For today's #naturewritingchallenge I brought in a guest writer!
My mother, Nancy Zahn, has had encounters with wildlife that I just can't top!
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As a teenager, I grew up in a hiker’s shangri-la. Our house in Alaska abutted state land and overlooked a creek that tumbled its way down from the Chugach Mountains through the high tundra into forests of spruce and birch guarded by tall patches of devil’s club and fiddlehead ferns. This was my refuge, and every afternoon I would run down our homemade trail to the creek and dash through the thickets and the wandering springs up the creek as far as I could go, hoping to reach the expanse of tundra, a many hued carpet that stretched up to the jagged rocks of the Chugach.
My companion was a somewhat psychotic, but completely loyal german shepherd, whose chief joy was to follow me up our meandering paths carrying the largest stick or even log she could find. Yes, there were grizzlies here, but as an Alaskan it was not the bears I worried about, for I suspect that they heard me and left long before I ever saw them. No, in Alaska it is the moose that is most feared. A bear will avoid people while a moose will stand her ground, or charge if she feels threatened, and they are big animals that can do a lot of damage to a paltry human.My mind was always roving further than my feet on these jaunts, and on this particular day I was looking inward while leaping over little streams when I heard a snort. I was shocked out of my reverie as I looked up and saw a very small moose right in front of me. Shock turned to fear as another snort came from a very large moose right behind it. I pivoted about and tried to flee as I heard, and felt the sound of heavy, angry hoofbeats right behind me, and the crash of bushes that felt like the crushing of my bones soon would feel. I leaped back over the stream and into another rivulet, at which point I lost my footing and fell, knowing my life was in the balance. Just then, my german shepherd came rushing up between me and the moose and barked at her. The moose lost interest in me and chased the dog down the creek, giving me time to escape back up the slope towards home. The dog ran a short distance and then turned upwards as well - the moose was only interested in protecting her offspring, not in a vengeful pursuit to the death.
The encounter was a close thing, and I was more than grateful for my companion, who never chased animals in the wild, but came to my rescue and knew just what to do when I needed her most. I have told this tale of danger many times, especially to my children, to keep them wary and maybe to impress them. It is a hard animal story to beat, except perhaps for the time I was trapped in an outhouse by a grizzly bear. But that’s another story………….
