I’m thankful to be a human everyday, but when the winter rolls through and temperatures dip below freezing, it really adds another layer of grateful to what I already feel. Just a few weeks ago most of the country was walloped by snow and many areas were draped in subzero temperatures with wind chills that seemed almost otherworldly.
As you would assume, Alaska was not exempt from this weather; in reality it probably wasn’t much different than what they deal with on a typical day in the winter. The Talkeetna region of Alaska reached nearly 40 below zero about a week and a half ago, but that wasn’t the headline coming out of the area.
A high school teacher named Mickey Kenny took a picture that wound up going viral of a young moose who appeared to freeze to death while standing up and was still stuck in that position, covered in inches of snow.
The sight is certainly crazy, and given just how cold it was, it seemed as least plausible to me that the poor moose’s legs froze and it was unable to move as the rest of it solidified, leaving behind a statue like monument to just how tough life in The Last Frontier is.
Take a look for yourself.
There’s no denying that the moose looks like it froze to death while standing, but did that actually happen?
However, the man behind the photo spoke to Alaska News Source about some new information he got about the moose in question:
“That moose was dead and frozen on the trail, and then, you know, a friend of a friend saw a group of people — I think like six to eight of them, move the moose carcass off the trail — still no explanation on why it was stood up, or exactly like how it stood up so perfectly, but basically, they did that.”
The Alaskan grapevine has spoken. I don’t know if it makes it any better knowing the moose didn’t die standing, it did still pass away after all, but it looks like a good old fashioned practical joke that the internet took and ran with.
Is it a crazy photo? Absolutely.
But did the moose freeze to death standing up? It sure doesn’t seem so…
