Got Moose?
My father didn’t have a job where he had regular vacation
time until he was hired at one of our local paper mills. I know that my mother appreciated the good
and regular paychecks, and although he never actually said so, if I would have
ever been in a situation where I could have pressed him for an answer, which of
course I would never have done, I strongly suspect it was the opportunity to
take paid vacations that was my father’s favorite part about working for ‘the
mill’.
I’m not sure exactly when my father became a dedicated
tent camper; it happened long before I came along. I’m pretty sure camping became his favorite pastime
by the time my three oldest brothers joined the Boy Scouts. My father volunteered to be a leader.
My own earliest recollections of family camping was of
gear purchased from the scouts when the troop upgraded. My father and any of my oldest brothers who
happened to be available, shared an army-style canvas tent that had no floor
and no mosquito screens. My two sisters
shared a canvas umbrella tent, which got its name for the fact that the center
pole stood in the middle and there were four poles that held up a corner of the
roof and worked on a sliding ring much like the way that a rain umbrella
functioned. Despite weighing about a
thousand pounds, the umbrella tent had both flooring and screen windows. My mother, my brother Mike and I shared an
old bed mattress laid down in the back of our 1956 Chev station wagon. If nothing else, camping was cozy!
Eventually we upgraded. First, when the three oldest boys were
already in the military service, my father purchased a brand-new Coleman cabin
tent that all six of us could fit in, thanks to a bunkbed cot for Mike and
I. Then, the summer between 5th
and 6th grade my father purchased a pop-up camper. My sisters had gotten married, so my parents
shared the pull-out bed on one side and Mike and I shared the other side. The trailer was much more comfortable, but
the greatest advantage that it offered was increased mobility. My parents took advantage by planning a
two-week camping trip driving around Lake Superior.
As we looked at maps and planned the route my mother
shared that what she wanted from the trip more than anything else was to see a
moose. She didn’t explain why, she just
matter-of-factly stated, “I want to see a moose.” I can’t say that she managed to instill any burning
moose-sighting desire in me, but I was certainly open to the experience.
On our second day in Canada, we missed a moose by
minutes. Even though it’s been decades,
I am fairly certain that the campground we pulled into after that day’s drive
was called White Lake. The campsite next
to the beach was open, so my father backed our camper in there. As we piled out of the car and began setting
up camp, it was clear that there was some kind of commotion at the beach. We all walked over to see what had
happened. A lady looked at my mother and
blurted out, “You just missed the moose; he just ran right through here and up
into the woods.” And there they were –
the moose’s tracks were clear as day headed across the beach.
The whole first week went by without any more moose
excitement. My father noticed a billboard
advertising a little park with a zoo, and decided to pull in. The little zoo was nice, with lots of local
wild animals. Nowadays you would call it
a conspiracy theory, because as we neared the moose exhibit we noticed two
things: an empty fenced-in area, and a sign apologizing that the moose had died
the week before. Maybe if we knew that
he had taken ill, we could have come sooner.
My mother drove the point home as she looked at the whitetail deer that
looked up at us quite innocently. She sighed deeply and said, “We have driven a
thousand miles to see a Wisconsin whitetail!”
It wasn’t the deer’s fault – at least I don’t think it was.
Our last and best chance came the final two days of
our time in Canada. We camped in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park on the Sibley Peninsula,
along Lake Superior’s western shores. I
remember listening to the ranger explain that if we wanted to see moose that we
should visit a particular overlook of a large marshy area that was frequented
by the big animals. He circled two other
likely spots on our map as well for back-ups.
After supper, we jumped in the car and headed for the
wildlife viewing platform. I remember
the views being large and my father pointing out all of the landmarks. What he didn’t point out was a moose, because
they were a no-show that evening. The
whole next day we explored many trails and overlooks. I remember that we picked enough wild
blueberries to fill up one of our aluminum cooking pots at one overlook. And it was also there that we discovered that
my brother Mike was afraid of heights.
At first, he hesitated walking out on a viewing platform that was built
jutting out of a cliff that offered spectacular views of the Sleeping Giant rock
formation. When he finally managed to join
us out on the platform he froze. I had
to take his hand and encourage his every tentative step to firm ground.
The one thing we failed to see that day was a
moose. We even took one last drive out from
camp after supper in the gathering darkness to check out the supposed moose
feeding area one last time. Nothing. My mother passed away in 1979 with a wild moose
sighting still not checked off her bucket list.
I have been fortunate enough to see moose in the wild. When our oldest son was just six months old
we took a camping trip of our own and we saw several moose in Yellowstone
Park. And, about ten years ago, I was
hunting whitetail deer in Alberta, Canada and there was one afternoon that I saw
a cow and calf moose as I munched a mid-day sandwich. Then later that same afternoon I saw a big
bull moose with impressive headgear pass by at about fifty yards. But I failed to see a deer that afternoon,
the animal that I had traveled thousands of miles to hunt – maybe my mother was
wondering what the shoe felt like on the other foot?
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Danika Perkinson on Unsplash
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