Harold Sher hasn’t been in a car accident for 30 years.
But a moose ruined that long-standing record this week.
Returning home from the movie theatre at about 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday night, Sher was driving up Two-Mile Hill when he saw a flash of brown out of the corner of his left eye.
“And bang! It was that quick,” he said.
“It was like I didn’t see anything and it knocked the car sideways. It was a huge hit. I didn’t know whether I was hit by a car or what.
“I pull over, I get out, I see the door - not the driver’s-side door but the one immediately behind it - is completely smashed in, the window’s all smashed, and I look around. A couple hundred feet away, there’s a moose standing there,” he said.
Tufts of hair are still lodged in the broken glass and smears of saliva and snot remain on the side of the roof where the animal must have hit his nose, said Sher.
But he found no signs of blood and a little while after the accident, the huge ungulate walked away into the greenspace behind Takhini Arena, he said.
Sher returned to the area the next day and didn’t see any signs the bull was seriously harmed in the incident.
But Sher’s car was.
“The cost to have this repaired is extraordinary,” he said. “I do have a $250 deductible, but obviously I can’t sue a moose.
“It’s kind of funny in a way, but I don’t know how I am going to afford it,” he said.
Whitehorse conservation officers with the territorial government are responsible for wildlife regulation within city limits. Moose sightings happen all the time, said Environment’s Dennis Senger.
“For it to happen on Two-Mile Hill is unusual but they do pop up,” he said. “There’s not much we can do. It’s a wilderness city. That’s one of the perks.”
Contact Roxanne Stasyszyn at
roxannes@yukon-news.com