There are foreboding signs along the way featuring outlines of these hulking creatures nonchalantly strolling across your path. The message is not one of protecting the environment, it is one of avoiding mortal danger. An uneasy feeling starts to set in right about dusk, when the light of the sky darkens enough to match the light thrown by your high-beams.
If you know about the threat of the moose you will tend to slow down just a little, and your eyes will skirt furtively for motion and shadows along the treelines. Because you do not want to hit a moose. If you do, it will almost certainly be THE event of your day.
Except for the driest regions of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, and big parts of the far north, moose are EVERYWHERE in Canada. Unconfirmed reports from my travelling buddy Bob Fisher state that there are now more moose in the province of Newfoundland than there are inhabitants of the capital city of St. John’s. And moose are not even indigenous to the island.
My partner Judy recalls the first time she ever saw a moose: “I was barreling down a highway through La Verendrye Provincial Park in my old Vega, on my way back to Montreal from Val d’Or. I had just passed a big lumber truck and when I came over the crest of a hill there he was standing beside the highway. I stopped, afraid he’d cross in front of me and all the while fearful of that lumber truck bearing down behind me. The moose and I eyeballed each other for what seemed like an eternity and then he turned his back on me and clambered down into a mineral pool beside the road.”
Moose-spotting at Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario
Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park is a good place to spy a moose. There are about 3,400 in the park. Moose are elusive creatures but in spring, you can often spot them alongside Highway 60 which runs through the southern portion of Algonquin Park. Beside the highway are small mineral pools filled with runoff and salt from winter highway maintenance. Moose can be salt-depleted by spring and often feed in these pools which are salt-rich. The month of May is susceptible to “moose jams”, when you can see 30-40 cars of travellers stopped on the side of Highway 60 to watch a moose feed in a roadside pool.
All of the moose photos in this post are courtesy of Ontario Parks. The moose twins pic was snapped last spring by a staffer who works with the provincial parks system in Ontario, Canada’s second largest province.
Photo courtesy of Ontario Parks
Oh, look at the babies, so cute! Funny but moose is one of those animals that I never tend to think about as babies, I don’t know why!
Yeah, and we discovered in our research that moose often have twins and sometimes even triplets. Thanks for commenting from the other side of the pond?? 🙂
This is so awesome! I need to show my girlfriend.
THAT is the CUTEST moose picture I have ever seen. EVER!!! I showed it to my hubby and he said, “Awwwwww.” He never says awwwww… They look like bunny rabbits and puppies. So adorable.
The need to call baby moose meese!
Har, har. Thanks for dropping by!
A great moose photo here by Robin Tapley in Algonquin
I was in Muskoka on a beautiful sunny day in early October, 2000, doing some real estate stories when I decided to take Highway 60 through Algonquin Park to Ottawa to stand in line and eventually touch Pierrre Trudeau’s coffin in the Parliament Buildings. Much like your first encounter Judy I went over a hill and there was a moose standing on the side of the highway looking like he was waiting for the light to turn green. I slowed to a crawl and luckily had the highway to myself. The moose pulled his head back as I drifted past, but other than that never moved a muscle. He was still there in my mirror when I last saw him. I hope he had a safe crossing.
LOL,I sure hope that moose did too, Patrick. I snapped that shot headed into one of the Algonquin PP lodges. I was with an arts writer from the UK. We had been on a Tom Thomson /Gp of Seven themed road trip of sorts. I’d taken him by boat taxi as close as we could get to Go Home Bay where Tom Thomson’s patron had a cottage. I believe it is now owned by the Hal Jackman family. Algonquin PP was our last stop of the day. As we turned onto the gravel road from Hwy 60, there he was. A young bull. VERY curious too. The UK writer had never seen a moose before and was in total awe. ‘Ppositively prehistoric’, he said.