A most curious cow.
Some years ago, paddling on the upper Thoa River in the south central NWT. I had seen a number of moose in this infrequently travelled area, some a little wary, some vaguely truculent. Then I paddled past a point in a small expansion of the river, and spotted this cow moose dozing in a grassy area. I quickly grabbed the camera, hoping to get a picture before she disappeared into the brush. But she didn't disappear - in fact she didn't even stand up.
I bobbed around, about 20 yards away, for several minutes, while she lay there calmly looking at me. Eventually, she stood up, I took a final picture, then turned the canoe and started paddling towards a beach about 200 yards away where I intended to stop for lunch.
Then, to my surprise, I heard a great splashing behind me. Rather than disappearing in the bush, she was swimming along in my wake, her curiousity about this strange floating object obviously not yet satisfied. She followed me to the beach, landed about 50 yards away, and started slowly strolling towards me. At about 30 yards, she either must have caught my scent (not great, at this stage of the trip) or realized that my shouts were not intended to be welcoming, and turned off into the bush. I elected to eat lunch on the next beach downstream, in case she changed her mind.
The scariest moose encounter I have had was on Sandy Lake on the upper Dubawnt River, when I came around a point on an island and found myself about 20 yards from a cow moose who was standing in knee deep water nursing her calf. I could see the hair on her neck stand up, before I executed a rapid 90 degree turn and accelerated. When I looked back, they were both gone. Thankfully.
-wjmc