Tutorial Cartography for Map Figures in Academic Journals & Books

The Premise of this Exercise

Let's pretend we want to a map for a journal article about the underpinnings of the distribution of cryptozoology sightings in the northeastern US and southeastern Canada, focusing on lake monsters, creatures reported to live in lakes that are mainly known from folklore and typically take on the the shape of extinct or extraordinarily large living reptiles. You want your readers to understand the relationship between the monster locations and also their location on the planet. In our imaginary scenario, we plan to submit our paper to one of the Nature journals.

What's the story? What should readers learn from this map? What data do you need to tell that story effectively?

The story I plan to tell is where are these monsters reported to live? What are their names? For reference, what lakes and states or provinces are they in? The story you want to tell might be different, so feel free to make adjustments as needed.