I wonder which of you was more bewildered. When portageing a canoe you pretty much have just one thing on your mind. What's the moose's excuse?

I do have a long one for you from last spring. It was breakfast time. I was taking the pancake mix out of the food pack when I was startled by a hair raising wild sort of roar from very nearby. Instinct took over and I bolted in the opposite direction, towards the canoe of course. After two steps reason stopped me. Something that can growl like that would probably love a chase. All sorts of roars or growls and bellows were coming from just behind a little hill. I was shaking big time. Not knowing what the smart thing to do was, I closed the foodpack, grabbed a camera, and started cautiously towards the sounds. All the while wondering if I was an idiot. There was a nasty fight going on! Was I stupid? I returned for another roll of film... and my hatchet... a little more guts and just in case... my filet knife.

But by now things had settled down. "Was the loser being fed upon?" I wondered. "I need a picture of that." I slowly went to investigate.

As I quietly made my way nearer to where I thought it happened, I heard more commotion near the point of the island. From what little I knew of this small island, it sounded like something big and in a hurry was on a trail that probably lead right through my camp. I hurried back to camp and my food pack and waited.

Before long a moose silently appeared through the bushes 30 feet away. Man those things are huge. "Cool" I thought. I love to see moose. When it noticed me it stopped, I assumed because I was blocking the trial. Then it looked back to see how close whatever was following it had gotten. I was hoping for a Bear. That would be awesome. The off chance it might be wolves worried me. "Oh s___, this is not good, a calf!"

So now I have a protective cow full of adrenalin, with her rescued calf in tow walking straight at me, and not slowly either. It's a fairly open forest and I hoped she would pick another direction so I could get a good picture. No such luck. She came right at me, and I'll never forget the look in her eyes. It was sort of a wild "you want a piece of this" look. "Excuse me. Don't mind me. I'll just get out of your way now." I hoped to calm her as I gingerly moved off to one side. They passed no more than 10 feet from me.

Moments later a bear appeared. The bear at least showed me a little respect, for a while. I shared that part of the story a while back.

(If someone asks a question about ravens in six months and I'll almost have the whole story completed;-)

Posted by db on October 09, 2000 at 02:55