Head-on with a caribou on the Park RoadCopyright 2007 Lydia Hinshaw
DENALI NATIONAL PARK, AK -- Nothing much surprises me anymore on the Park Road, where I drive buses five days per week.
Thursday I rounded a turn and spotted a caribou (aka reindeer) prancing down the center of the road. I've seen hundreds of caribou in the past seven weeks, and occasionally I've had one or two cross the road in front of me. This was a first.
I stopped the bus as quickly as I could and shut off the engine.
I thought maybe if we weren't making any noise, the caribou might walk right past us, since he seemed to know exactly where he was going. This technique works well with wolves, who aren't afraid of anything, but I'd never had the opportunity to try it with a caribou.
For 30 seconds or so, the caribou kept walking toward us as if he didn't even notice this big green bus in the road.
But finally he stopped, eyed us with some suspicion, and did a 180. As he walked away from us, he looked for a break in the vegetation that would allow him to get off the road, and when he found one, he was gone.
My passengers had seen only "dot caribou" (caribou that look like dots even through binoculars) in the first four hours of our trip. They agreed that this one fellow in the road was worth a whole herd of his cousins on a snow patch 1,000 yards away.
Thursday I rounded a turn and spotted a caribou (aka reindeer) prancing down the center of the road. I've seen hundreds of caribou in the past seven weeks, and occasionally I've had one or two cross the road in front of me. This was a first.
I stopped the bus as quickly as I could and shut off the engine.
I thought maybe if we weren't making any noise, the caribou might walk right past us, since he seemed to know exactly where he was going. This technique works well with wolves, who aren't afraid of anything, but I'd never had the opportunity to try it with a caribou.
For 30 seconds or so, the caribou kept walking toward us as if he didn't even notice this big green bus in the road.
But finally he stopped, eyed us with some suspicion, and did a 180. As he walked away from us, he looked for a break in the vegetation that would allow him to get off the road, and when he found one, he was gone.
My passengers had seen only "dot caribou" (caribou that look like dots even through binoculars) in the first four hours of our trip. They agreed that this one fellow in the road was worth a whole herd of his cousins on a snow patch 1,000 yards away.
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