My Father's Moosicorns

My Dad has been an avid moose hunter his entire life. But, much to the amusement of his family, he not only never shot a moose, he never even saw one. He endured, and still does, all sorts of merriment over either his lousy moose-hunting skills or his abysmal bad luck. To him, moose were mythical creatures that existed only in imagination, like unicorns. But you have to hand it to him. He never gave up trying until he was compelled by age to give up traipsing through the forest in search of what might as well have been minotaurs.

My sympathies, frankly, always lay with the poor moose. I recall vividly the time, when I was only five years old, that he took me with him on an expedition to moose country. It was just a day trip, driving gravel roads in the forest country north of Sudbury in search of partridge, but he brought his high-calibre rifle with him just in case. We were flagged down by hunters who excitedly told him a moose was in the bush nearby. Leaving me in the locked car for a while, he eagerly joined them to stalk the elusive creature. (Anyone was welcome to join in the search - moose are enormous, so in the event that any of the impromptu hunting party shot one, there would be plenty of meat for everyone.)

After a while, out from the bush to the right of the road where the hunters had gone trotted a cow (a female moose) and her calf, right in front of the car. My little heart thudded with the thrill of seeing these magnificent wild animals mere feet away from me. I felt privileged to have been granted a glimpse of such majestic creatures in their habitat, a sight which had been denied the grown-ups.

I was inclined to honk the horn to summon the hunters, but then thought better of it. I wanted to give the moose time to get away.

Later, when my dad returned, disappointed, to the car, his quarry having eluded him, I waited until we'd driven some distance then told him what I'd seen. At first he wasn't sure if I was being truthful, but then, when he could see that I was, he grew quiet and thoughtful. Unsurprisingly, he never took me moose hunting again. It must have driven him crazy that, after a lifetime hunting moose, his son, only in kindergarten, on his first hunting trip, saw two of them. I have never forgotten the intensity of the experience, and I have never let him forget it, either.

Once, he ordered a record album called How To Hunt Moose, figuring that surely it must contain tips as to what he'd been doing wrong. It didn't come for ages. When finally it did, we sat down to listen to it. At one point, the narrator suggested that the listener procure 'a half-quart pickle jar' and pour water into the water at the edge of a lake 'from a height of three feet' so as to fool the moose into thinking they were hearing another moose urinating. I remember wondering why moose would pee in lakes instead of in the forest, and why this sound would bring other moose running. Seemed a tad disturbing to me. My father was disgusted.

"Oh, for #$*@!'s sake!" he exclaimed, turning the stereo off. "If I use a three-quarter-quart mason jar and pour from a height of two-and-a-half feet, the moose are going to know it's a hunter and stay in the woods snickering?"

He had a point, and I learned a valuable lesson about receiving so-called expert counsel with an appropriately skeptical ear. If he'd been after goose instead of moose, I wonder if he'd have been advised to drop Aylmer's paste out of a shot glass from a height of a thousand feet as a craptrap.

Naturally, over the decades, he received what, in retrospect, must have been an annoying deluge of moose paraphernalia on every gift-giving occasion. Moose sweaters, moose hats, ceramic moose, moose glass-holders, moose art, moose cards, and once, just for fun, mousse....all vastly entertained his snide kin while he received each with the equanimity of a good sport and a bad sportsman.

I sort of regret tormenting him now. Just not very much.