As most of my friends know, I am a huge fan of moose. I’m not talking about Moosehead beer (which BTW not too many Canadians really drink), or the Moosejaw Warriers hockey team, or Moose FM, a popular radio station up here in the GWN. No, I’m referring to the real deal, one of Nature’s uglier behemoths, and I love it when I can spot them in the wild. I have seen a few in Alberta, but up until this year, I had never before spotted one here in Ontario. About a month ago, I came upon a (moose) cow on the side of the road as I headed into town to do some grocery shopping, and I got very excited. Hey, this is the Great White North; this is what we do up here. Last Wednesday around dusk, I took my folding boat out for a frosty putt around the lake, and as I was returning to our dock, lo and behold, there was a very large bull moose sauntering along the shoreline in ankle deep water. I could not believe that after all those moose-less years in Ontario, I spot a giant, I mean
giant, bull moose, walking along the shore
right in front of our house! I immediately called Shauna on my cell to let her know, but by the time I had done this, the moose had turned up towards land and was headed for the woods through the gap between our neighbor’s house and ours. Shauna ran around to the back of the house and tried to get a picture of it as it plodded off into the woods, in no particular hurry, but in the dusk light all she got was a big brown blur. She even dug up our moose caller and attempted to lure it back, although I’m not sure she is fluent in moose. This might be the biggest animal I have ever seen in the wild, and I understand why they are considered a formidable road danger. Hit one of those beasts at high speed and it’s going to be a serious collision. We know a woman up here who was severely crippled because she and her boyfriend hit a moose while driving. I’ve got those deer alert things mounted to the front bumper of my car. Apparently they emit some kind of high pitched whistle at when the car is traveling at high speeds and this is supposed to alert the animal. I think they help, because several times driving I have passed deer on the side of the road, and they seem to look up when my car passes. Knock on wood, we’ve traveled extensively in areas where moose and deer abound, and we’ve never had one run out in front of us. Perhaps we’ve just been very lucky. Brief aside: everyone remembers Captain Kangaroo, and his sidekick Mr. Greenjeans, but how many of you remember the loveable Mr. Moose, the other seminal member of that children’s show ensemble? I adored that moose.
We do not have garbage collection at Jasper Bark Lodge, because there is no municipal pickup on the road where we live and all the private services require me to leave the garbage at the top of our drive. By the time I schlep it to the top of our 500 meter driveway, in animal proof garbage bins, I figure I might as well take it all the way to the dump. Besides, going to the dump is an adventure. There are black bears there during the summer, sometimes within spitting distance of where I throw my garbage, and as well the people who operate the yard are all colorful, interesting characters. Don’t ask me how I did it, but I inadvertently dropped something valuable into our plastics recycling bin last time I was there, then realized it about an hour after I’d emptied it out at the dump. Have you ever rummaged around inside a giant plastics recycling bin before? Well, now I have. It’s a little like those play bins they have in kids play areas filled with the multicolored plastic balls. Kinda fun, but sticky. You should have seen all the odd looks I got from people dropping off their recycled goods. “Look Gord, that city fellah has finally snapped!” This is how people guage dementia up here; if they see someone in the recycling bin, rummaging through the crap, they know he or she is a few spices short of a goulash. Shauna was with me, with her cute little yellow raincoat, daintily picking out one bottle at a time, as I frantically flailed through yards and yards of the stuff.
What else. Last Sunday, Austrian skydiver and daredevil Felix Baumgartner jumped from space and plunged a record 23 miles, freefalling to Earth from a manned helium balloon. That was a pretty cool video to watch. U.S. Senator Arlen “Wild Card” Specter died last week at 82. Seen by many in the Republican Party as a turncoat, Specter began his career as a Democrat, changed parties in ‘65, and then went
back to the Democrats in 2009. I’ll bet that’s something a lot of moderate Republicans are contemplating these days, that or becoming Independents. Cell phone giants Apple and Samsung settled their much-publicized phone dispute. Apple had sued Samsung for illegally copying its products, and won. The dispute may not be over, because now Samsung is threatening to call for a new trial, claiming that the foreman of the jury had undisclosed biases against Samsung.
That Mr. Moose, he cracked me up.
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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