Algonquin Adventures / Rosebary Lake bull moose

**Posted by SwiftPaddler** 5/29/2018 11:43 am

A group of 4 of us stayed on Tim Lake this past weekend and took a day trip down to Rosebary on Saturday. We saw 3 moose along the Tim and then I had my best moose encounter ever while we were on Rosebary.

We had stopped for lunch on the beach at the north shore of Rosebary. I like to explore by myself so took a walk to check out the campsite closest to the Floating Heart portage. Well to my utter disgust I find the campsite empty and the fire still smoking and HOT!!...I didn't have anything with me to douse the fire so I headed back down the beach. Our one group of 2 had already left to start heading back to Tim. I told my canoe mate that we had to go put out a fire before heading back. I ended up putting 6 or 7 bail buckets worth on the fire. Cursing the careless campers the entire time. We hopped back into the canoe and started to paddle and not two minutes later a bull moose comes out of the creek beside the portage to Floating Heart. We paddled parallel to him for a 100 metres or more and then watched him feed in the shallows. We spent a good 45 minutes watching him. It was surreal to say the least. I said to my canoe mate that we were rewarded for our good deed...if we hadn't stopped and put that fire out we would have been long gone by the time that moose came out of the bush.

I uploaded a couple vids to youtube...

Regards,
Mike

**Posted by dontgroandaddy** 5/29/2018 12:35 pm

Well done, Mike! Congratulations. You definitely got the prize with that. About 30 years ago, we exited a creek, I'm pretty sure Grassy Creek or whatever that is called to Big Trout, and saw smoke coming off of a small island nearby. Not a campsite, but somebody had camped there, left it, and their spent campfire had smoldered through six inches of pine needles, burning out tree roots, etc., in an area that was probably the size of a two car garage. We took care of it, but were not rewarded with a bull moose. One of us was rewarded with 30+ bee stings while putting out the fire. I think he would have preferred the bull moose sighting. Very cool he let you hang out with him for so long - congratulations!

**Posted by PaPaddler** 5/30/2018 6:22 am

Fantastic sighting and appropriate reward to doing the right thing - the video looks good, which means that it must have looked awesome from your seat!

**Posted by SwiftPaddler** 5/30/2018 11:40 am

30+ bee stings eh? Nice. File that one under "no good deed goes unpunished". Glad my reward was much better.
Sad thing is it wasn't the first time, nor will it be the last, I've had to put out an abandoned campfire. That stuff drives me crazy...
My friend and I were in total disbelief the entire time. That bull must have been around people before because he didn't care one bit that we were there. It was definitely awesome from where I was sitting.