Moose!

When I was seventeen years old, I was canoeing across a lake in northern Maine.  The lake was so large that I couldn't see the shore on three sides.  The water was still, the air humid, the sun high in the sky.  The only sounds were the distant twitters of birds and the gentle splashes made from oars striking the water.

The out of nowhere, across our bow, a moose swam by.

A moose!

Well over a mile from the nearest shore, a moose paddled by, calm and relaxed in its strokes. 

I couldn't...