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The Magic Moose Wand
N.D. Richman, Calgary, AB, Canada
From Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission. By Hogan Hilling and Al Watts.
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The crack was loud. It boomed through the trees, broke my thoughts, and stopped me in my tracks. I peered into the forest on my left but could see nothing under the dark canopy.
I turned back to Thomas. He looked as though he had just seen the world’s largest ice cream cone.
I flashed back to the days leading to our first overnight stay, deep in the backcountry of Kananaskis, Alberta. I had packed the kids’ backpacks, not with excitement but with trepidation. Thomas was only five, Michael six and Christopher nine.
There are only a few people in the backcountry and no means to communicate with the outside world. What if one of them got sick or hurt? I had wondered. What if I got hurt and they were left alone to fend for themselves? Was I being stupid or selfish? I had pushed the worries away. “You can’t keep them locked in a bubble,” I had told myself.
As I stared into Thomas’s eyes, seeing his excitement and fear, the worries flooded back. Having hiked around Upper Kananaskis Lake and into the valley on the other side, we hadn’t seen a soul and were four miles into the trip. A river raged to our right, and the forest on our left rose to a granite peak, somewhat obscured by the trees surrounding us. If an animal cornered us, there was no way of escape.
Thomas looked back into the forest, and his mouth dropped. Michael and Christopher stepped up beside him and peered into the trees.
“It’s a moose, Dad,” Christopher whispered.
My stomach sunk. Moose stand up to seven feet tall at the shoulder, weigh up to 1,500 pounds, and can be extremely unpredictable. I had hoped the kids were wrong. “Don’t move,” I whispered back.
I crept back to my children and peered into the darkness. The moose stood out as easily as if she was standing in line at a McDonalds. She was twelve feet away and looking straight at us.
Fears tore through my mind. What if she charges? What does she want? Is she alone? How do I protect my children?
I told the kids not to make any sudden moves and bunched them in front of me. Tightly pressed together, we stumbled down the trail. I prayed the moose would stay and this would soon be over.
The moose did not stay. She kept abreast of us for forty feet. We stopped, and the moose stopped. We walked, and the moose walked the exact same pace.
We continued, but the moose was determined. She was not going to go away.
I decided to wait the moose out. I guided my children into the hollow of a fallen tree, turned to the moose and stared her down. She stared back.
I can’t tell you how long this standoff lasted, but at some point, the moose moved forward. I breathed a sigh of relief as she continued ahead, but my relief grew to horror when she stopped twelve feet down, walked to the trail and turned, facing me directly.
We were pinned between the forest and the river. The trail was three feet wide and a moose, towering two feet above me, blocked our path.
I literally forgot to breathe. I looked down at my children. They peered over the tree trunk at the moose. They seemed excited, not understanding the danger. If the moose were to take me down, they would be left in the backcountry with no one to protect them, with no way to get home, with no father.
Three minutes had gone by. The moose had not budged. I was desperate. It was then I realized I was holding a rolled up mattress pad in my hand. I’d removed it off of Thomas’s backpack earlier on to reduce the weight of his pack. It was useless against a moose, but I did the only thing I could with it. I pointed it at the moose like the sword Excalibur and said in a commanding voice, “Go!”
To this day, I could swear I saw the moose shrug. It charged two steps towards me, swung left, and crashed down the embankment and splashed into the river, crossing it and vanishing into the forest on the other side.
I breathed. The children laughed.
“Hey, Dad,” Christopher said, “that is a magic moose wand.”
To this day a rolled up mattress pad is called a magic moose wand in our family.
This adventurous trip to the backcountry preceded five more trips, one per year. I’ve never regretted taking my children, for the adventures we had together were life experiences, never to be forgotten.
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N.D. Richman is a self-employed automation technologist and is currently working as an engineering manager. He has been married to his high school sweetheart, Tracy, for 28 years and is the father of four teenage children: Christopher, 20, Michael, 17, Thomas, 16, and Katherine, 14. As a graduate of the Outward Bounds wilderness survival school, he loves hiking and camping in the Canadian Rockies. In order to interest his reluctant reader, Michael, he has written the Boulton Quest Series of books a favorite of pre-teens throughout the world. Find him at www.ndrichman.com.
Hogan Hilling is a nationally recognized and OPRAH approved author of 12 published books. Hilling has appeared on Oprah. He is the creator of the DADLY book series and the “#WeLoveDads” and “#WeLoveMoms” Campaigns, which he will launch in early 2018. He is also the owner of Dad Marketing, a first of its kind consultation firm on how to market to dads. He is also the founder of United We Parent. Hilling is also the author of the DADLY book series and first of its kind books. The first book is about marketing to dads “DADLY Dollar$” and two coffee table books that feature dads and moms. “DADLY Dads: Parents of the 21st Century” and “Amazing Moms: Parents of the 21st Century.” Hilling is the father of three children and lives in southern California.
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Originally published in Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
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