Idaho · Series Two
Sharlie
The Secret of Payette Lake
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The camel-headed serpent of Payette Lake, spotted by work crews and Sunday boaters alike for a century — and named by a newspaper contest.
- Hand-painted collectible figure
- Collectible trading card in every box
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Sharlie
Idaho
- Size
- 30-35 ft long
- Habitat
- Cold, deep lake water
- Sighting
- McCall • 1920
- Trait
- Camel-like head
The camel-headed serpent of Payette Lake, spotted by work crews and Sunday boaters for a century.
★ America’s ★
Legendary Creatures
Tilt it for a closer look
Box exclusive · Never sold separately
Evidence enclosed
Tucked inside every Sharlie box is card #015 of 50: a collector's card you won't find in any shop, pack or booster. The only way to get it is to bring the Sharlie home.
Fifty legends, fifty cards. Collect the figures, complete the field guide.
- Size
- 30-35 ft long
- Habitat
- Cold, deep lake water
- Sighting
- McCall • 1920
- Trait
- Camel-like head
Sculpted from the sightings
Sharlie, up close
- Figure height
- 5 inches
- Finish
- Hand-painted
- Edition
- Series Two — Fresh Tracks
- Classification
- Lake Serpent
- Family
- Lake Dweller
- Legend reports it at
- 30–35 ft long, by most accounts
The legend of Idaho
“The loggers swore the log was drifting against the wind. Then the log lifted its head and looked at them. Payette Lake is three hundred feet deep, and McCall has been watching the water ever since.”
Payette Lake sits in a glacial bowl above the resort town of McCall, Idaho — five thousand feet up, ringed by ponderosa, and more than three hundred feet deep at its coldest heart. Since at least 1920, people standing on its shores have watched something long and dark move through that water: thirty-five feet of humped, undulating body with a head witnesses keep comparing to a camel's, or a dinosaur's, always traveling with purpose, always against the chop.
Sharlie is the rare monster with a sense of humor about itself. Named by a newspaper contest, beloved by the town, the serpent surfaces every few summers to remind McCall it's still down there — seen by logging crews, Forest Service workers, county officials, and once by some twenty witnesses at a single Fourth of July. The lake, locals note, has never been fully mapped.
The Legend+
The first recorded encounter belongs to a crew of loggers working the lake's north shore around 1920. They noticed a great log adrift — until the log began to swim. The story stayed local until August 1944, when several groups of witnesses, more than thirty people in all, reported a serpentine creature with a dinosaur-like head breaking the surface in the same week. The story jumped from the McCall paper to the wire services, and even Time magazine carried news of Idaho's 'Slimy Slim.'
In 1954 the Star-News ran a contest to give the creature a proper name. The winner, submitted from Virginia, was Sharlie — borrowed from a famous radio catchphrase of the day, 'Vas you dere, Sharlie?' — which is, when you think about it, exactly the right question to ask any monster witness.
Documented Sightings+
Sightings have rolled in by the decade ever since: a county assessor in the 1940s, church campers in the 1950s, a Forest Service crew in the 1970s who watched three humps cross the bay in formation. In 2002, a McCall woman reported the creature surfacing twice off Rotary Park in calm morning water, close enough to ruin her coffee.
The descriptions hold remarkably steady across eighty years: dark, pebbled hide; a series of humps moving vertically; a blunt, long-jawed head held just above the surface; and speed — every witness mentions the speed. Whatever crosses Payette Lake crosses it like it has an appointment.
The Lore+
The sober explanations are the usual suspects: colossal lake trout, swimming elk, boat wakes folding over a cold-water thermocline. Payette Lake does hide one genuine oddity — its depths hold drowned forests, whole trees standing upright in the dark, and a waterlogged trunk surfacing on a gas bubble can look briefly, horribly alive.
McCall prefers Sharlie. The town put her on murals and menus, named an ice-sculpture queen after her at Winter Carnival, and treats every new sighting as a civic event. There is an unspoken local etiquette about it: you may doubt Sharlie at the coffee shop, but not on the water. Three hundred feet is a lot of dark to be smug about.
Good questions
What comes in the box?+
A 5-inch hand-painted collectible figure of Sharlie from Series Two — Fresh Tracks, plus its collectible Fablins trading card — with Sharlie's size, habitat, first sighting and signature trait.
When will it ship?+
Sharlie isn't released yet. Join the waitlist and you'll hear first when it's available.
Do you ship internationally?+
Yes — to the US, Canada, the UK, most of the EU, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and more. Prices show in your local currency and checkout calculates shipping for your country.
What if I need to return it?+
You have 30 days from delivery to start a return (return postage is on the buyer). Reach us through the contact page and we will walk you through it.
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