IF IT LOOKS LIKE A MOOSE…

…It’s Probably Just a Picture

Beetley Pete is a blogger from England. Specifically, Norfolk, England. More specifically, Beetley, Norfolk, England. (On a map of England, look for London. Move your finger up a bit at about a 60° angle to the North East. There is a peninsula jutting northward. Somewhere in there is Beetley. Somewhere around there is Beetley Meadows. Why Beetley Meadows? Patience, dear readers, patience.)

Beetley Pete has a dog, Oliver Cromwell Johnson. Pete lovingly calls him Ollie. Ollie is a Shar Pei. He has wrinkly skin.

The following story is from years ago. I chose it because it has some beautiful pictures of other animals. I like animals. I am going to piggy back on Ollie’s story. It won’t be hard to figure out why.

Ollie, the Moose, and a Deer

Ollie was chasing an imaginary moose in the story above, but I know an imaginary moose. Well, he is real, but he is not a real moose. He is a roadside attraction moose in Manning, Alberta, Canada. https://www.roadsideattractions.ca/roadside/manningmoose

Every time my partner and I travel South to go to the big city, Edmonton, 800 kms/500 mi away, the first potty break we have is in Manning, Alberta.

My partner and I both have vivid imaginations, and when we get to Manning we always have a chat with Manny the Manning Moose. Manny has a job as Manning’s mascot. He greets all the tourists that drive by. But he more than greets us, he shares all his secrets with us. Often he takes time off from work to travel with us. He gets his friend Manitoba to cover for him, and he takes quick vacations with us. (Manitoba is named after the province of Manitoba, where I was born. The appropriate thing is, his name in short is also Manny. So when tourists talk to him, he responds to and as Manny. So no one knows if they are talking to the real fake Manny, or the fake fake Manny. They both sound exactly the same.)

Why does Manny like to go on vacation? He says it is because he is bored. He has been greeting people all his life, and he gets no time to be a real moose! He very much wants to roam forests, and muskeg, and mountains and valleys. And sometimes he even likes to go visit his brother who lives in the Edmonton Zoo. Under normal circumstances moose like to be alone, but Manny is not normal.

Also, most moose travel by foot. Manny travels in his astral body. He separates his astral body from his statue body, and he sits in the back seat of our car, or if the back seat is full, in the suitcase rack on top of the car. In good weather he likes the outside seat, but in Winter especially, he prefers to be on the inside, with the heater on.

Manny really loves going North most, in November and December, to the North West Territories. That time of year is Moose Mating Season, and Manny considers himself a cow moose’s dream. He is tall, dark, and handsome. And he thinks he is sexy. We agree with him, but we really have no idea what a cow moose thinks in sexy. We let him think what he wants. Who are we to disabuse him of his good looks.

We just saw Manny 10 days ago, and already he is planning his Mating Season Vacation. But, I don’t know if he knows yet, his favourite stomping ground is burning. His girlfriends, hopefully, have all left the area. Thousands of people are on evacuation from a number of different wildfires. Thousands of small animals and other creatures have died in the fires. Young birds were just learning to fly. Did they survive? The size of this catastrophe will never be fully calculated.

And this is all because of humans. The climate is changing, and the great northern forests are being destroyed because of us. Please, help Manny. Help all his friends. Fight to fight climate change, and climate change disasters. They affect us all!

AN ADDED OBSERVATION, AND AN APOLOGY

Last night, after I prepared this post, 20,000 people were forced to evacuate Yellowknife, the capital city of the NorthWest Territories, because of a raging wildfire. Most of this 20,000 had to travel by land, and because of fires there is only one direction for them to head, South. Even worse, there is only one highway to take, an old two-lane highway through my home of High Level and then down to Edmonton and Red Deer. High Level is already filled with evacuees from a number of other wildfires; unless one has an RV or 5th Wheel there is no room to stay here. So having already travelled 8 hours to get here, they have 8 or more hours to go before they can find a temporary home.

My partner and I had to go to our vet this morning. One of our cats needed to be examined. To get to the vet we have to travel up the same highway the Yellowknife evacuees have to travel down. The traffic was like nothing we have seen up here in the 20 years we have lived here, not quite bumper to bumper at speeds exceeding 100 kph, stretching to the horizon. Everyone is fleeing the fires. My first thought was these are tired drivers who drove through the night. I hope no one falls asleep st the wheel. A crash could be fatal for a great number of people. My second thought was, where are they going to go to find shelter. As I said, Edmonton, is another 8 hours away, and shelter is not even guaranteed there. First, travelling more than 16 hours to safety, and then having to find shelter? They are going to be at wits end.

This is the real cost of human deficiencies in not getting serious about climate change a dozen years ago when we found out it was coming. This is all our fault.

This blog was supposed to be a safe place to escape the insanities of the modern world. To Jill, and to our readers, I do apologize for making this a serious post. I did not plan it that way, it just evolved as the situation north of me evolved. I hope I will not have to do this again, but I know I will if it becomes necessary. That is the kind of person I am. I am not sorry for being me. But I am sorry for not keeping this space a safe space.