Moose Morris, the Ice Dancer

Christmas 2004

Written by Hazel Booth

Pictures by Matt Schenck and Hazel Booth.

     “Home” as it has been known for many years has been back in Ottawa.  Now, home for me is in the Yukon.   Christmas was going to be different this year.  For the first time ever, I was not working on Christmas day, nor was I going back to Ottawa to be with my family. This was also to be my first Christmas with a relatively new, but very important person in my life: boyfriend Matt Schenck.  My brother, Grant, intrigued by my stories of Canada’s Yukon, recently moved up to the Yukon to check it out for himself.   I was looking forward to experiencing a true Yukon Christmas. We had made arrangements to stay at a cabin in the Haines Pass for a few nights.  The Haines area is a gorgeous area along the edge of Kluane National Park.  Mountains and lakes galore, a winter wonderland it is.

    Christmas Eve, Matt, Grant, and I went to a house party and enjoyed the company of some good friends.  A little too much eggnog, we were a bit later than anticipated getting out of bed on Christmas Day.  Matt seemed a bit quiet Christmas day, and I learned he was having second thoughts about heading out to the cabin.  He wondered if we shouldn’t just stay around Whitehorse and do some skiing and skating around the Whitehorse area for our holidays.  My heart sunk.  I tried to listen and understand, but I was disappointed.  To me, it seemed we could do those things anytime.  I was really looking forward to going to the cabin.  Matt saw the disappointment on my face, reached over touched my face and kissed me.  We were going to the cabin!  

     Matt’s friend Sean MacKinnon was going to join us for the cabin adventures as well.  The four of us crammed into Sean’s little truck.  Gear was jammed in every little nook of the back of the truck as well as the snowboard and skies on top of the truck.  We left Whitehorse late that afternoon, just as it was starting to get dark.  The roads were greasy, really greasy because of the warm weather just a few days earlier. We stopped to help at the scene of a car that went off the road and landed on its roof.  We planned to get gas in Haines Junction; however, because it was Christmas day, every gas station in town was closed.  It would be rather stupid of us to continue on to the cabin without a full tank of gas.  Running out of gas on the Haines Road would not be a good thing in minus 30 degree weather.

     Matt had an idea to go as far as Kathleen lake.  There is a day- use cabin at Kathleen lake, but the cabin isn’t locked and has a woodstove.  We could stay there for the night and double back to Haines Junction in the morning to get gas. Off we headed to the Kathleen lake cabin.  We arrived and settled in.  Woodstove roaring, we made Christmas dinner.  No turkey for us, but rather a fondue of caribou, sheep, and buffalo meat.  It was so yummy!  Of course, a chocolate fondue for dessert, and our favourite winter camping beverage: Fireball.

     Feeling over stuffed with food, we needed to go for a walk after dinner.  We headed out around the lake.  The night was cold, very cold.  The lake seemed unsettled.  The lake seemed to have indigestion.  It gurgled and groaned, sounding exactly like a stomach digesting food. I’ve never heard anything like it.

     Boxing day, Sean headed back to Haines Junction to fill the truck with gas. Meanwhile Matt, Grant, and I prepared breakfast.  Sean returned with news from the outside world: a tsunami had hit many South-East Asian countries and thousands of people were dead. It seemed surreal.

     Matt and Sean had heard of some ice climbing at the far end of Kathleen lake and were interested in trying to find it, so we decided to spend the day at Kathleen lake and head out to the cabin in the early evening.

     Last year, a local community member from Teslin, Doug Smarch, made some homemade snowshoes for me.  Another community member from Teslin, Margaret Douville, made me some mukluk’s for the snowshoes.  I was anxious to try them out.  Grant had some modern snowshoes.  Matt and Sean decided to ski and pull the ice climbing gear in toboggans.  Off we went across the frozen lake. It was about minus 22 degrees that day.

     About an hour across the lake, Grant called out to me, “Hey, Hazel, are moose supposed to be in the water this time of year?”  I wasn’t sure what the answer was.  He pointed to what he thought was a moose.  It looked like a rock to me.  But then, the rock moved.  Bizarre, it didn’t look like a moose though.  As we approached we quickly realized the moose had fallen through the lake.  There had been an avalanche in the area which weakened the ice. 

    Cautiously, we approached the moose to see what was wrong.  We weren’t sure if the moose was going to stand up and charge at us or what.  Quickly, we came to realize we were in no danger at all.  The moose was stuck in the ice and was shivering uncontrollably. The moose was exhausted.  There was a horseshoe shaped path through the ice where clearly the moose had struggled to try and paw its way out. Clearly, she wasn’t much of an ice dancer.  Covered in ice, she sounded like a Christmas tree. It was so sad.  She was helpless and was going to die.  Helpless as we felt, we decided we needed to try something to help this moose, but what could we do? 

     We tried yelling at the moose, to give it a final scare to try to get out.  It didn’t work. We chipped away at some of the ice around the moose with ski poles. It didn’t work. We thought, well, she just needs a little energy.  I ran back to the sled and grabbed my curried tuna wrap.  Matt tried to feed it to her. She wouldn’t eat it. Perhaps she just wasn’t big on curried tuna?  She wouldn’t eat a bagel or trail mix either.

     Next, we ran back to the toboggans again.  We grabbed the rope that Matt and Sean had brought for ice climbing and tied it loosely around her neck.  We pulled, but it didn’t work.  In fact, my heart sunk as Morris lost her leverage and sunk deeper into the water.  She was going under. We had made it worse. I felt nauseated.  We kept constant tension on the rope to keep her head afloat.  Matt and Sean had the idea to set up a crevasse pulley system that would give us a 4 to 1 mechanical advantage.  The closest ice that would hold the ice screws was about 50 metres away.  Sean hurried to set up the pulley system, while Matt and I kept constant tension on the rope around Morris’ head to keep her from sinking under the ice. We also worked to position the rope in a safer place around Morris.  It was a bit of a challenge to get the rope through the ice cold water and under her shoulders.

     Next, Grant took over at Morris’ side.  He put her in a headlock.  As Grant would say, he was “cheek to cheek and eye to eye with the moose”.  Morris pushed against Grant and they both used the side of the mountain as leverage while Matt, Sean, and I pulled on the rope.  Morris didn’t resist, nor did she help.

      Slowly we pulled her up out of the water and about a metre from where she fell in the ice. WE DID IT!   Morris was out of the water.  

     Now what were we going to do with this moose that was lying on the ice shivering?

     It just seemed to come together. We put Matt’s very expensive fancy tarp over her and we all worked to build a shelter from the wind out of snow.  We also worked to gather firewood to build a fire in the shelter to warm her.  We had warm water in Nalgene bottles in our packs, so we also pried open her mouth and dumped the warm water down her throat. We massaged the muscles in her hind legs. We pulled ice off her fur.  We worked for hours trying to warm Morris the moose.

     Careful as we were, while we were working, Matt fell through the ice.  He fell in Morris’ hole up to his waist.  He quickly used his arms to pull himself out.  I was next to fall through the ice.  I was carrying a big boulder over for the snow fort.  It must have been a bit too heavy, as my right foot slipped through the ice up to my knee.  Sean was next to have his foot slip through the ice.  We kept teasing Grant, that he was next, afterall, 4 out of 5 (including Morris) of us had gone through the ice already. 

     Morris just lay there, turning her head every once in a while to get a better look at us, much like a pet dog lazing around the fire. It was quite bizarre.  Often we forgot she was even there, then all of a sudden one of us would giggle and say “um, is that a moose right there?”

     About 6 or 7 pm, Morris was starting to perk up. She was paying more attention to her surroundings.  She even started to drool.  At one point she tried to stand up, but fell down again.  It was kind of funny, as the way she fell; her butt was almost on the fire.  We aren’t sure if this was coincidental or if Morris moved purposefully in order to warm her behind!  At this point, we were starting to get cold and hungry ourselves.  We didn’t know what else we could do for Morris.  We put the snowshoes and skies on, and headed back towards camp in the dark.  By the time we got back, we were all too tired to try and find the cabin we were planning to go to, so decided just to stay where we were another night.   Plus, we wanted to check on Morris in the morning.

     The next day, we headed out to find Morris and try to find the ice climbing location once again.  We were all very quiet, without words, and anxious about what we would find. Would Morris be there?  Would she have fallen through the ice again, and we would have to pull her out again?  Would we find her dead?  As we approached the scene from the day before, we peered over the wall of the snow shelter.  She was gone! One wall of the snow fort was broken.  The remnants of the fire and 2 untouched bagels were left behind.

     Wow!  What a feeling.  We were ecstatic. I couldn’t help but throw my arms around Sean who happened to be standing next to me.  Grant and Matt were already out there following the tracks.  Grant, eyes of Legolas, found her a couple of hundred metres away in the first bush she could find shelter in.  She was standing initially, but then fell down.  We were pleased to see that she had been eating some of the willows and there was moose poop and pee in the snow.  Morris was looking so much stronger.  It was great to see.  Still, it did not bother her that we approached her.  We decided to leave her be and check on her on our way back. 

     We continued across the lake in search of the ice climb.  It was a beautiful day, alright. 

     We never did find the ice climb, but on our way back in the late afternoon, we stopped to check on Morris again.  This time she was standing and a bit more cautious about us being there.  Interestingly, Morris would not let Matt, Sean or I go closer than a few metres.  Grant, the one who had been “cheek to cheek and eye to eye” with Morris, however, put his hand out.  Morris slowly brought his nose down and briefly touched Grant’s hand, as if to say, “Hey, man, thanks”.  It was a pretty darn kewl thing to see.  

     We couldn’t help but stand around and have a bit of a chat with Morris.  We told her not to worry, that falling through the ice could have happened to anyone.  We warned her though, that she was going to need to work on her ‘look’ a bit more, as her friends were going to know what happened if they took one look at her.  Especially, given she still sounded like a Christmas tree with every move she made. We also gave her a little bit of warning that people in colourful clothing were ok, but to be careful around those not so colourful.  

     I think we all half expected Morris to follow us back to camp.  I know I caught myself looking behind me every once in awhile.  We all hope Morris is doing just fine out there.

     The lake was quiet that night, no gurgles; the indigestion seemed to have cleared.

     With only one night left of our holidays, we headed out to try and find the cabin we originally set out for.  The road was pure ice, the wind was blowing. The road was closed.  It was a whiteout.  We couldn’t find the cabin.  We ended up staying at this tiny, tiny old green cabin at the side of the road. When we awoke in the morning, there was a good 2 feet of snow that had come through the crack of the door.  It was a cold night that night.  The drive back to Whitehorse was insane.  Huge snowdrifts, poor visibility, giant winds, and icy roads.  T’was great though.  I loved it. 

     What a great Christmas adventure.  I don’t think it could get anymore Yukon-y than that.