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Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Listening Point - General Discussion :: Fearless Animals
 
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Mort
02/01/2012 09:16AM
 
Campsite #1119 at the narrows on Horse Lake is a veritable petting zoo of animals who have obviously become accustomed to humans. Doe, snowshoe hare, red squirrels, Whiskey Jacks, Ground hogs/or squirrels. They came very close and put on quite a show.
 
Basspro69
02/01/2012 03:32PM
 
My first trip to the Bwca ep23 camped on Tin Can Mike. It was my first experience with a whisky jack (grey Jay). It was the most fearless bird I had ever seen, would take food right off your shoe. I thought it was the neatest thing, and they have been one of my favorites ever since.
 
realandrea
01/31/2012 10:59PM
 
One of the things that stood out to me on my first BWCA trip was that some of the animals were not afraid of people the way I had been used to before. I've had a family of grouse forage around me and approach close enough to peck my boot, have had the grey jays come into camp to visit, turtles and garter snakes swim right to my feet while I was in plain sight. Saw a wolf that had the sense to take off when the car slowed down.(Excluding the food habituated bears and other animals that have otherwise in some way theatened campers) Anybody else have stories of encounters with unusual animals?
 
realandrea
02/02/2012 04:47PM
 
Here's the young fearless grouse. Not quite a fearless marten...



 
nctry
02/01/2012 10:56PM
 
May 2010 had a large Beaver jump sort of through the air out of the weeds into the water in front of us on Pocket creek. Bernice, my Chessy almost out of reaction dove in after it, but she caught herself and stayed put. Really startled me... and Bernice. I didn't think a Beaver could jump like that. You had to be there!
 
jwartman59
02/01/2012 11:15PM
 
nctry, i was paddling up pine lake, hugging the shore as tight as i could to avoid the winds, suddenly a beaver jumped from the steep slope into the lake. he must have done a ten foot belly flop, almost landed in my boat. an unforgettable site, and not glorious.
 
awbrown
02/01/2012 06:59PM
 
A Marten chased a squirrel around our campsite for two days. Once running right through my legs while I was sitting on a log. Only stopped when the Marten finally got his meal.


At Big Bend NP you get a bevy of creatures. Vultures sit on top of your shelter house (each site has one for shade), coyotes sit in the roadway and beg, road runners (beep beep) scurry through each campsite performing tricks for treats, and the raccoons can open car doors to get at your coolers.
 
Savage Voyageur
02/01/2012 02:06PM
 
My brother had a mouse enter his food pack then he tied it up in the tree. Next morning we found that hd had ate his way out of his pack leaving a hole in the pack.
I have had many ducks waddle into camp. One year on Seagull I saw a Grey Jay steal a pancake right of the pile and fly back up on the tree to eat. Also have had a Pine Martin come into camp day after day.
 
realandrea
02/01/2012 04:21PM
 
These are good! Man those rodents, they think they own the place!
 
snakecharmer
02/01/2012 08:26PM
 
This pine marten wouldn't take no for an answer.

 
bassnut
02/01/2012 08:41PM
 
On the same trip we had a Black Duck hen land in front of camp, swim up on shore and follow us around camp, quaking. She would stick around 'til dark. That gave me the idea of using cardboard cutouts of pigtailed 5 yr. old little girls dropping popcorn, instead of goose decoys when hunting resident(Maximas) Canada geese.
 
ducks
02/01/2012 09:40PM
 
I was at the Sawbill campground sitting in my camp chair reading the BWJ when a red squirrel all of a sudden ran up my shin, jumped from my knee over the magazine, landed on my shoulder, and then jumped through the air behind me. The people in the campground that thought they heard a school girl scream.... well it was a 39 year old man.
 
Newbster
02/01/2012 10:26AM
 
Lets see we had a mouse and a rabbit on knife lake. A moose and chip monks plus otters and a duck that show up at the sametime every day on Seagull lake.
 
Sierra1
02/01/2012 12:35PM
 
My last trip in August 2011 had a Snowshoe Hare wander through camp, a red squirrel that liked to raid my food bag two feet from my chair with me in it, and a mouse that decided the inside of my main pack was a great place to look for food and use as a restroom....
 
yellowcanoe
02/01/2012 01:01PM
 
Red squirrels, mice, chipmunks, raccoons and a particularly obnoxious snowshoe hare who planted himself in the middle of the set out dinner.
 
BWPaddler
02/01/2012 01:20PM
 
I want nojobro to tell the story of the shrew? that gave birth to babies in her pack and then moved them to safer ground... or somthin' like that. Amazing.
 
Mort
02/01/2012 03:35PM
 
I recall two other incidents:
We were camped on site #43 on Lower Pauness. A couple of us were laying on our backs on the still-warm rock face at dusk, when a swarm of mice came stampeding over our bodies. That sure got our attention. Ha!
The second experience was when we were camping at site #1540 just below and north of Basswood Falls. This huge, ...and I mean HUGE beaver came waddling up the portage trail and right through our campsite to get to the quieter section of rushing water. At first glance I honestly thought that it was a medium-sized dog!
 
bruceye
02/01/2012 07:06AM
 
Non BWCA, but anyway, hows this for a close encounter?




 
Spartan2
02/01/2012 07:34AM
 
They like our food.


This squirrel thought my chocolate cake smelled and looked good enough to eat. We did NOT share with him, although I suppose we may have dropped crumbs that we didn't know about.



 
walleye_hunter
02/01/2012 07:38AM
 
quote bruceye: "Non BWCA, but anyway, hows this for a close encounter?




"

Did you let the poor guy in out of the bugs?
 
Jeriatric
02/03/2012 08:43PM
 
In a group, I think of the friendly critters as photo fodder. Solo, I think of them as company.
 
Benutzer
02/01/2012 09:03AM
 
Non BWCA, but cats will one day rule the world. No fear and lots of attitude.
 
Mike5914
02/01/2012 11:13AM
 



These guys fear no one.
 
mirth
02/01/2012 11:35AM
 
quote Mort: "Campsite #1119 at the narrows on Horse Lake is a veritable petting zoo of animals who have obviously become accustomed to humans. Doe, snowshoe hare, red squirrels, Whiskey Jacks, Ground hogs/or squirrels. They came very close and put on quite a show."


Stayed in this site last September and I can attest to the resident red squirrel having no fear of anything.
 
jwartman59
02/01/2012 12:10PM
 
i was attacked by a rabbit on the trail to the potty chair.
 
Zulu
02/01/2012 02:25PM
 
Two Pine Martens chasing a rabbit stampeded right through the middle of camp one morning on Horse Lake last year. We could hear them galloping before we saw them because of the thin soil on top of the ledgerock.
 
andym
01/31/2012 11:27PM
 
Have had some mice that pretty much figured they were part of the group.
 
snakecharmer
02/01/2012 05:56AM
 
We are a food source for many of them...well, our food is :) And with 200,000 of us passing through each paddling season, they are probably getting somewhat used to us.
 
bassnut
02/01/2012 06:06AM
 
Back in the early 80's, we were at Ensign, in the evening, enjoying an adult cocktail, telling hunting lies...er, stories, and we heard a rustling up in the foopack tree...no, IN the foodpack. We dropped it to the ground and a mouse popped up from the pack, ran to the rope, up the rope and sat on the limb from once it came. Big bears are not the problem, it's the little bears!
 
wb4syth
02/03/2012 08:03AM
 
quote Zulu: "Two Pine Martens chasing a rabbit stampeded right through the middle of camp one morning on Horse Lake last year. We could hear them galloping before we saw them because of the thin soil on top of the ledgerock."


Last year we base camped, every evening a big rabbit would run through camp and shortly after a pine marten would follow. It happened 3 times and it was always from the same direction.
 
tobywan
02/01/2012 12:42PM
 




This guy wasn't afraid at all.
 
mooseplums
02/03/2012 07:11AM
 
I had a Short-tailed Weasel watch me set up my tent, on my solo last fall. He was watching me from a birch stump.
 
AndySG
02/03/2012 08:14AM
 
quote bassnut: "On the same trip we had a Black Duck hen land in front of camp, swim up on shore and follow us around camp, quaking. She would stick around 'til dark. That gave me the idea of using cardboard cutouts of pigtailed 5 yr. old little girls dropping popcorn, instead of goose decoys when hunting resident(Maximas) Canada geese."
LOL Bassnut!
 
mcguiness22
02/03/2012 12:35AM
 



This spruce grouse had no issues with us being in his campsite for a long weekend. He seemed to enjoy watching us do dishes.
 
Sierra1
02/02/2012 01:02PM
 
quote snakecharmer: "This pine marten wouldn't take no for an answer.
"



That pine marten has some big cojones...