Trail Time – Moose!
Every visitor to the Gunflint Trail wants to see a moose. I get it. They are magnificent animals and beautiful in their ungainly way. Those same ungainly features make them uniquely adapted to the water and woods environment in which they live. Their longer front legs help them jump over fallen trees, and they can run 35 mph on those long gangly legs. I know from experience that they can disappear completely and silently into the woods in just a few seconds. Moose have poor vision — they are nearsighted — but their keen hearing (those big ears!) and sense of smell (that big nose!) warn them of potential danger. They can close their nostrils to feed underwater, eating mostly water shield, yellow pond lily and pondweed. On land their summer diet is willow, aspen, maples, white birch, beaked hazelnut, pin cherry and in winter, balsam fir.
Moose are excellent swimmers, and can moose-paddle through the water for miles. One guest at Loon Lake Lodge posted a video last week of a mama moose and baby swimming right toward them as they stood on the wooded shore. The humans had to make some noise so the cow would not climb onto the shore right by them and be startled. The cow and calf swam away after hearing them. On my very first trip to the Quetico over 3o years ago, I sat quietly in my canoe as a bull moose stood downstream from a beaver dam, submerging his head to find aquatic plants to eat, then raising it while gallons of water poured out of his impressive pair of antlers.
A big adult bull moose can average 6 feet tall at the shoulder and can weigh upwards of 1,000 pounds. Cows are smaller. Males use their antlers to thrash brush, threaten and fight for mates, and to root plants from the pond floor. Both bulls and cows use their legs to kick attacking predators, mainly wolves and bears. Their kick can be lethal.
Usually moose move away if humans come too close, but they can become aggressive, so remember to watch them from a distance. Moose are bigger and faster than any person and give little warning before attacking a perceived threat.
I had the absolute joy of being with a friend when she finally saw her first moose this summer. Farmer Ann had been coming to the Boundary Waters for 40 years and had never seen a moose. I took her on a canoe paddle to what I think of as a sure-fire lake for moose-viewing, but we struck out. Wouldn’t you know it, when we were driving to dinner that night we pulled over near a moose pond for a while to watch a cow feed voraciously. I know there was a calf nearby. That pair had many, many pictures posted of them this summer. One lucky person made a video of the calf feeding. It butted its mom’s udders just like a bovine calf does before suckling.
Sometimes a moose doesn’t look like a moose right away. Moose have fooled me a couple times by looking like people. From a distance, the slender profile of a yearling moose trotting down a road almost looks like a human riding a bicycle. The rhythm of a moose walking — the legs rising and falling — mimic the steady pumping of bike pedals.
One spring I was canoeing on the Swamp River off the Arrowhead Trail when I saw two animals staring at me from the riverbank. I thought, “What are donkeys doing out here?” Then it clicked: they were a pair of yearling calf moose. I felt a little foolish, but it’s a fascinating illustration about how are brains work; we use just a small percentage of our visual information to form quick decisions about what we are seeing in front of us. Sweetwater Sue on Gunflint Lake told me a story about a wolf standing on her road, completely unfazed by Sue’s presence. When she hopped on her bike and started pedaling, the wolf freaked out and sped off as fast as it could go.
One beautiful night a few months ago, I was driving home on the Trail, following a friend and a moose appeared, trotting right next to Seagull Rene’s slowly moving car. It danced her home in the beautiful moonlight.
Yes, moose are magnificent, but if you don’t see one on your first trip, there are so many other wonderful things to see: Birds, berries, beavers, lakes teeming with fish, fireflies, butterflies, sunsets, otters, fog over a lake. Not to mention the views, the tall pines, the hundreds of different kinds of willows (a fascinating tree), caterpillars, turtles, snakes and frogs. And the Loons! And the Lupines! Experience the quiet of the Northwoods, let it enter your soul where it can be a center of peace for the rest of your life. And maybe you’ll see a moose next time.
— Marcia Roepke
