To watch the bears eat garbage at the dump, you’ve got to get there early if it’s Saturday night in Rangeley, Maine.  It may not sound like paradise, but it’s got a draw that inevitably takes you in.

My husband, Bob, muttered something about the movie Deliverance when we first arrived.  Sparkling foliage framed this small town peppered with mums, pumpkins and pick-up trucks which held an assortment of dead wildlife strapped in the back.  We found our rental cabin, then met the proprietor named Stub.  “Are there moose here?” I asked.

He lit an inch long cigar and said, “Don’t go near ‘em if you see ‘em.  It’s rut-tin’ season.”

“What’s rut-tin’?” I asked.  Bob turned crimson and Stub started with the matches again.  Later, Bob explained, “When a poppa moose and a momma moose love each other very much . . . ”

At 6 AM, we put a Nikon and a video camera in our canoe.  Like stealth wilderness trekkers, we deftly launched in the small river.  The only sound was the swishing of the paddles.  That is . . . until we heard a much louder swishing.   Quickly, we paddled toward the noise.

Around the bend came a moose; underwater grasses dangling from her mouth.  While chewing, she saw us.

“It’s a cow,” Bob said.

“Are you nuts?  It’s a moose!”  And before he could explain moose gender terms, she pivoted her gargantuan body in our direction and charged.

Then came inconceivable fear.  To make matters worse, I saw the same ghastly expression on Bob’s face.  We back-paddled like maniacs - the canoe hydroplaning off the water.

“Do something!” I yelled over my shoulder.

“What did you have in mind?” he yelled back.

“You’re a man.  Make it better!!”

And that was the unfortunate moment I learned that this male-protector business is all tripe.

I prayed this would turn into one of those tunnel and white light near-death experiences; you know, when we meet all our dead relatives, which frankly, never sounded all that heavenly to me. 

Finally, there was only one choice.

“Toss the cameras!  Flip the canoe.  We’ll hide underneath!”  I shouted.  I flailed right, which tipped the canoe.  My hysterics luckily scared the moose to the left, which caused the canoe to correct itself.  And she, in a quandary, fled the scene.

We spent six more days in Maine, where the silence of the nights is broken only by the haunting midnight owl and then a gunshot.

Oh, but we loved it.  In the Rangeley Lakes region, ‘nearby’ means thirty-five miles and mother loons on Mooselookmeguntic Lake are legally protected.  The stark, no-frills cabin on the glittering wilderness lake had hand-pumped water and a wood stove.  The aged curtains had tiny faded golden leaves around the edges.  It was, as the proprietor aptly said, “everything you’d ever want”.

And so, I was not surprised to feel the pangs of leaving.  The eminence of western Maine had taken a stronghold on my soul.  Fleeting autumn radiance was now behind us as we headed south.  I touched Bob’s shoulder, knowing that there will always be beasts from which we’d try to shield one another if we could, whether they be wild beasts of the woods or imagined beasts of fear or ultimate beasts of destiny. 

Before putting the map under the seat, I put an arrow and a star next to the lakes and the legend which is Rangeley, Maine.