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Hocoa 6

Few road-trips to the the northern regions of our fine Imperium are complete without a trip to the crater where Gorlax may have landed on Earth. A ways up the road from warm and lusty Gillam, Manitoba, the hole now known as Hudson Bay is well-known for its water, and its Hudsons, but less known for its intergalactic unstoppable monsters with no sense of shame. For it is here, local Winnipao legend says, that Gorlax landed on Earth, streaking across the Nord-Skij in his scabrous, repulsive Honey-Baked Starleaper.

Wibbles Hugo and I are no fools, for we know that the official explanation provided by known royalist Michaelle Jean is that Hudson Bay was merely created in 1745, to shore up Canada’s precious ice reserves and have something to gloat about to the more southerly colonies. Although the Bay was certainly used for this purpose, there are records which show that some kind of body of water may have existed in the region of Canada prior to 1745; a telegram from Kaqchikel Mayan King Tucohatatapetatl to a Cree merchant living in the Hudson Bay area, dated 1472, reads “YO STOP HANGIN APOSTROPHE WITH MA FRENZ IN IXIMCHE STOP HOW Y APOSTROPHE ALL APOSTROPHE S GIANT BODY OF WATER DOING QUESTION MARK”. The reference to a pre-Michaelle Jean-era Hudson Bay is clear.

We decided to find out for ourselves. Although Hudson Bay was drastically and irreversibly irradiated in 1956, after a testing accident on the Bay crippled the Voss Nose Thrustopheles V sailboat prototype, impoverished fisherman still venture out onto the Bay to try their hand at catching a sea-snake or snapodile. Wibbles and I teamed up with Captain T. Fangs Richardmong for the day, and set out for the center of the Bay to see what we could see.

“I knows Gorlax was here,” Richardmong says. “My daddy always said this here lake was special, wasn’t made by no royalist, and he had schoolin’ so I knows it’s right.” Since the locals don’t really have much else going for them, the Gorlax Theory is very popular in the region. It also provides a genetic explanation for the horrifying mutant DNA that seems to be dominant among the inhabitants (although, that said, the much-vaunted “Son of Gorlax” promoted as an attraction in the province was later verified to be a whale carcass, which Gorlax had merely molested). There is no doubt among these noble northern weirdos that Gorlax has walked among them.

On the other hand, His Majesty the R. H. Mr. Harper noted, in his weekly visit to the home of every Canadian simultaneously, that theories for the creation of Hudson Bay that involved extraterrestrial intervention were counter-revolutionary, and that to say otherwise was counter-revolutionary. This “see no Gorlax, hear no Gorlax, speak no Gorlax” attitude persisted in government circles for about seventy years, until Gorlax ate the R. H. Minister from Kentish Okotoks, gained his legal powers, and was ascended to the House of Lords. In accordance with Gorlax’s governmental position, it is now acceptable to acknowledge his role in Canadian history, but the origin of Hudson Bay remains a touchy subject nonetheless.

As we neared the center of the irradiated body of water, it dawned upon me that we had brought no means to verify either side of the story. What were we doing here? Does that mean that the Gorlax Theory is true? Probably. It is a pretty big Bay.