Dragon head back in the water at Miller Lake, after summer away
An iconic landmark along one of Nova Scotia's highways is back in the water.
The dragon head that's usually seen in Miller Lake didn't make it out last summer, but has been returned to its post.
"It's just a big, green, big-nostriled, kind of playful, fun not scary, dragon made out of papier mâché and chicken wire … and fibreglass. It's pretty cool," said Krista Snow, who's taken on ownership of the dragon head she calls Emily.
Snow, a former councillor in Fall River, says the dragon head didn't make it into the water last summer because the Scouts Canada camp nearby, Camp Lone Cloud, didn't open. It's the camp's boat that she usually uses to bring the dragon head into the middle of the lake.
This year, Snow wasn't sure the dragon would make it into the water again because of health problems. But thanks to a friend who visited Snow while she was sick, the dragon has returned to its post.
"[My friend] says the typical thing that people say, 'Is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything you need?' and the first thing I thought of was 'Oh my gosh, yeah Steve, I need ya bud. Can you help me with the Miller Lake dragon? It didn't get out last year and I gotta get it out,'" Snow told CBC's Maritime Noon.
"I don't know if he thought I was joking. You ask people to do you a favour, it typically isn't, 'Hey, can you put a dragon in the middle of a lake for me?'"
Long-standing landmark
Snow said the dragon head in Miller Lake has been a landmark as long as she can remember. Its first incarnation was just some wood, untouched by people, that looked like a dragon.
"When they were building to 102 Highway it must have been a tree or a stump or a log, whatever, that was in the lake and the winter passes and the ice must have shifted this tree that was in the lake or whatever," she said.
"It was uncanny. That's how it started: no one made it, it was just natural."
The tale of the dragon head has been a storied one. Snow said the original stump was previously stolen by a group of men who thought it would make a good stag gift for a groom-to-be.
Returned at last
The community "went wild," Snow said, and the groom returned it to the lake the next day. It eventually disappeared again, then was created anew by Snow's sister, who named it Mortimer.
When that one was damaged, Snow created yet another one in Mortimer's likeness and named it Emily.
Snow said knowing the dragon head will be back in the water is a relief for her, at least so she can stop looking at the empty lake when she drives by.
"This is gonna sound absolutely bat-poop crazy. I know she's in my yard, right, she spends the winter with us, she spends the spring [with us] until she goes out in the lake," said Snow.
"So I know when she's here, [but] I'll drive on the 102 to the airport and I'll look out there. I know she's in my yard, and I'll still look."
