The Search for the Elk

I was up in the north country, visiting my brother and sister-in-law one April, and my brother said to me, "How about going to look for elk tomorrow morning?" There's nothing I like better than getting in the car and rambling the back country, so I agreed. We decided to get up at 4:30 in the morning, because it's about a 45 minute drive over to the Pigeon River Area, where the elk hang out. Of course, we didn't go to bed early -- we were having too much fun showing off with Trivial Pursuit, so 4:30 came awfully early. But braced by two cups of coffee for him, and some diet Pepsi for me, off we set.

Now if you go looking for elk in November or December in the Pigeon River, it's not such a big deal. The elk start congregating about the last week of deer season, and people have counted herds of 150-200, just strolling in the cornfields. Don't get me wrong -- they're an awesome sight -- there's just not a lot of looking for them. In April it's a different story. The elk spend most of the winter split up. Finding an elk at this time of year -- well, you don't just drive to the cornfield at the end of Dudd Road and there they are. You have to go hunting for them. It's a beautiful drive over to the Pigeon River during the day. At 4:30 in the am it's pretty dark. A couple of times Yogi would slow the car and do a 360, letting the headlights roam over the fields. Eyes would glow eerily back at us from the deer out for their early morning feed. Closer to the ground, the eyes of coons, skunks and possums would reflect back at us. What a life.

Just to make sure we didn't miss anything, we drove to the end of Dudd Road, but only counted a dozen deer in the field. So it was onward and inward to the hills and riverbanks of Pigeon River.

And now the hard part began. When you start a search for elk, you think you know what you're looking for. Elk look like deer, but bigger. They have a white horseshoe on their rump, and a hump on the back of their neck. We know all this. We'd even seen elk at the zoo. But out in the middle of the woods, strange things start happening to our sight.

"Look, there's one," I say, as a large animal crosses our path. But then, it stops, and looks at us, and it's easy to see that it's a beautiful, albeit very large, whitetail.

"Would you look at that?" Yogi says, and points off to the left of the car. Halfway hidden behind a stand of pines is a weird looking animal. He looks like a deer, but he's gray instead of brown, and he has markings on his side. "Sure doesn't look like any deer I've seen."

We stop the car and watch. "He's huge, he has to be an elk," we agree. "Kind of a weird looking animal, though."

After several minutes, we decide to head on our way. We thought we could definitely say we had seen an elk, yet something was niggling at us. Something wasn't quite right. Then, ahead of us, five deer bounded across the road. "Now see, those are deer, we know deer and that other animal didn't really --- Holy Smoke!!!" My brother's mouth was gaping. All he could do was point to the left side of the car. There they stood, two magnificent, undeniable, beautiful, enormous elk. We watched in silence for a full two minutes, the elk standing perfectly still as if to say, "Look at us, pay attention, this is what we look like. We are what we are."