Charlie's Moose

Description

This image is 45 x 51-inches (114 x 129.5cm) in size. Canvas prints are sold stretched or unstretched. Stretched prints are available for pick up only in Vancouver. Addresses further afield will get unstretched canvases and paper prints rolled up in a tube for shipping. Instructions for stretching/framing will be included in the shipping tube.

This is Charlie’s Moose. He hangs in the living room of an old hunting lodge on Mahood Lake in BC’s Cariboo Region. I don’t know how old the lodge is but it could easily date back to the 1930s. It is made entirely out of the big naked logs seen in the background of this photo. I think the logs are fir.

At the time this photo was taken the lodge was said to be owned by a guy named Charlie. Hence the name of the moose. The place was for sale at the time and had been left unlocked so that prospective buyers could wander in and take a look around. Because of its remoteness there was very little risk of the place being robbed. A friend of mine has a cabin nearby so I paddled a canoe down the lake to take a look.

I was struck by the look of these moose heads on the fir log walls and the light coming in through the windows and skylight. There are three big moose heads in the room, but this one was the most photogenic. Along with the moose are a few deer, caribou, and a big horn sheep. There may also have been a bear in there.

When I printed this photo I tried to get it about as close to life size as possible. This print on canvas is about 4-feet square. The plaque on the bottom of the mounted head reads R.J. Pop, Taxidermist, Vancouver, BC. Apparently, R.J. Pop was a well know taxidermist back in the day.