I used to be the only person I knew who could boast at dinner parties about nearly dying at the hooves of an angry elk.
Then I recently met a Canadian man named Iain at a Chattanooga microbrewery. Iain (pronounced Ian) is a native of Newfoundland. He is a friend of a friend and happened to mention one of his favorite spots – Jasper National Park, in the Canadian province of Alberta. It’s in a town of 4,000 residents and many more elk. It’s also about 2,500 driving miles from Chattanooga and 2,500 air miles from Newfoundland.
And yet, two men in 2010 could commiserate over a beer in Chattanooga about killer elk from the early 1990s in the same Rocky Mountain outpost.
Iain had mentioned that Jasper is one of his favorite places.
“I’ve been to Jasper,” I said. “Nearly got killed by an elk.”