Les Stroud -- Best Story Ever

I'm Les Stroud also known as Survivorman from the outdoor life Network in Canada and this is roughly my best story ever for doing Survivorman shows I get to put myself in a lot of weird and crazy situations dealing with wild animals dealing with with different peoples in the hidden dark reaches of the jungles and of course my own physical situation of having to deal with heat stroke and freezing temperatures and all the rest of it but probably my best story out there out in the wilderness where I do my thing happened a long time ago pre doing Survivorman shows I was in Algonquin Park in Northern Ontario and I was looking for a place to do a survival teaching weekend and I get everything wrong actually and I was a survival instructor which is really stupid I shouldn't have done everything wrong but I did it was one of those times I went off into the bush and I went for a long way and the first thing I didn't tell anybody where I was going second thing even those who sort of roughly knew where I was going weren't expecting me I didn't say when I was coming back so they might have waited three or four days and I didn't tell anybody at the spot where I was going so I ended up in the middle of Algonquin Park way off in nowhere land there off the the the canoe trails in a swamp and I hiked out great spot found what I was looking for this is gonna be great I can build shelters I can show people what I need to show them so on the way back I'm walking back along and I'm in this clearing this this swampy clearing area I'm just sort of charging along everything's beautiful and I look over and there was a big beautiful cow moose female moose and she's just munching away and grasses she didn't take off which is really really I should have clued in to that right away because that's rare she should have taken off like a shot but she didn't she just stood there big cow Moos so I just watched her for a while took in the moment and then thought well what have I got to lose so I thought well I'm going to do a call and just sort of see how she reacts because I'm assuming she'll take off so I thought well I won't do a bull call because I do a bull call it was it was all I didn't mention this was September which is the rutting season the season of love for the moose and this means that at time of year my opinion is that the male moose and full antler full rut is the most dangerous animal on the planet certainly in North America very deadly very dangerous full of rage they don't know what they're doing so I thought well I won't do a bull call because if I do a bull call then the likely case scenario is I might attract a bull in and I don't want that so I thought well I'll just do a cow call because she's not going to get mad at me or react she's just probably going to take off but I want to practice my call so so I do a Cal call which is like this basic cow moves call so then I do it again and I do the whole thing again she looked up and then she just looked back down again just kept on eating so I did the call again and should even look up at that point so I just thought okay and and I took one step to walk away and crashing through the bush right beside her in full run with I I swear to you red blazing bulging lines was a 1500 pound full male bull moose big rack of antlers coming straight for me grunting and snorting so I took off like a shot I ran as fast as I could from my life I ran about probably three or four hundred yards and I started to panic and think I can't keep this up and and I would I would stop and like hide behind a tree and if I'd stopped I'd sort of hear him stop and I'd make a noise I'd hear him come running again so he was going based on my noise he was following me so he chased me through the forest a good three four hundred yards and then finally I couldn't do it anymore so I saw coming up a tree that was on an angle I thought I can scurry up that tree quickly so I ran I scurried up the tree I held onto the there's about ten feet up I suppose on a branch and I looked down and there's fifteen hundred pounds of raging bull moose started breaking branches grunting stomping snorting knocking small trees down small trees to him big trees to me and he was around there circling around and I was on that limb I swear shaking like a leaf I've never trembled so much in my life I never feared so much in my life fifteen hundred pounds of rage and guess what it's getting dark so here I am in way in the middle of nowhere stuck up this tree and it's starting to get dark and I and I thought quickly I thought you know I can't stay if I stay in this tree I'm out here for the night and this is not a good thing so at one point he was off a little bit and I I jumped down out of the tree and you know how it's like when you watch a cartoon and you and like the cartoon characters like in the midair and then they hit the ground and go that's exactly what I jumped off the branch and I was running before I hit the ground I hit the ground I ran again as soon as I started running in the bush again damn he was right on me again he was following me through the bush so now I'm thinking where I'm going I'm realizing I'm heading off into the bush my canoe is over there and he's between me and my canoe which was in a small little bay and I'm going I'm going deep into nowhere so I did I did this wide arc all the way back around he fought he chasing me the whole time until I got to a spot at the water's edge now my canoe is now on the other side of the bay and he I would still have to get past him to get to the canoe where he positioned himself so what I did was I'm now I'm fully clothed it's the fall of the year I'm completely alone and I slunk down into the water into the leg and when I got into the water I was able to be quiet and as soon as I got quiet I noticed and I started to move away he wasn't following me anymore it was really surreal because one point I was like going along through the water with my head above the water and I thought there's a like a bird on a branch and I'm like four inches away from the bird going by it's like looking at me as I go by and I just got through the water I finally got up past him I got up out of the water so now I'm on this point of land where the main lake was and the canoe route did go past there my canoe is way back here in the Little Bay and the Moose is in between me and my canoe so now I'm soaking wet I get up on a rock and find the moose is farther away from me but I can still hear him stomping around a bit and I'm standing there and it's getting dusk and I'm trying to think okay and a boat went by a motorboat went by and I was like waving and yelling just kept on going it didn't even see me finally I see a couple coming in a canoe and they they're paddling towards and I'm like waving like mad and they come over now I'm standing there soaking wet and on a campsite it was like a little campsite no tent no equipment nothing just me in the bush soaking wet shouting gibberish gibberish they finally come in and and I'm telling the others it moves back here I got can you get me order and they just they hovered away like 15 feet away from water going yes and they just stand there with their paddles is it this paddle in water they're standing with the paddles in the water just like okay and they would not they didn't want to come and help me finally I convinced them and I climbed into their canoe and they paddled me down this little Bay so the Moose is over here can use over here they patted me down the bay to where this canoe was the Moose is starting to move close to where my canoe is and I had to get out of their canoe now of course like an idiot the canoe wasn't on the shore I had it sixty yards up in the bush so now I had to go into the bush to get my canoe so I get off of their canoe and I swear I did that sixty yards there and back with the canoe in probably two seconds I went out I grabbed the canoe I'm dragging it through I get in the water splash in and I paddle home to safety and that I think is one of my best wilderness stories ever and I'm Les Stroud and keep watching more survive you

Channel: Strombo

Views: 1,770,594

Rating: 4.7115602 out of 5

Keywords: Les, Stroud, Survivor, man, Hour, George, Stroumboulopoulos

Id: xltg0iagMJY

Length: 7min 54sec (474 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 14 2008

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

That would be fucking TERRIFYING. I've only ever seen moose a few times in my life outside of zoos and it's always a little bit hard for me to believe my eyes. Animals that big are not something I very regularly see in nature. Sure, there are cows and horses on farms and such, but where I live, the biggest wild animal you see much is a whitetail deer, and even those aren't to be trifled with. I couldn't imagine how scary that would be.

[u/tonybagadonuts]

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