What it’s like to go on a moose safari in Maine’s Great North Woods

What do moose and teenagers have in common? It might sound like an odd question, but it’s one wildlife guide Chris Young has a serious answer for. “The males are like hot-headed schoolboys and have an aggressive grunt, like, ‘hey ladies, I’m over here’,” he says, lifting his pocket binoculars to scan the hardwoods for movement. Ahead, a thin trail stops abruptly at a still lake, the last hour of daylight casting a fine, silvery glow on its surface. “The girls have a more social snort. We mimic their calls in different ways.”

Chris is guiding me on a four-hour safari around Maine’s section of the Great North Woods, 40,000sq miles of wilderness that span four northeastern states — and it’s thrilling to hear the moose-call enthusiast ape their vocalisations. His call is a low, bassy, throaty gurgle. It’s intense, projected with force, amplified even further when he puts his hands to his mouth — the sort of sound you feel more than hear. “Other deer species, like elk, bugle with melody,” he says, “but moose don’t sing.”

Chris has spent hundreds of hours around the species; for moose-watching, there are few better places. Experts estimate there are some 76,000 hiding in Maine, the biggest population in the US outside Alaska, and more are found in the western and northern parts of the state than the coastal south. All this makes the Great North Woods a prime spot to find this local icon — the world’s largest, heaviest deer species and a majestic sight to behold. The animal can weigh up to 1,400lb and carries an antler rack the width of a small pick-up truck. At full pelt, it’s as fast as a greyhound. “A moose cow can easily take a bear out,” says Chris.

While there are few black bears here, there are also wolves and lynx, as well as white-tailed deer, otters, mink and more. For centuries, the local economy has revolved around logging, hunting and fishing, but the rise of eco-tourism is increasingly attracting travellers wanting to come face to face with wildlife on safaris. Our tour started from Chris’s base camp in the paper mill town of Greenville, three hours north of the state’s biggest city, Portland. It’s located on the shore of the aptly named Moosehead Lake, Maine’s largest, where moose outnumber people three to one.

We’ve headed out on a 4WD excursion, bouncing down an ungraded lumber route. But this vast backcountry is watered by the many tributaries of the Kennebec and Moose Rivers, which begin along the Maine-Québec border, making canoe tours a popular alternative. The moose are drawn to the area’s labyrinth of ponds and half-drowned bogs, where sodium-rich aquatic vegetation flourishes. They eat it in mammoth quantities, around 60lb a day. The best chance of a close encounter is overlooking a channel or marsh, fringed by balsam fir and old-growth hemlock.

And so we wait, sat on a rock, overlooking a silent pond ringed by tangled forest green. Henry David Thoreau, one of America’s earliest proponents of the value of the great outdoors, recounted his traverse of the same wilderness 160 years ago in The Maine Woods, a collection of essays about excursions in the state. “The moose will perhaps one day become extinct,” he wrote, “but how naturally then… may the poet or sculptor invent a fabulous animal with similar branching and leafy horns — a sort of fucus or lichen in bone — to be the inhabitant of such a forest as this!” Just as Thoreau put down, the wildness of this land engenders a connection to it. With no phone service and limited GPS, we are utterly alone.

Except for the moose, that is. They first appear at no great distance from us, almost hovering over the water, slipping into the scene beneath drooping oaks and firs hung heavy with lichen. It’s a mother with year-old twins — common currency at this time of year, during the autumn breeding season. The calves have no antlers, but dewlaps that dangle from their necks like oversized hip-hop pendants. “Watch the moose’s facial expression,” whispers Chris. “If it pulls its ears back, it’s nervous.”

In our stillness, at a safe distance, we have no reason to make them frightened. Gradually, they relax to feast, humped necks easing and ears tuning into the woodland soundtrack. The water burbles, with the scent of dewy earth in the air. A bald eagle swishes above. An hour passes in near silence, but like Chris has taught me, there’s more to it than first meets the ear. I pick out a multitude of details: muzzle snuffles, contented chews, resonant murmurs.

By eight o’clock, in the dying light, it’s all over. The moose family seems to give a farewell nod before trotting off, wading across the golden pond. We’re left in communion with the trees, thinking about this extraordinary spirit of the forest — a creature gigantic, yet one so quiet and well attuned to its environment, it can vanish as if almost having never been there at all.