Do You Run From Moose? - Passport Diaries

So the kids and I flew from Belgium to Alaska and it was a huge hassle but now we’re HERE and it’s AWESOME!

Our very first day hanging out in a jet lagged stupor with the cousins we went to ride scooters along the Campbell Creek Trail. There were people around and we brought bear spray. The weather was gray and cool, a few drops of rain, but dry. We gave the kids some parameters—stay together, wait for us at regular intervals, don’t wander into the woods, etc etc. Eloise and Jane (18 months apart, the BEST of friends) scoot off in delight.

An old fisherman and his dog come hustling up to us: “There’s a mama moose and her two babies up the trail!”

Oh shoot.

Hannah is off like a shot. She used to run cross country and is much faster than me. I mean, someone has to stay in the back with the littlest boys, right? It’s me. Hannah goes tearing after the girls, hollering at them to come back. The boys zoom after her with Elisha (3) and I trotting along as fast as we can. Up ahead I see Hannah and the kids conferring when I biker comes toward us. “Moose? Nah, no more moose!” he says. The girls and Ezra continue forward toward our original rally point. Isaac and Ezekiel find an embankment to scoot down back onto the wide, paved trail. Elisha and I are almost there. The boys climb the embankment again. I’m talking to Elisha when I hear Hannah scream and glance up to see a big moose, head lowered, running at the boys.

This moose was bigger than the kids. And us.

The boys holler and scoot down the embankment. Where are the girls? What is the moose doing? Are you supposed to avoid eye contact with moose? Is this the one with the babies? Where are the babies? Are we between it and the babies?! The woods are on the far side of the path from the hill where the moose is. What do we do!!?

It feints toward us again. The boys holler and scoot off to find their sisters as Hannah and I hiss at them to be quiet and not scare the moose. The moose is enormous but doesn’t have a rack—immature and unpredictable male? Or—most terrifying—a mama moose??? We group together and try to look nonthreatening. Do we continue and follow the girls, leaving the moose between us and the car? Where is that baby?!?!

The boys found the girls and brought them back—loudly. We hush them and avoid looking at the moose and move together back the way we came. It paced on the hill and didn’t follow us.

“You’re supposed to hide behind a tree if a moose is chasing you,” Hannah says as we book it out of there. “Moose are dumb and will forget you’re there. Unless it’s a mom with babies.”

We think the baby or babies must have been down in the trees over the embankment the boys were scooting down.

So that was our introduction to Alaska. I hope I never get that close to a bear!