Re: Thoreau on the Moose, Paul Theroux

[Mary Scriver <prairiem@3rivers.net>]

I never know how to respond to these impassioned pieces by people who 
don't like people much, but who love animals.

It's well-known around here that a moose in certain seasons is more 
cranky than a grizz and apt to stomp a trespassing VW into oblivion.  
When my father's family was trying to survive in northern Manitoba 
after a rather disastrous move (as soon as they got there, a plague of 
sleeping sickness killed their horses and the person who had rented his 
house to them had left behind his aged and demented mother!), canned 
moose meat was the key to their survival.  Of course, they shot and 
canned it themselves.

I'm here to say that moose meat is excellent -- better than elk, IMHO 
-- and that I've gutted enough deer to have confidence I could gut a 
moose without much grief.  This does not mean that I am a good 
candidate for the presidency.  In fact, some on this list obviously 
consider it a disqualifying ability.

Presidential standards seem more along the lines of indoor 
high-productivity penned-and-drugged-hog farms.

On the other hand, I once spent a magical New Years Eve with 
parishioners who lived in a house in one of the canyons around Bozeman. 
 When the "witching" hour approach, we walked down the hill to the 
frozen creek -- it was deeply below zero with about six inches of snow 
on the ground.  We were passing through high brush -- moose browse -- 
on both sides of the road and were supposed to make noise to warn the 
mooses, but the stars hushed us.  We went down, imprinting our own feet 
over moose hoofmarks and then separated so each could stand solitary 
while the new year began, half-expecting bells.

When we went back up the hill, we saw moose prints over the tops of our 
footmarks, and the stars seemed to resolve into snowflakes which made 
the ground level again.

Prairie Mary