SHATAGEE WOODS HERITAGE
Letter to the Editor
Route 2,
Chateaugay
Shatagee Woods Heritage,
Blair Kiln
November 11, 1964
Dear Sirs:
I have, with trembling fingers and a heart heavy with bewilderment, perused your latest chronicle of that most enigmatic vessel, the “Churner,” a steamboat so ancient and peculiar that it might well have sailed from the shadowy shores of Carcosa itself! Indeed, Mr. Gadway’s account paints it as a quaint relic, a mere footnote to the Lake’s history, when, in truth, it was a harbinger of something far more sinister. Yes, I do recall the “Churner”—its side wheels cutting the waters like the very scythe of Charon himself!—but there were whispers, oh yes, whispers that its timbered hull was cursed, its iron keel forged at the Bellmont Iron Works from charcoal produced by the unnatural fires of a forgotten kiln deep within the Narrows. It did not merely burn wood, my dear sirs, no—it feasted upon the very essence of the forest, its infernal smoke twisting into ghastly shapes above the lake, leaving behind an eerie silence broken only by the distant wails of lost souls. Ah, the “Churner” may well have been the first steamboat, but let us not forget it was also the first to vanish into the mist, only to reappear when the moon was full and strange lights flickered upon the shore!
But more curious still is the account of the “Maggie Weed.” Ah, the “Maggie,” that ghostly vessel of ill-repute, which arrived from the haunted waters of Lake Champlain, as though it had slipped through a portal not meant for the eyes of mortal men. Her silhouette, sharp and sleek as a serpent gliding through primordial waters, cast long shadows upon our shores. The scows she towed, laden with iron ore—or perhaps something far darker—seemed to writhe behind her like the tails of ancient leviathans. To see them moored near Bluff Point at dusk, their skeletal remains jutting from the sandbar, is to glimpse the bones of forgotten titans from another age. Oh, how the lake seemed to groan beneath the weight of such unholy cargo! And as for those tunnels beneath the Narrows, well, I dare not speculate too deeply, but I have heard it said—by those with eyes that have seen too much—that Berenice, queen of serpents, makes her nest there still, attended by a brood of slithering horrors too terrible to name!
And lo, the “Adirondack,” a vessel more gallant, if you believe the tales, though one must wonder at the true nature of those ‘excursions’ it carried out. The passengers, so innocent in their gaiety, did they not suspect that their jaunts around the lake were but a thin veneer masking darker purposes? Was it not the same Adirondack that disappeared one fateful summer, only to be found months later, her hull shattered, her crew vanished, and her decks stained with something… unnatural? I shudder to recall the strange symbols carved into the wood, symbols that no carpenter’s hand would dare trace. And yet they say, on nights when the fog rolls in thick as a thief’s cloak, you can hear the faint, echoing strains of laughter—unnerving, hollow—drifting from somewhere just beyond the Narrows.
Indeed, dear sirs, your record of these accursed vessels scratches only the surface of a history far darker than you might wish to imagine. There are things in the depths of Chateaugay Lake—things that stir when the wind dies down and the waters grow still. There are those who believe, myself included, that the steamboats were merely the first to witness the unfathomable creatures that slumber below. And as for those tunnels, well, I leave that to the speculations of the brave—or the mad. But heed my warning: not all that glitters upon the surface of this lake is gold, and not all that stirs beneath its waters is dead.
Sincerely,
Your Humble Lower Lake Correspondent
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?