Moose: Are They From Earth?

Have you ever seen a moose?  

I have seen plenty.  It’s always so fun to watch someone see their first moose in person.  I remember being one of those people when I was eight years old.  It was cool.  Moose are rather ugly creatures in the spring when they are molting, and that’s when we saw it.  To be perfectly honest, I didn’t even know what a moose was.  I had never seen one on television. (When I was a kid we still had rabbit ears and the TV screen was about ten inches, so we didn’t watch a lot of it back then.)  I still remember my first sight of the moose. 

  My dad was driving and I was complaining that I was never the first to spot anything.  And then I saw it.  The long huge face with its ugly nose, and with long green stringy things hanging from its mouth.  I think my tears dried instantly and I said, “If it has a big, long, ugly face, I think I just saw one.”  My dad turned around and there it was.  Our first moose spotting and I, of the whole family of eight, was the first to spot the uninteresting, haggard, mangy looking creature.  We all stared at it for a while and then drove up the road to a place called Moose Alley in Pittsburg, NH.  Dad bought us ice cream cones from Moose Alley Cones, where the portions were huge and still are to this day.  My sister and I go up there in the summer just to get ice cream.  We don’t look for moose anymore.

Moose are annoying, clumsy looking creatures.  I say clumsy looking, but in actuality they are very coordinated.  They are gated and for being large, oaf-like characters they can clear a five foot fence as gracefully as a deer.  But in my opinion they are dumb. 

  I’ve seen them clear that five foot fence like they were stepping over a pencil, but then I’ve seen them walk through a three-stranded barbwire fence and take out three or four fence posts in the process, not blinking and eye or losing stride as they kept on walking.  Why on earth would you walk through a barbwire fence if you could just as easily jump over it?  Alien, perhaps?

Another example of moose stupidity (yes, the plural of moose is moose, not meese, as people thing it so clever to say): A moose came sauntering through our backyard and the little Chihuahua we had living with us at the time caught wind of him and started to chase him.  This thousand pound critter was scared of something weighing less than eight pounds?  Yet when they see a car, weighing in at more than twice their weight, they stand still and stare it down.

You know people refer to a deer caught in the headlights?  I don’t feel as though that is very accurate.  Most of the deer I have encountered while driving at night only stare at you for half a moment, and then they beat feet.  They get out of there.  Not always in the most concise manner, and sometimes they get hit, but you have to give them snaps for trying.  Whereas most of the moose I’ve encountered while driving, whether it’s day or night, will stare at you for about ten moments and then turn their head as though they are putting their finger to their chin to think, “Hmmm… there appears to be something approaching rapidly.  Is it bigger than me?  Should I stand here and think some more?  Should I step out of the way?  Wait, let’s look again.  What color is the vehicle?”  And at this point, he may do you a favor and meander out of the road, or he might turn and lead you up the road at a slow gated trot for a hundred yards or more before he decides that this isn’t a fun game anymore and gets off the roadway. 

  I remember encountering a rather daft moose one night as we were coming home from hockey practice in the backwoods of Vermont.  My brother was driving the fifteen passenger van and there was a large, bull moose perpendicular in the road.  At least, I think he was a bull.  He didn’t have any antlers because it was that time of year, but his head was at the height of our windshield and those old Dodge Ram vans weren’t small.  (It could have been a cow, as I didn’t think to check between the legs in the excitement of the moment. But cows are generally smaller.  This blighter was huge.)  So my brother hit the brakes and he couldn’t turn as the road was very slick and another car was coming at us in the opposing lane.  This moose stood talk still on the shoulder of the road, with his head hanging in our lane and only at the last minute did he ever-so-slowly turn to look at us.  At which point we drove right by, holding our breath and waiting for impact.  Had he not turned his head, it would have probably killed the person in the passenger seat because his head was massive and would have smashed through the windshield.  As it was, the mirror missed the side of his head by mere centimeters.  I looked behind us as we continued driving, and the moose was still standing there and didn’t even bother to look at this massive “beast” that just whiffed his eyeball.  Not the most brilliant of beings.  Could they indeed be from another planet that doesn’t have the same laws of physics?

I can’t tell you how many moose I’ve seen while driving that will leave their safety on the side of the road in a moose muck and run across the road to the other side.  Moose make no sense.  The joke goes, “Why did the moose cross the road?  I have no idea.” 

But it’s so much fun to watch a first-timer see a moose.  I once drove Lee Wilkof (look him up on IMDB) up to Moose Alley.  We didn’t see anything so we kept on driving.  It was the middle of the day.  We drove to the Canadian border, and on our way back we saw a cow with a two week old calf.  Lee was thrilled that he got a two-for-one deal. 

  It was fun watching his New York City excitement as he took a picture.  Seeing another cow and calf is something I could take or leave.  Baby moose are probably my favorite thing though, as far as moose go.  They are so ugly they are cute. 

  I’m not talking about fresh baby moose with all the gunk that needs to be licked off, but after that’s gone, I love the fuzzy innocence of a baby moose.

One day my dad came running into the house saying, “Grab your camera and hurry!”  He didn’t tell us why, but he was excited so I followed him out back into the woods.  He led us to twin calve moose that still had gunk on them. 

Their mother must have run off as we approached.  They couldn’t even stand yet.  So my dad, my mum and I got to witness their first few minutes in this world as they learned what it was all about.

We took a couple of pictures and watched as they learned to stand, and as they tried to walk and fell over.  We figured it was time to leave when they started staggering toward us looking for something to eat… and I wasn’t about to lick them clean.

We went back a little while later and the calves and the placenta were gone, so the cow had come back and cleaned up and took them home.  It was a pretty incredible experience, but as you can see from the pictures there are some alien-like similarities.

So I pose the question: was this an act of nature? Or did the mother ship drop them off and we got to witness the moments after entry to this atmosphere?  You decide.