NEAL MCCLURE

While hiking back to Many Glacier hotel from Redrock Falls, I passed a woman who was approaching the trail that ran adjacent to the nearby shoreline of Fishercap Lake. She was an older woman with excitable eyes and an expression that was warranting a spilled secret. The first thing out of her mouth as she met my eyes was, "There's moose down there!". I could tell at that moment how happy she was to stumble across the moose and share her experience with the first person she saw, which luckily was me. I shared her excitement as I thanked her for the heads-up and immediately made a sharp 90 degree right turn off the trail towards the shoreline. Within minutes I came across the vast openness of Fishercap Lake and scoped a family of moose wading in the water while feeding.

I sat quietly on the shoreline and proceeded to open my backpack to pull out my camera. However, I must have sat there for 20 minutes before I ever took a photo. I sat there in pure silence, taking in the moment, with only the sound of the calming wind and distant gentle splashing of the wading moose. During the summer months, the moose take advantage of the lush vegetation that grows underwater. The moose will completely submerge their whole head underwater as they pull up large amounts of tall grasses living in the water. There was one moose in particular that moved closer and closer towards my position offshore.

I waited and waited until she hopefully looked my way. After watching her gracefully pull up mouthful after mouthful of grass from the shallow lake, she finally paused to take notice of my presence. And during this brief moment of her chewing her late-afternoon dinner while acknowledging me is when I finally took my first photograph.