035. Something's Funny in Burlington

Does New England have our own Nessie? What's the Wizard of Oz have to do with VT? Let's take a trip to Burlington and have some fun!

Transcript

Welcome back to the New England on a Pedestal podcast with me, Doug Farquharson. We travel around our six-state area, find some interesting statues, and discuss them. This one will be one of our “mini-sodes” where we cut to the chase and do a quick dive into one or two local works. I hope you enjoy it!

I may have mentioned in a recent episode about a trip my wife and I took to Scotland. While visiting the Inverness area, we booked a cruise on Loch Ness. Of course, we were regaled with stories of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. I recently was looking at some photos from the trip and there was my wife posing next to a sculpture of Nessie. I got wondering if we had anything similar in New England. So, in this episode we find ourselves in Burlington, Vermont, which sits on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. The lake is a roughly 120-mile-long freshwater lake of about five hundred square miles between New York and Vermont, and extending into Quebec, Canada. With over 587 miles of shoreline and maximum depths of 400 or so feet, it is considered the 8th or 9th largest naturally occurring freshwater body in the continental United States. With a body of water this large and deep, it’s no wonder that people have sworn they’ve seen some strange sights. In fact, there have been over four hundred reported sightings of a mysterious monster since 1609. The Lake Champlain Monster is affectionately known as Champ or Champy. Some naysayers believe the sightings are nothing more than large fish like garpike or sturgeon and an active imagination. Descriptions provided by believers make Champy to sound a lot like Nessie to be honest. There is a famous photograph from the late 1970s and some sonar evidence from various expeditions that lend some credibility to this legend.

We at New England on a Pedestal, however, are most assuredly not legend hunters or myth busters. We’ll leave that to other podcasters. We are all about the statues and sculptures in New England. So, let’s find Champy in Burlington. There’s actually more than one location to find Champy. ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain at 1 College St has a thirty foot long sculpture of the town’s favorite serpent. It was installed in 2024 and covers three stories of the museum. At the end of Perkins Pier, there is a small granite monument dedicated to those who have sighted or are in search of Champy. It features a stone marker with an inscription about the legendary creature. Champ makes other appearances in the area throughout the year as well, including a large wooden version on New Years Eve that is set afire and burned each year. And a minor league baseball team, The Vermont Lake Monsters uses her as a friendly mascot.

Now, if you visit Burlington, don’t keep your eyes only on the waters of Lake Champlain. Because if you do, and don’t also look to the skies, you’ll miss another rather odd and unique sight. Flying Monkeys. I kid you not. What? Why? Well, back in the 1970s, Steve Larrabee created them for a since gone out of business waterbed store named Emerald City that had a Wizard of Oz thing going on. After the store closed for good, the monkeys spent a year or twenty bumming around several different locations before landing at their current location atop of the building at One Main. They became well liked at their new home and apparently had two young-ins join them. Larrabee added two baby sized flying monkeys at One Main and later added two more full size ones next door on the Lake and College Building. For a much more colorful tale of Burlington’s Flying Monkeys, go read the full story on monkeyswithwings.com.

We would love to hear from you. Let us know what you think. What are we doing right? What can we do better? Let us know of a statue with a story near and dear to you. We can be reached via email at newenglandonapedestal@farqie.com. That’s New England on a Pedestal all one word at F A R Q I E dot com.  Go to Facebook and like the New England on a Pedestal page. Follow us on Instagram. You can now find a fan mail link in the description of each episode to send a message to us. We now have a voicemail and text line. Call or text (857) 410-0464. If you’re calling from outside the United States, remember to add the +1-country code. 

As always, I want to thank Jason, Jake, Sam, and Bekka for their artistic and technical help in producing this podcast and Steffani for her administrative assistance. But, most importantly, thank you, the listener, for tuning in and sticking with us. Without you, there is no podcast!

Join us next episode when we venture to another New England town and dig into some local history there. Until then, be safe, be well, be kind and keep discovering. Thanks for listening!