Tree Poaching at Beer Can Lake (An Alaskan Christmas Story)

One Bitter cold night my older brother Paul and I went to the Beer Can lake area to get a Christmas tree. This was around 1979. There had been about 3 inches of snow earlier that day and I really did not want to be out in the cold deep snow in sneakers getting a tree. I said "let’s just get that one and go." Paul was like "Ok but I want to see if it’s full on the other side before I cut it down." I said "I am not going around the tree in the snow to look," so he did. Well all of the sudden he starts hollering and came running back from around the back of the tree screaming his head off 
"run... Run... RUN!!".

Now I am not going to lie the first thing that went through my head was "WTF", and instead of running I just stood perfectly still because I figured what ever it was, was after him not me. Paul went by me with the saw flaying around in his hand screaming, then I heard it coming... and it was big. The snow was crunching and branches were breaking. Now the second thing to go through my head was "WTF" and I stood even stiller, the night was about to get real interesting!

Around that tree came a huge bull moose at a full trot in pursuit of my brother Paul. Now I have been chased by dogs and pigs and even a bull and once by a skunk and the skunk one ended badly for me. In each case it was because of my brother Paul. So I Just watched as the two of them went down the road and out of sight.

Now what was going through my head was, I was really glad that we had left the truck running and I was not going to have to walk home no matter how this ended. Well... after about 5 minutes here came Paul back up the road cussing to beat everything and mad as a hornet. He gets up to the truck and said "Thanks a lot man!" I'm like "what did you want me to do trip the moose as he went by?"  Paul is like "let’s get this tree and get out of here."

Now here is what happened...... when he went around the tree he grabbed a branch and shook the tree to get the snow off and get a better look, and he took a big step back so he could see the top of the tree. He stepped in to the middle of a big moose that had been lying down under a tree behind him. The moose stood up real fast knocking him to the ground and everything went south from there, him running the moose chasing and me trying to look invisible. Well we got our tree and went home.

Now as a side note my wife just read this and when I asked her what she thought she said "I think its dumb and dumber Alaskan style."