Moose!
Tip and I were paddling up the ditch one fall day,
well I was paddling and she was riding along,
emphatically NOT paddling (I've pointed this out to
her from time to time, that I "always" paddle and she
"never" paddles and why does she think I carry two
paddles in the canoe, for decoration?. But she just
looks at me and sticks her tongue out. She also
doesn't help pull the canoe over the beaver dams, not
her "thing", I guess.)
Did I mention that Tip is a dog? Tip is a dog.
(Keeshund x Border Collie x ?)
Anyway, we(I) had paddled to the top end of the ditch
(c. 3/4 mi. and over three dams) and she had politely
disembarked and patiently waited while I got the boat
ready to go on the upstream side of the dams before
reboarding, she's good that way. We stopped at the top
dam and had a wander around for awhile, then headed
back down.
We recrossed the first two dams and were
just drifting along, digging the day, when we came to
the spot where the ditch spreads out into a ten acre
meadow, mostly grass, with water two or three inches
deep, a good place to play "pirogue in the Everglades"
if your fancy turns that way, and mine does.
As we sat there, having a smoke, deciding whether to
go grasshopping or just drift on home, we heard a
crashing/splashing in the willow thicket to the north.
Out on the bank came the BIGGEST bull moose I have
EVER seen in my life (and I have seen plenty).
He stepped from the bank into the ditch, stood with
only his head above water, then paused and turned his
gaze in our direction, we were less than thirty feet
way, in a tippy canoe, armed with a paddle. His
antlers "looked" like they would brush both banks, I
mean a *BIG*MOOSE*.
In the fall a bull moose has two things on his mind:
being pissed off at ANYTHING that crosses his path,
and nookie. We looked at him, he looked at us, we
looked at him some more, then he swung up the other
side of the ditch, paused to shake himself like a
gigantic hound dog and strolled off across the
shallows to the tree line. I think it was about this
time that I remembered to breathe. During the whole
incident Tip had said nothing, no bark, no whimper,
nothing. Good dog.
Memories
Thousands of sandhill cranes (huge birds), rising from
the shallows south of Wabamun Lake where they passed
the night, catching a thermal right over my head and
spiralling up, up, until they were dots heading off
north to the Peace/Athabasca delta country, two or three hundred to a
flock. Geese in the fall running south from a storm,
high overhead, vee after vee after vee for hours on a
fall day. White pelicans soaring before a black
thunderhead on Lake Wabasca on a hot summer day.
White winged gulls flying across a double rainbow
silhouetted against a dark cloud after a summer storm. The river shallows between the North and South Wabasca Lakes turned white with thousands of nesting pelicans one spring. The bald and the golden eagles resting on the tree branches behind the Father's church on the Point. Hundreds of them, taking a break from their fish dinners on the flats. Great blue herons flying, red-necked grebes diving for fish on Pepper Lake, off the Forestry Trunk Road on the Eastern slopes of the Rockies.
Three wolves dancing on the road to the Naylor Hills
as we came around a corner, and disappearing like
ghosts when they noticed us. Mere words can never
paint the picture or engender the wonder I have in
those memories, and a thousand more.
One lifetime is not enough to experience it all.