Nancy Côté-Pharand’s photos of an elk at Kivi Park has been widely celebrated on social media, receiving hundreds of comments and shares on social media
A rare run-in with an elk at Kivi Park has spurred a great deal of interest in local wildlife at the recreational amenity, with resulting elk photos getting hundreds of reactions on social media.
It was a “magical” experience encountering the elk, Nancy Côté-Pharand told Sudbury.com.
Although she has been visiting the park regularly since around the time it first opened approximately 10 years ago, this is her first time seeing an elk.
“It was quite the experience,” she said, adding that she has become known at the park in recent weeks as “the lady who saw the elk.”
There have been three elk sightings reported at Kivi Park in recent weeks, park community partnerships co-ordinator Autumn Maki said.
“It’s quite rare,” she said, adding that prior to the three recent sightings there hadn’t been any.
Côté-Pharand was cross-country skiing after work on Jan. 15 when she looked up to see an elk in front of her, blocking the trail.
The two immediately engaged in a staring contest.
“We were just looking at each other, and I didn’t know what to do at first,” she said. “It was such a beautiful animal, and the colours and the night, and it was a very crisp night.”
The encounter with a male elk (only males have antlers) took place along a 10-kilometre trail near the back of the park, which was mostly empty at the time, with only three vehicles in the parking lot.
After snapping a few photos of the elk, Côté-Pharand said the sun was setting and she knew she had to get back to the parking lot soon or be left skiing into the falling darkness.
“When I took the steps, the elk just turned around in the opposite direction and started running in the opposite direction along the trail,” she said, adding that this, in itself, was also an impressive sight.
The elk continued along the trail for approximately 250 metres before veering left toward Forest Lake.
“I’m not sure if he went to tell his friends he saw me,” Côté-Pharand said with a chuckle.
Among the hundreds of comments to Côté-Pharand’s photos, posted on the Kivi Park Facebook page, was a photo of another male elk (its antlers are slightly different from those sported by the animal Côté-Pharand), also taken at the park in mid-January.
The photo was posted by Lance Collins, who said this was also his first encounter with an elk at the park.
An elk outdoor enthusiast Lance Collins saw at Kivi Park in mid-January, around the time Nancy Côté-Pharand also photographed an elk at the park. Image: Lance Collins
“I’ve talked to other people, and they’ve seen them as well, but you see them once, maybe, and that’s it,” he told Sudbury.com.
Although his first elk, Collins said he has seen other wildlife at Kivi Park, including a recent bald eagle and two barred owls calling back and forth to each other.
“It’s kind of exciting, really, for us, to see owls calling from the trees,” he said. “We’ve never seen moose there, but I know there are moose out in this area. I’ve seen them crossing the road.”
Just a few months before her elk encounter, Côté-Pharand said she was hiking a section of trail closer to the parking lot with a friend when a mother bear crossed in front of them, trailed by two older cubs.
The local elk sightings are uncommon, but not unheard of in the region, with elk long being reintroduced to the area, including in the Burwash area approximately 20 kilometres south of Sudbury.
“In the late 1800s, native elk were made regionally extinct in Ontario due to unregulated hunting and habitat loss,” according to the Province of Ontario website. “From 1998 to 2001, we worked with local and provincial partners to reintroduce elk to four separate locations across the province.”
These locations include Bancroft-North Hastings, Nipissing-French River, Lake Huron North Shore and Lake of the Woods, and 443 elk total were released between the four of them.
Prior efforts throughout the 20th century also saw elk reintroduced to Ontario, with the province’s 1998-2001 additions complementing two existing herds in the Greater Sudbury area which were a combined 36-55 elk strong by the late 1990s.
Maki said that it’s exciting to see the herd extend north into Sudbury’s Long Lake area and into Kivi Park, and that she believes this is a sign that they’re finally beginning to thrive in the region.
Her advice for people who witness elk is to keep their distance, don’t turn your back on them. Parks Canada advice is to give elk at least three bus lengths’ distance (30 metres).
“Walk away and leave them be,” Maki said. “This is their home.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.