Mooses

Jean Sibelius: Symphonies No. 4 and 6; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Sir Simon Rattle, conducting

So far, in my short life, I have seen a moose, outside of a zoo, three times. In the spring of 1997, while investigating a rogue geyser that sprouted a ways far off from Old Faithful, I noticed some human heads poking around some trees ahead of me on the path. The heads turned their eyes at me, then indicated that I should look to my right. I looked to my right. There in the leftover fall foliage, about ten yards away, sat a mother moose, looking at me with eyes as big as saucers. I slowly stepped toward the heads behind the trees. Once I got out of her personal space, I could see the cutest little baby moose – what do you call a baby moose? – about ten feet behind the mother. There was no time to be scared. For either of us. I’m just glad that mother moose didn’t feel threatened.

Two days later, I saw another moose, this time from my car as I was going around a hairpin turn east of Jackson, Wyoming. It was drizzling. This moose had his head toward the skies, a smile on his face and was saying, “Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, raaaaaaaaaaaaiiinnnnnnnn.” It’s nice to see a happy moose.

The third time I saw a moose was just a few miles outside the city of Pori in Finland. It must have been about five o’clock in the morning when I looked at the reflection of the early morning sky in a crystal clear lake completely devoid of disturbance. Interfering with our overall enjoyment of the sky-lake scenery was the silhouette of a giant moose. So far, mooses (!) have made for nice surprises.

I wonder if Mr. Sibelius ever got surprised by a moose?

Credits: To the American moose and the Finnish moose. Do you have language barriers?