I ate this moose just before sleeping in a tepee at -20C so you could say I was doing my very best to go native.

Moose Casserole

It’s a lesser known fact that Canada also had a native population whose peaceful customs were displaced by roving packs of mad evil missionaries, and spending time with one of the tribes-people was really interesting.

My favourite story was that tribes used to adopt orphaned baby animals and let them sleep in their tepees for a few months during winter. One year they adopted a moose which after a happy six months refused to leave and they had to build a special tepee for it. It then got a taste for bread and took to swimming out and overturning incoming canoes if it could smell they were carrying loaves. So people rowing in had to shout ‘we’ve got bread in the canoe – call off your moose!” before attempting to land.

Which brings me neatly to eating the stuff. Not my favourite experience I have to admit. The meat was great – like a mixture of goat and beef. But the recipe was a kind of casserole and various organs were thrown in which toughened up during the cooking process and made most of it really gristly. I properly filled my plate fearing the cold night ahead of me and then had to grind through a huge fibrous pile of meat. Luckily dessert was cherry pie with ice cream.

Oh and the tepee proved to be really snug and warm – honest. There was a fire which you had to keep loading up but it was warmer than any of the houses I’d been in.

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