Something’s fishy in those lakes

There’s something about gazing out at a lake that splashes the imagination.

We can’t really see below the surface. So it’s natural to wonder: What’s down there?

Swaying aquatic plants, a few unassuming fish and a sunken boat or two, probably. But who knows. Maybe there’s something else in the water, something unusual.

Slice readers were asked to submit brief stories explaining the origin of an Inland Northwest lake monster.

Paul Schlosser told of a beginning most foul.

“Icky materialized from a Spokane sewage wastewater tank located on the Spokane River six years ago. He was created from a conglomerate of toxic chemicals in the system. At birth he was a mid-sized green blob.”

He eventually got into the river and wound up in Lake Spokane, where he grew quickly. Now he’s a major green blob.

“It has been kept quiet by the media that he has snared tubers, water-skiers and fishermen.”

Wouldn’t you just know the media would be mixed up in this?

Jacob Blakeley, 11, wrote about a fisherman who found an extraordinary egg and then accidentally dropped it into Chapman Lake. Oops. Perhaps you can guess where that story is headed.

Adam Blakeley, 10, told of an ill-starred boy at Rock Lake who ate some highly exotic berries (the product of a botanist’s experiment gone horribly wrong) and turned into a huge snake with the head of a crocodile.

That could happen.

North Idaho’s Janet Lake (yes, that’s her real name) described an ancient creature that started life long ago, in glacial Lake Missoula. One of the huge floods swept it to Lake Coeur d’Alene, where it remained dormant until dock construction roused it from its slumber.

Talk about bringing geology to life.

Terry and Lorrie Appling also pointed to Lake Missoula as the primordial soup for a being named Missie who inhabits the aquifer. She awaits the right combination of pollution spills and earthquakes to unleash a “Godzilla-like rampage.”

Let’s see the media ignore that.

Liz Cox wrote about an eel-like leviathan lurking in the waters near Sandpoint. “According to folklorists studying the legend of Mon Dieu (known as ‘Mondo’ or ‘Man-Dew’ locally), residents believe the creature is the reincarnation of a French tourist who drowned crying for help in Lake Pend Oreille. It’s said the monster grows a foot every time the lake’s name is misspelled … .”

High school senior Rebekah Marsh said there’s a dog-eating creature in Lake Pend Oreille that is actually a pet belonging to visitors from another planet.

Chris Dahlstrom said a seemingly improbable series of events led to a mutant raccoon abiding in Liberty Lake.

Lynne Pammler told of Hanford-contaminated Canada geese depositing radioactive droppings into Sprague Lake as the beginning of a story that doesn’t end well for nearby residents.

In Jon Livingston’s yarn, an airplane carrying the frozen body of a Stone Age hunter runs into rough weather over Liberty Lake and the casket plummets into the water below.

It turns out that the hunter’s pack contained a spear tip smeared with the genetic reproductive materials of some immense creatures from long ago. One thing leads to another and soon the missing-persons list starts getting longer out in golf-course country.

With a little help from his grandmother Joyce Becker, 10-year-old Justice Dunn told of a fierce Lake Pend Oreille dweller that started life as a peace-loving goldfish named Bubbles.

Dave Whipple’s tale begins with a radioactive wasp from Hanford stinging a heavy metals-laden amphibian or reptile near Lake Coeur d’Alene. “And a beast is born,” he wrote.

Thanks to those readers and many others who submitted stories. There were mammoth worms bent on revenge for the crimes of fishermen. There were watery relatives of Sasquatch. There were mermaid-like life forms. And so on.

But I’m declaring Spokane’s Vicki Nicodemus the winner.

“The real reason for the phosphate ban is in Long Lake,” she wrote. “Years of phosphates being dumped in the lake have caused the algae to mutate. On the bottom of the lake lives a flat, slimy soap-covered green blob. This green blob is soft but if you step on it, it will suck you in like a giant vacuum.”

Try not to think about that next time you wade into the water and feel something squishy between your toes.