A moose is very lucky to be alive after falling through ice earlier this week. A group of loggers in northwestern Ontario — Darren Whalley, Mark Wellington, Jordan Hay and Byron Holbik — came to the rescue on Monday afternoon.

Holbik, speaking to CBC News on Wednesday after having shared video of the encounter on social media, said he heard Whalley on the radio saying there was a moose in the water.

Holbik had seen the same cow moose with a calf earlier in the day in the area near a bridge at the top of Windigoostigwan Lake, which is over 100 kilometres west of Thunder Bay.

Holbik said the moose had been in the water for hours, and was occasionally laying its head on the ice to rest. He said the water was about five metres deep, and the moose couldn't touch.

"Darren was already on site and he had a bit of a plan," Holbik said. "He figured we could make a channel in the ice and then use the poles either to guide her out."

The men brought out some straps, in case they had to drag the moose out, and Holbik had a chain saw to cut the ice. Initially, they started cutting a channel toward the shore, but they measured with a pole and it was too deep.

"So we decided we better cut a channel toward the river where the ice was thinner and it was shallower," Holbik said. "It was only about three feet of water."

Once the channel was cut and smashed with a sledge hammer, the men used long wooden poles and gently urged the moose to make its way over to the shallow area.

Source