Creature’s name sparks legal feud Vermont woman
claims copyright
MIRO CERNETIG
QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF
MONTREAL-Just when U.S.-Canada relations seemed to have hit bottom, a new controversy has surfaced from the inky depths of Lake Memphremagog: A nasty custody battle over a monster said to dwell in the lake straddling the border.
“I guess it’s another international crisis,” said Charles Catchpaugh, a resident of Magog, the slow-living resort town that shares the Quebec side of the lake that stretches into Vermont. “We’re being told by an American not to use our monster’s name any more.”
That shy, possibly non-existent lake serpent would be Memphre, Quebec and Vermont’s answer to the Loch Ness monster.
For decades, both the province and the state have happily shared the Memphre legend, not to mention a binational tourist industry built around the story that something lurks beneath the depths of Lake Memphremagog – thought to be an Indian word for “beautiful waters.”
But the relations between the neighbours, once as smooth as the lake’s ice-blue surface, were roiled in recent months, when word started spreading that Barbara Malloy, a monster enthusiast from Newport, Vt., was sending out letters claiming exclusive copyright to the fantastical creature.
“It’s made me stop using the name of our lake monster in my newspaper,” said Catchpaugh, publisher of Magog’s Outlet newspaper, which sends copies into Vermont, where U.S. copyright might apply. “I’m a small operator. I can’t face a lawsuit over something that might not even exist.”
One of only a few hundred people who have claimed to spot Memphre – usually described as an improbable creature between 5 and 15 metres long, perhaps with a horse-like head and multiple legs – Malloy sees herself as sole owner of the creature’s name in the U.S., which she claims to have copyrighted in her country almost two decades ago.
“I own it on this side of the border – and I’ve had it for 18 years,” she said in a testy interview from Vermont. “I don’t have a problem down here. I think the problem is coming from your side of the border, up there in Canada.”
She didn’t want to discuss her legal argument.
“That’s unbelievable, just unbelievable,” responded Jacques Boisvert, a 70-year-old resident of Magog, who claims he christened the lake’s reputed monster years before the American even knew about it.
As an amateur historian of the lake, the former insurance broker claims it was he who dredged up the ancient Indian legend about a lake monster, one that perhaps may even eat people, and made it a contemporary tourist draw.
Over the last 25 years, Boisvert said he has carried out more than 6,000 scuba dives in the 50-kilometre-long lake, searching for the elusive animal to depths more than 100 metres. But other than seeing a “fish that might be six feet long” he has never seen the creature.
But one thing he maintains he is certain of: he definitely coined the name Memphre, now in use in dozens of Magog and Vermont businesses. In 1984, he says, he also legitimized the study of Memphre with Quebec’s language police, the Office de la langue fran?aise, which officially accepted the word dracontologie, dracon being the operative word in the discipline of searching for lake dragons.
Not unlike the lake monster Ogopogo in British Columbia’s Lake Okanagan, Memphre has been used by Magog’s local merchants ever since in their business signs and promotions. In the spirit of sharing with his southern neighbours, Boisvert said he agreed to share the name with Malloy, a fellow enthusiast south of the border who had read one of his articles.
“I want everybody to be able to use Memphre as they like, freely, to build up the local economy,” he said. “But when she told me she owned copyright, well, we haven’t spoken since then, to tell you the truth.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has weighed in on the bizarre debate, telling Vermonters in the last few days it is probably unconstitutional for anyone to prevent the use of the lake monster’s name by journalists and the general public.
Bu
t legal arguments aside, the feud has turned ugly. Boisvert said he was recently sent a missive by an attorney for Malloy, which he said threatens him with penalties of up to $100,000 (U.S.) for the unauthorized mention of Memphre.
It also suggests that if he doesn’t desist, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation might get involved.
“Well,” Boisvert quipped, “if the FBI and CIA can take time out of looking for Osama bin Laden and start helping us look for Memphre, then I welcome them.”
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