ORLAND, Maine — The frigid crispness last Thursday morning beckoned, calling for me to start the day with a snowshoe hike in the wooded acres across the road from my house.
This winter’s exceptional snowfall prompted me to take up snowshoeing, and lately my three dogs and I have been regular visitors to the woods. We’ve broken a number of trails, but a new snowfall prompted me to head to a more densely forested area I haven’t visited in a while since I was going to be breaking trail anyway.
This forested area sits atop a hill. Below the area I wanted to snowshoe, there are some unused logging roads that meander for miles. I’d explored them quite a bit while hiking in the warmer months, but the deep snowfall and the numerous fallen logs make them difficult to navigate in the wintertime.
My dogs caught scent of something and took off. They generally stay by my side or return shortly if they’ve gone off to investigate something. I can tell by their bark if they’ve treed something like a chipmunk or squirrel or if they’re chasing a rabbit. Libby, the basset mix, has very specific vocalizations depending on what she’s after.
This time, I could hear them all barking like mad in the distance, which is generally not a good sign. My first thought was that they had encountered a porcupine and all I could think about as I made my way toward them was how much a veterinarian visit for quill removal was going to cost me this time.
Their barking led me down a steep ledge, across the logging roads, down another hill and across a stream. As I struggled through the deep snow, I was seeing scat and tracks I assumed were moose. I wasn’t particularly concerned because I’d seen deer tracks many times this winter but had never seen a deer. So I believed I’d never lay eyes on a moose either.
I was wrong. As I clawed to the top of the embankment on the other side of the stream I saw him — a bull about 6 feet high at the shoulder. I’m 6 feet tall, and he was looking down at me. Mature bulls drop their antlers after mating season, to conserve energy for the winter, and this one was not sporting a set, so I assumed he was an adult. He also had a large “bell” on his neck.
The moose didn’t seem especially concerned about the three dogs barking at his heels. All three were keeping their distance, just making a lot of noise. The moose was standing under a grove of trees, where there was relatively little snow, munching on vegetation. I had heard that moose can be aggressive, but I was fooled into complacency by this moose’s calm demeanor. I thought the best thing to do was to grab the dogs’ leashes and lead them away before the moose got riled.
I made a wide circle as I approached. When I was about halfway to the dogs and out in the open, the moose charged. My right side was to the moose. I was trying to avoid direct eye contact, so I only saw him from my periphery just before he rammed me.
The force threw me to the ground. I stayed down, stunned, in a fetal position. I wanted to make certain that he wasn’t coming back to trample me or kick me in the head. All three dogs came over to empathetically lick my face, and I was able to grab the leash of the largest and loudest of the three dogs. I figured if I could lead him away, the other two would follow.
Content that the threat was gone, the moose went back to his spot under the trees to stand his ground.
I crawled with the leash in hand to a stand of trees where I could be out of sight before I stood again. My dogs, not happy to be taken away from the excitement, bolted back toward the moose. At that point, I decided to forget the dogs and save myself.
I had to leave the security of the trees and make my way out in the open to head toward home. As I was doing so, I realized that one snowshoe had been knocked off in the attack. I scanned the ground for it, but I didn’t see it. I wasn’t fond of the idea of revisiting the moose to fetch it. Had I realized how difficult it was going to be to hike out of the woods without snowshoes, I probably would have risked going back. I abandoned the remaining snowshoe because it wasn’t doing me any good.
I crossed the stream at a different point from the one that I had approached on, so I had no broken trail to follow. My ankle-high winter hiking boots and heavy sweatpants were not appropriate for slogging through snow as deep as my upper thigh.
Over the next few hours, I made my way out of the woods, taking a route that would lead me to the stream where I snowshoed often and had broken trail.
Many times I had to crawl across the snow to make headway, pausing often, exhausted, wet and freezing, wondering why I had left my house without my cell phone that morning. I knew I was getting hypothermic because I was trying to tell the dogs that had now rejoined me to “just go home!” afraid that they would freeze. I heard myself slurring words. My feet and lower legs felt like slabs of meat fresh out of the freezer, but I didn’t dare pause to look closely. I just wanted to get myself to the safety of home, then worry about frostbite.
It was afternoon by the time I stepped inside my front door. I was so relieved to be indoors that I wasn’t thinking rationally. In the condition I was in, I should have called for my neighbor’s help or phoned 911. Instead, I drew a warm but not hot bath, peeled off my frozen layers and began the process of thawing my frozen feet and lower legs. As the tissues thawed, the pain was excruciating. I dried myself off, took some ibuprofen for the pain and got under three layers of quilts where I shook uncontrollably for three hours until my body warmed up again.
The next day I went to the Bucksport Regional Health Center, where I was treated for hypothermia and frostbite on my lower legs. I was the talk of the office that day. My doctor told me that my legs would heal, and I wouldn’t even have any scars to remember my ordeal by.
In the spring I will go back to the site and recover my snowshoes and perhaps figure out how many miles I traveled that day in the deep snow.
There are two things I’ve learned:
- Never take wildlife for granted. Moose are the most aggressive during mating season and during the winter, when food is scarce and conditions are poor. I will never equate them with dairy cows again.
- No matter how familiar I am with my surroundings or close to home I think I might be, I will never, ever leave the house without a cell phone and safety provisions again. No matter the season.