going on, raised at the side in a kind of sardonic grin — a perfect place to shove rice crackers. She then followed me around the truck, nudging my shoulder for more crackers. I scratched her behind the ears and combed my fingers through her neck hair. I went back in the house, got my two young children, and placed them in the box of the truck so they could watch from a safe perch. When the cow nudged up beside my kids they were allowed to put their arms around its neck. I took a picture.
Now, when I look back at this episode, I think that even if this cow had been released from a wildlife sanctuary, it was a stupid thing for me to do. I rely on my instinct, maybe too much so; even though I had a generally good feeling about this cow moose and the somewhat secure location of my kids, I didn’t allow for the remote possibility that this cow moose might be a bit mercurial in nature. It did make for some interesting family photographs though.
Everybody has an animal tale they like to tell, and when a bunch of casual adventurers get together there’s always a vigorous competition about who has the best or most outrageous wild animal story. I’ll usually relax into the banter, listening to chronicles about chipmunks in the peanut butter jar, and the saga with the mouse building a nest in the bottom of the food pack, a couple of moose sightings and maybe a bear sniffing around a campsite. Then, when the stories thin out, it’s my call to step in.
Call it swagger, call it braggadocio, but I love telling this story because it’s so bizarre. And few people believe it when I tell them, anyway, so I’m more likely to be branded a liar than a braggart. Two years ago I received a frenzied phone call from my other neighbour down the road, claiming that a bull moose was rampaging in her backyard and attacking her husband’s tarped boat. Pat was alone in the house and had just enough time to place two calls — one to me and one to Tony at the sanctuary — before the moose tore up a trough of sod on the lawn and cut off the phone line! I drove my pickup truck to her house thinking this would be an easy task to carry out. I’d corral and drive the bull using my truck and force it down their back lane onto an open field near the Rosseau River and that would be the end of it. When I arrived, the bull had its antlers under the plastic boat tarp and was tugging at it as if sparring with another bull. It was literally dragging a one-ton trailered boat across the lawn. I pulled my truck in behind it and laid on the horn. The moose retreated from its fight with the boat and I was able to “herd” it down the laneway and out in to the field, exactly as planned. That was easy, I thought, but the natural world always has its peculiarities that challenge what you may think or believe to be true: Don’t believe everything you think.
On my way back up the laneway to the house, feeling good about my quick success, I saw the bull’s head reflected in my rearview mirror. It was actually trying to pass me! I parked my truck in Pat’s parking lot, got out, and stood with my back against the side of the garage by the back lawn. The moose now made wide circles on the lawn in front of me, trotting slowly, keeping an eye on my movements. Pat was standing near the backdoor of the house when Tony finally arrived and sized up the situation. It was October, rutting season, and bull moose have been known to attack oncoming trains and roll over the occasional car. Tony and I looked at each other and smiled nervously. Now what? Tony said that he’d just finished feeding the captive cow moose at the sanctuary and that he probably had her smell all over him. I certainly didn’t notice but the bull did. He abruptly stopped his circling, waved his head from side to side, drooled and grunted, then approached Tony with his head lowered to the ground. Tony remained motionless. The bull then sniffed Tony from head to foot, turned and looked at me, head still lowered, eyes red and glowering, and the hackles rising on the back of his neck. Shit, this doesn’t look good.
I have had enough contact with wild animals to know not to make eye contact. I quickly diverted my eyes but watched the bull’s movements closely and hoped it wouldn’t charge. I was wrong. With head still lowered it moved toward me, not at a run but it closed the distance between us in seconds. I also knew enough not to run. I kept my eyes glued on the bull’s antlers and the sharp multi-pointed spears of bone heading directly for my abdomen. I dug my feet into the turf and grabbed at the moose’s antlers. I had no other choice. The next few moments were terrifying, not knowing what was going to happen; I could be dead on my neighbour’s lawn in five minutes. Pat thought Tony and I were both going to be killed.
But the moose just toyed with me, tugging gently, lightly jerking with me while I held on, trying to keep the antlers from ramming into my belly. At least by holding on I could keep the points at a safe distance; but if he wanted to, he could propel me through the side of the garage. Instead, we sparred gently but the jerks were getting more aggressive. “Tony, I don’t like this situation,” I remember saying through pursed lips.
“I’ll try something,” Tony assured, and began walking down the laneway toward the river. It was brilliant. The bull pulled away and started to follow Tony down the hill, so close, in fact, that his head was touching Tony’s shoulder. I assured Tony that I would follow from a safe distance and watch, just in case the bull turned on him. But it didn’t; the moose followed Tony across the field, along the river, and through a marsh that led to the sanctuary almost a kilometre away. By the time I got back in my truck and drove down the road to the sanctuary, Tony had led the bull moose into the compound that held the cow.
This was not unusual characteristics displayed by a somewhat quasi-domesticated moose with a seasonal hormonal imbalance; I can testify with authority that the lure of female company can make men stupid. Tony assured me that this particular bull had not been a sanctuary moose. As for his behaviour, he was doing what comes naturally, based on instinct and olfactory sensations, not to say much for his choice of female companionship.
Tony did have the right aroma, and I had stationed myself as the competition for Tony. Regardless of the comic intonations of the situation, it remained entirely unpredictable while it was unfolding. Personally, I try not to get into this type of close confrontation, but as a wilderness guide and wildlife photographer I find that these encounters happen frequently enough.
It’s one thing to be looking for large animals to photograph or study, it’s quite another affair when they either seek you out, or you come in contact by sheer chance and circumstance. Seeking out wildlife by design requires a stout knowledge of animal behaviour; you control the situation so long as you don’t push your luck. A couple of years back I was hiking the tundra in the Thelon River headwater area, about eight kilometres west of Whitefish Lake in the Northwest Territories. It was open country, defined by sand eskers, small kettle lakes, felsenmeer (broken rock), and willow scrub.
Tundra wolves were a common sight, but I was looking specifically for muskoxen. I climbed a high ridge for a better view beyond and came upon a herd of oxen — four calves and twelve adults, grazing on the flats across a pond at the base of the hill. The wind was in my favour and, so long as I kept the pond between me and them, I could get quite close to the herd. Approaching them as if I were just another muskox, bent over and pausing every few moments to “graze,” I was able to get within fifty metres to snap the shots I wanted. The bulls had formed a circle around the females and the young muskoxen. When I approached a bit too close, two bulls broke away from the circle and made a wide swing to come in behind me. I retreated slowly. The one bull was now downwind of where I stood and caught my scent; in an instant the whole herd was on the move.
Muskoxen can be dangerous at close range and they have been known to gore people to death with their horns. Normally, oxen are seen ambling along the shores of northern rivers and lakes and confrontations are unlikely. One of my clients, however, while paddling the Coppermine River, had an unforgettable experience with a muskox while fishing. We were camped at a rapid, still within the treed zone of the river, and Norm went off downstream to fish for trout. Lake trout were visible at the surface along the shore and it was no problem to catch one. After latching on to an exceptionally large trout, Norm had to walk along the shore in an attempt to keep it on the light line he was using. While doing so, he almost tripped over a muskox that was lying on the turf beside the river. The animal was not at all pleased at being disturbed but Norm
