page_title: Cayuga Lake
section_title: Folklore
hierarchical_section_title: Cayuga Lake / Folklore
caption_attribution_description: English: Cornell West Campus as seen from McGraw Tower.
context_page_description: Cayuga Lake is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area and second largest in volume. It is just under 40 miles long. Its average width is 1.7 miles, and it is 3.5 mi wide at its widest point near Aurora. It is approximately 435 ft deep at its deepest point.
  The lake is named after the native Cayuga people.
context_section_description: The lake is the subject of local folklore. 
  An Ithaca Journal article of January 5, 1897 reported that a sea serpent, nicknamed "Old Greeny," had been sighted in Cayuga Lake annually for 69 years. A sighting in that month described the animal, 200 feet from shore, as "large and its body long," though a "tramp" suggested it was a muskrat. In 1929, two creatures, about 12 to 15 feet in length, were reportedly spotted along the eastern shore of the lake. Further sightings were reported in 1974 and 1979.
  Cornell's alma mater makes reference to its position "Far Above Cayuga's Waters", while that of Ithaca College references "Cayuga's shore".
  A tradition at Wells College in Aurora holds that if the lake completely freezes over, classes are canceled (though for only one day).  According to Wells College records, this most recently happened in 1979 and 2015.  However, other sources suggest that the only time the entire lake froze over solid end to end in the 20th century was in 1912.
  Cayuga Lake, like nearby Seneca Lake, is also the site of a phenomenon known as the Guns of the Seneca, mysterious cannon-like booms heard in the surrounding area. Many of these booms may be attributable to bird-scarers, automated cannon-like devices used by farmers to scare birds away from the many vineyards, orchards and crops. There is however no proof of this.
caption: Cornell West Campus and Cayuga Lake as seen from McGraw Tower.
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