The Grizzly-Moose

Over the course of a recently-completed Very Long Drive, I had the occasion to pass along a little bit of Kootenay lore to a friend of mine.

We were moving my RV through deepest, darkest Western Ontario and I was driving. Chris was Shotgun, and my lovely wife was lounging in the back. It was twilight, and we were hoping to make Thunder Bay before calling it a 17-hours-travelled day.

Ontarioans will tell you that that part of the province is lousy with wildlife. Wildlife that appears to find leaping across a busy highway - like the Trans-Canada - the most sublime sort of sport.

So I was driving at twilight in something as sporty and maneuverable as a school bus, but not nearly so solid, constantly scanning the sides of the road ahead.

"Grizzly-Moose" I grumbled.

Chris looked at me ~ a look that indicated my sanity may be in question. "What?"

I've noted for some time that my casual common expressions tend to be somewhat... obscure... to MostPeople. I attribute this to rather a backwoods upbringing in the sticks of the Kootenays in British Columbia - and formal education in English, which evidently only High School teachers get.

I'm not a High School Teacher.

So I, naturally, launched into a dissertation on my personal cryptozoological experience.

"My Dad used to tell me stories about the Web-footed, Beaver-tailed, Grizzly-Moose.

It's a fascinating creature, native to the Kootenay region of B.C. It has the head, shoulder hunch, and body like a Grizzly bear, palmated antlers and a bell like a Moose, webbed feet like a duck - but obviously larger, and a broad, flat tail reminiscent of a Beaver.

This, of course, is not the interesting part. What makes it interesting is that it innately, instinctively knows when it is being looked at directly, and then instantly turns into a rock, or a bush, or a stump or some other inanimate thing in order to escape detection. So, naturally, you only see them from the corner of your eye, when you aren`t quite paying attention."

Oddly enough, Chris seemed skeptical. I attributed that to his youth and city upbringing.

"Dad actually saw a pelt for one in the early 80's," I went on. "Evidently there was one mounted in a pub somewhere in Montana, just south of Wardiner in the east Kootenays."

Now, to be honest, I had always been a little suspicious of the veracity of Dad's story about that. Everybody knows that a creature that can instinctively change into an inanimate object to avoid detection will almost certainly do so as its dying act. So what did He see? a pile of bark?

The truth is lost to history. I do know, however, that in (I think... it's been 30 years) 1981 a story ran in the Fernie Free Press on this very subject, penned by the most venerable and sage PipeDreamer himself, the late Bruce Ramsey - and it features my Dad telling the story of the discovery of a stuffed Grizzly Moose.

But you travelers are at least now aware. You swear you saw that stump move a second ago, right? That dark spot in the copse of trees up ahead - it looked at you, didn't it?

It's not your imagination. And I thought they were native to B.C. ~ turns out they've expanded their range.

"What's that?" Chris says suddenly, alarm in his voice as he points to a tan deer shape in the deepening twilight. As we approached, it resolved itself into a rock.

"Grizzly-Moose" I shrugged.