Book and Journal of Mattanaw

# Stuck Between a Moose and a Winterbear

A precarious situation attempting to access my property in Anchorage, AK

Author: Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh

Published: February 7th 2019

Edited: Original Edition

An example winter photo from 2017, taken from one of my trail cameras. Miscellaneous photos of bears from the same camera are shown below.

Terms and Conditions

Last night on my property, my driveway was blocked by a large Moose and its calf, and I couldn’t push them off the road with my truck due to undrivable snow depths and icy conditions. The moose do not like to exit the driveway, even with a truck driving behind them. On foot they are even more difficult. There was no way I could scare them off the road.

So walking, in pitch black conditions, with some reflection from the snow, and flashlight in hand, I navigated down a steep hill to bypass the moose. When I came back up the hill to the road, after much hiking, I found I was only about 30 feet ahead of that same large moose. But I was happy because at least I could get back to my RV, or so I thought.

Then, as I walked down the road, I spotted another animal. A large black bear. In winter. For some reason it emerged from hibernation. So I was stuck between a large black bear and a large moose with no way to get back to my truck but to scurry down a steep slope of ice and snow and back up to the road. I didn’t go as far down the hill because I was worried about the bear, so I was dangerously close to the moose. I was more scared of the bear than the moose, but the moose loomed large, and appeared to be as dangerous as the bear.

I made it back to the truck, and to a hotel to stay for the night, but that was a pretty sketchy situation to be in.

Source: One of Mattanaw’s trail cameras.

Terms and Conditions

Mattanaw I., formerly "Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh"

I am a retired executive, software architect, and consultant, with professional/academic experience in the fields of Moral Philosophy and Ethics, Computer Science, Psychology, Philosophy, and more recently, Economics. I am a Pandisciplinarian, and Lifetime Member of the High Intelligence Community.

Articles on this site are eclectic, and draw from content prepared between 1980 and 2024. Topics touch on all of life's categories, and blend them with logical rationality and my own particular system of ethics. The common theme connecting all articles is moral philosophy, even if that is not immediately apparent. Any of my articles that touch on "the good and virtuous life" will be published here. These articles interrelate with my incipient theory of ethics, two decades in preparation. This Book and Journal is the gradual unfolding of that ethic, and my living autobiography, in a collection of individual books that fit into groups of book collections.

This Book and Journal is already one of the largest private websites and writings ever prepared, at nearly 1 million words, greater than 50,000 images and videos, and nearly one terabyte of space utilized. The entire software architecture is of my creation. Issues of the book for sale can be found under featured. These texts are handmade by myself, and are of excellent quality, and constitute the normal issues of my journal that can also be subscribed to. The entire work is a transparent work in progress. Not all is complete, and it will remain in an incomplete state until death.

I welcome and appreciate constructive feedback and conversation with readers. You can reach me at mattanaw@mattanaw.com (site related), cmcavanaugh@g.harvard.edu (academic related), or christopher.matthew.cavanaugh@member.mensa.org (intelligence related), or via the other social media channels listed at the bottom of the site.

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