Too Close for Comfort…a Moose Story!

Too Close for Comfort…a Moose Story!

This was an interesting week…the boys, Nick and Jake, left early on Sunday morning.  It was sure fun to have them here for the past five weeks and I hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.  Tom and I were out doing a round through the campground later that day when we saw this bicyclist coming down the road…it turned out to be our son Marc who we had expected the next day.  It was really good to see him and we did a few fun things with him.  On Monday we went down to Canmore and got a bit of shopping done.  Tom had a chiropractor appointment and Marc and I shopped through all the bicycle and climbing stores.  He picked up a few maps and I got the best book ever about the Rocky Mountains.  The book tells everything from how the mountains were formed, how they are different from the American Rockies, about the plants, birds, animals and everything else found in the mountains.  It is an awesome book and I’m looking forward to using it to identify plants and flowers as well as some of the animal tracks and other things we find in the area.  I’ve already discovered that what I thought were trilliums are actually a type of low growing perennial dogwood.   I should have clued in about them because they have been around all summer and are sturdier than the trilliums we used to find in the forest when we were kids.

On Tuesday we really didn’t do too much…I think Marc just enjoyed the free time to sit by the fire and read his books and visit with us.  He’s got a stressful job and it was probably good for him to get away from things for a while.  Notice in the picture above that the weather stick is pointing down…rainy weather and cool temperatures!  Marc is sad not to get to go mountain biking!

 The weather really wasn’t too cooperative the past few days and so Marc didn’t get in the climbing and mountain biking that he wanted to.  Instead we took advantage of a rainy day and went to Banff for lunch.  We shopped around that very busy little town and then had lunch at Wild Bill’s Saloon…it was a fun place with good food.  There are so many people in Banff now and both Banff and Canmore are feeling the housing crunch.  There are tons of jobs, mostly serving and hotel jobs, in both towns but nowhere for the people to live.  Some of the kids are living out of tents and trying to hold down a job as well...it’s not easy for them and something really needs to happen.  A few apartment buildings would be a good idea but apparently it’s hard to build because of all the restrictions.  Somebody with a bit of money to spare could make a killing putting in a few small apartment buildings.  We had a good day in Banff and came home and cooked some steaks over the open fire for dinner…mmmm…Tom sure does a good job of that!

While we were waiting for dinner, Marc and I were talking and I noticed an animal across the lake at the day use area.  I thought at first it was a deer but it was too big and dark…a moose.  She wandered the shoreline a bit and then walked into the water.  I said to Marc, “wouldn’t it be cool to see her swim across the lake!”…not sooner had I said it than in she went.  We couldn’t tell right away if she was just going to swim along the shore for a bit or if she was coming across the lake but it didn’t take long for her to decide.  She headed across the lake just south of us a little ways.  I ran and got the camera and Marc got his as well and off we went to try to get pictures.   Marc stayed closer to camp and I walked down the beach until I was almost at campsite number two and waited for the moose.  It didn’t take her long to get across the lake…who knew they were such good swimmers!  I hid behind a large bush fairly close to where she came out of the water and started snapping pictures.  She looked around a bit and I’m sure she saw me…she walked toward me and stopped a couple times to get a better look.  I had to shut down the camera as the whirring noise of the automatic focus was attracting her attention.  I do know better than to get that close to a moose as they can be dangerous, but luckily this one decided to move off into the bush after staring me down for a couple minutes.  I guess she was just as scared of me as I was of her.   I did get some great pictures though.  Notice in the picture below that Marc is in the distance taking pictures of me taking pictures of the moose!

We don’t think it’s going to be too busy this weekend as the weather is supposed to be cool and wet for the next couple of days and not really getting much better till Sunday.  It would be nice to have a quiet weekend at Spray Lake, but who knows…every day is an adventure!