. They support us in everything we do, and they understand great content isn't free. They help with our production and hosting costs, our travel, marketing, everything else it takes to bring you two podcasts each week. It's just three bucks per month. For that, you get early ad-free access to new episodes, and you get free access to

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I just love that everything has to have a story behind it. Yeah. Everything. You know, most of the stuff we talk about is there's either some fact-based information that we can share or we just speculate. Yeah. And the story is all speculation. Of course. But what a great story. Yeah. Yeah. And you can see it. Like it's, you know, you can go to our website, you can see a photo of it. Yeah. Absolutely. If you're a boater at night...

I mean, it's big enough, right? I mean, it's probably sticks out of the water, maybe three feet, four feet. You can't miss it when you hit it. Well, in daylight, you'd be fine. If you're paying any sort of attention, fog or night, and you're not paying attention and you crack your boat. Sorry, you know, not, not good. But this thing, you know, you look at it from the right angle. It looks like the head of an animal just sticking out of the water. Yeah.

The old man of the mountain. Sure. In New Hampshire. You had to look at it the right way. But when you looked at it the right way, you said, what's that? Right. And you told stories. That's something overlooking, you know, like it's how far back? It went back a long way. Yeah. Until it crumbled. Right. Also, we talked about the British hitting this rock with cannon fire. We're not positive. They did. The story of the blockade being tricked is true. Whether it was this specific rock is unknown, but it is called Dunder Rock on the map.

But the yacht race is called Adziozzo, right? And it's around that area. That's more fun, I think. Totally. Yeah. So, yeah, Dunder is not a positive name, right? It's like you Dunderhead. Well, now I'm going to look up Adziozzo race, boat race, because I feel like there's going to be a lot of...

tributes to Andi Otso. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. People dress up like him. They dress their boats up maybe. I don't know. I feel like there's more... That race is more about the history than it is just about racing on the lake. They've been doing it every year since the 80s. 40 years. And say 40 plus years. Yeah. And it just happened. The most recent one just happened. But I think that's a really cool nod to a great story and a landmark that, you know, like, yeah, okay, if your map says Dunder Rock or Rock Dunder...

Um, we know the real story. We know a Tso. And, um,

that lake already has a monster. Right. I didn't know about this one until, I mean, it's got, it's got two, right? This is, this is new. I was like, Oh wow. It's got two monsters. Although this one, if it has two, I bet you it's got two more. Well, the, but the difference, as we said, is like, I can guarantee you'll see this one. You know, like we should charge big money and be like, we can take you out to see the lake monster money back guaranteed. It's a, it's a two hour, it's a, it's a one hour boat ride from South Burlington guarantee. You'll see the lake monster.

or your money back and it's $5,000. That reminds me of going to Memphis and I could go to either Elvis' house or I could go to Jerry Lee Lewis' house. This was years ago. Great balls of fire. What'd you do? But their whole thing was like, there's a living being in this house. You might actually run into Jerry Lee Lewis. The other guy is dead. Oh, not bad. That was their pitch. Not bad.

Yeah. So we take people out in the boat and we're like, okay, I would like to collect your money now. And they're like, what are you talking about? I don't see champ. No. Oh, that's a different monster. We took you to see Utsu Otsu and there he is. He's right there. That's the rock.

I'd like my money back, please. No. You showed us a rock. But that's the story. This would be a great companion if you happen to boat on Lake Champlain in the summer. Bring the podcast with you and wow your friends with it. Go see it. Yeah. Go park the boat, you know, 100 feet out and take some pictures and admire Ed Siotso.

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