  The detection of 22 GHz water vapor emission from IC342 is reported, raising
the detection rate among northern galaxies with 100 micron IRAS point source
fluxes > 50 Jy to 16%. The maser, associated with a star forming region 10-15
arcsec west of the nucleus, consists of a single 0.5 km/s wide feature and
reaches an isotropic luminosity of 0.01 solar luminosity (D = 1.8 Mpc). If the
time variability is intrinsic, the maser size is < 1.5 x 10^(16) cm (< 0.5 mas)
which corresponds to a brightness temperature of > 10^(9) K. The linewidth,
luminosity, and rapid variability are reminiscent of the 8 km/s super maser in
Orion-KL. A velocity shift of 1 km/s within two weeks and subsequent rapid
fading is explained in terms of a chance alignment of two dense molecular
clouds. Observations at 22 GHz toward Maffei2 are also reported, yielding a 5
sigma upper limit of 25 mJy for a channel spacing of 1.05 km/s.
