Apr 6, 2017 06:35 PM
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/de...100065770/
EXCERPT: Headlights swallowed in fog, we arrived at Lake DeSmet in north-central Wyoming on the cries of legend, banshee winds hurling sleet like buckshot against the side of our travel trailer. We trolled up and down the Mikesell-Potts Recreation Area, deserted now in the prelude to winter, before unhitching in a site partially sheltered by a naked and scrawny hedgerow. A single transmission line sagged high above the tiny shoreline campground, and between gusts, one could hear the slithering current, like alien tendrils spilling from the mothership, metallic and eerie beneath the hazy orange cone of a lonely street light.
Rumors start here. Of men. Of monsters. Since the turn of the 20th century, reports of a great sea serpent at Lake DeSmet, perhaps two, have circulated amongst the locals, the lore of both white settlers and natives alike. “Smetty,” some call it today, similar to his better-known colleague “Nessie” in the Scottish Highlands. In his 1925 book 'Locating the Iron Trail', author and railroad surveyor Edward Gillette — namesake of Gillette, Wyo. — recounted his interaction with the Barkeys, a nearby ranch family, after their first sighting.
“They were all very much excited, stating that they wished I had arrived half an hour earlier as they had seen two sea serpents which had made a great commotion in the water, and swam as fast as a horse could trot,” Gillette wrote. “Upon asking them to describe these animals as accurately as possible, Mrs. Barkey stated that ‘they looked like a long telephone pole with lard buckets attached,’ referring no doubt to the fins or flappers along their sides.”
In weather like this, the wind whistling through every crack and windowsill in our trailer, our storm-shy dog, Costello, trembling beneath the bed, the story seemed — if hardly believable — a little less absurd. After all, as Gillette wrote, “These testimonies coming from thoroughly reliable persons, familiar with the country through long residence, and who discredited the old sea serpent reports, makes one come to the conclusion that probably there are some specimens of a supposed extinct species of water animal in this lake, similar to those recently reported from Patagonia. Personally, I have no reason to doubt the statements of these ranchers.”
The rumors don’t end with Gillette.... https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/de...100065770/
EXCERPT: Headlights swallowed in fog, we arrived at Lake DeSmet in north-central Wyoming on the cries of legend, banshee winds hurling sleet like buckshot against the side of our travel trailer. We trolled up and down the Mikesell-Potts Recreation Area, deserted now in the prelude to winter, before unhitching in a site partially sheltered by a naked and scrawny hedgerow. A single transmission line sagged high above the tiny shoreline campground, and between gusts, one could hear the slithering current, like alien tendrils spilling from the mothership, metallic and eerie beneath the hazy orange cone of a lonely street light.
Rumors start here. Of men. Of monsters. Since the turn of the 20th century, reports of a great sea serpent at Lake DeSmet, perhaps two, have circulated amongst the locals, the lore of both white settlers and natives alike. “Smetty,” some call it today, similar to his better-known colleague “Nessie” in the Scottish Highlands. In his 1925 book 'Locating the Iron Trail', author and railroad surveyor Edward Gillette — namesake of Gillette, Wyo. — recounted his interaction with the Barkeys, a nearby ranch family, after their first sighting.
“They were all very much excited, stating that they wished I had arrived half an hour earlier as they had seen two sea serpents which had made a great commotion in the water, and swam as fast as a horse could trot,” Gillette wrote. “Upon asking them to describe these animals as accurately as possible, Mrs. Barkey stated that ‘they looked like a long telephone pole with lard buckets attached,’ referring no doubt to the fins or flappers along their sides.”
In weather like this, the wind whistling through every crack and windowsill in our trailer, our storm-shy dog, Costello, trembling beneath the bed, the story seemed — if hardly believable — a little less absurd. After all, as Gillette wrote, “These testimonies coming from thoroughly reliable persons, familiar with the country through long residence, and who discredited the old sea serpent reports, makes one come to the conclusion that probably there are some specimens of a supposed extinct species of water animal in this lake, similar to those recently reported from Patagonia. Personally, I have no reason to doubt the statements of these ranchers.”
The rumors don’t end with Gillette.... https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/de...100065770/
