Old Ned: The Fundy Sea Serpent

Back in the early 1950's there was a flurry of interest over the alleged sighting
of a sea serpent off Parker's Cove in southwestern Nova Scotia. The report, which
made the local papers, came from two fishermen, James Longmire and Harry Gregory.

Longmire and Gregory, both of whom have since passed away, were in separate boats.
The boats were not the large inboard-engine lobster boats we are familiar with
today but rather the smaller outboard motor driven craft that were in common use
then. The size of the fishermen's boats is important because it provided them
with a close-up view of whatever it was they encountered.

According to Longmire and Gregory, the creature was some thirty feet long and
snakelike. It moved through the water in a manner reminiscent of a land bound
snake's undulating style of locomotion. Both fishermen reported the creature came
so close to them that they thought it would overturn their boats.

There are still people in the Parker's Cove area who remember this story and knew
James Longmire and Harry Gregory. One of them, Kinsman Gregory, cousin of Harry
Gregory, has spoken to the veracity of the two fishermen. He also says that the
strange creature that was brought into the Parker's Cove docks in 2002 and
identified as a species of shark seldom found in the Fundy region was probably
what Longmire and Gregory saw back in the 1950's. Backing up the idea that the sea
serpent Longmire and Gregory saw was nothing more than a rare species of shark is
the fact that the decomposed remains of creatures first thought to be sea serpents
and later identified as the remains of basking sharks have been found all around
Fundy.

The scientific explanation that Bay of Fundy sea serpents are in reality nothing
more that rare sharks is a simple way of dealing with a subject that many people
find fascinating. In fact there are people on both sides of Fundy who will swear
to having seen sea serpents. And, the purported existence of Fundy sea serpents
goes back in time to well before the alleged sighting of a sea creature by
Longmire and Gregory.

One of the great mysteries of the sea- one that periodically engenders a spate of
newspaper and other media coverage- is that of the sea serpent. The most famous of
these creatures of the deep is, of course, Scotland's Lock Ness monster. Oddly,
there actually seem to be more tales of landlocked sea serpents like Nessie than
of true oceangoing sea serpents. Lake Champlain on the New York/Vermont border has
Champ and Lake Okanagan in British Columbia has Ogopogo. Pohenegamook Lake on the
Quebec/New Brunswick border has Ponik. Then there is the Lake Utopia sea serpent,
the creature that some have dubbed Old Ned.

Lake Utopia is in southern New Brunswick not far from Passamaquoddy Bay. The
nearest community of any real size is St. George. At various times in recorded
history the marshy area between Lake Utopia and Passamaquoddy has flooded.

Native American lore has it that Lake Utopia was long the home of a great sea
serpent. Aboriginal folk myth described the creature as possessing a huge mouth
and a set of extremely intimidating teeth. According to Native tradition, during
winter months, the creature would sometimes break through Utopia's ice to snap at
wayfarers walking across the lake. Later, when Europeans began to settle the area,
legends of the creature persisted. It was back in the early days of white
settlement that the creature acquired the rather mundane name of Old Ned.
Legends of Old Ned continue to this very day but there is a caveat to them. It is
quite possible that Old Ned met his end at the hands of Passamaquoddy Bay area
residents in the mid to late 1860's.

According to a story that was published in Harper's Weekly in 1868, a mammoth sea
serpent was killed on or near Treat's Island in Passamaquoddy Bay. The Harper's
story credited a now long defunct Maine newspaper, the Bangor Daily Whig, as its
source. Among other things, the article cited a scientist and professor from the
Smithsonian named Baird as verifying the creature's existence and gave an
itinerary for a tour of the creature's remains. The tour included stops in Boston
and New York City.

According to eyewitness accounts, Old Ned- if indeed the Passamaquoddy Bay

creature was Old Ned- was enormous. It was over thirty feet long and measured just
over twenty feet around the mid section. It had a dorsal fin, stabilizing fins at
the middle and a flat tail like a shark. Its skin was loose like an elephant and
it was boneless so that its movements were undulate like a snake. Its mouth was
nearly five feet long. The estimated weight was eleven tonnes. Incredibly, it had
sturdy webbed feet, suggesting it could motivate on land as well as in the water.
Its teeth were said to resemble popcorn. If that were so, it means the creature
was a plant eating herbivore.

The creature was dispatched on shore. Witnesses described it still struggling to

get away after having been struck with over seventy musket balls. Several
observers thought it was trying to go in the general direction of Lake Utopia and
many more believed it was in fact the Lake Utopia monster.

Stories of sea serpents are as old as man. Ancient Babylonian myths tell of the
sea monster Tiamet. Norse mythology has the Midgard Serpent. In the Bible there is
the great Leviathan. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that there would be Native
American tales of marine monsters.

In the early 1800's reports of sea monsters in Maritime and New England waters
were an almost yearly occurrence. The most famous of these was the New England
Serpent, so named by Gloucester fishermen who encountered it everywhere from the
Grand Banks and the Bay of Fundy to Gloucester Harbor.

The problem with stories of most sea serpents is that they either fall into the
category of myth and folk tale or are the reported sightings of only one or two
people as is the case with the creature reported by Longmire and Gregory off
Parker's Cove. In the case of the Passamaquoddy creature, however, there were any
number of witnesses including the Smithsonian scientist Baird. Professor Baird,
however, was not able to place the Passamaquoddy monster in any known taxonomy.

Professor Baird aside, some seem to think that the Lake Utopia creature or Old Ned
falls into the taxonomic classification of plesiosaur. Plesiosaur were
herbivores, characterized by a long neck, a thick body and long tail. And, they
were quite at home in lakes. The problem with the stories of Old Ned or the
Passamaquoddy monster- if they were one and the same- is that members of Old Ned's
family still seem to be around.

In 1982 a New Brunswick man by the name of Sherman Hart reported seeing a creature
break the surface of Lake Utopia and then submerge. Others have reported seeing a
trail through the brush and undergrowth created by something large they believed
lived in the area of the lake. In addition, there have been reports in New
Brunswick papers indicating the Lake Utopia creature of today is the same one
described in Native American folk tale. None of these accounts, however, reference
the Harper's story and its account of Passamaquoddy Bay area residents killing a
monster they believed came from Lake Utopia. Nor do they refer to the Parker's
Cove sighting by Longmire and Gregory. It all makes for a fascinating conundrum,
made all the more wonderful by being able to call at least one of the sea monsters
Old Ned.