\u201cIt was quite the experience,\u201d she said, adding that she has become known at the park in recent weeks as \u201cthe lady who saw the elk.\u201d<\/p>\n
There have been three elk sightings reported at Kivi Park<\/a> in recent weeks, park community partnerships co-ordinator Autumn Maki told Sudbury.com.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s quite rare,\u201d she said, adding that prior to the three recent sightings there hadn\u2019t been any.<\/p>\n C\u00f4t\u00e9-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.<\/p>\n The two immediately engaged in a staring contest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were just looking at each other, and I didn\u2019t know what to do at first,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was such a beautiful animal, and the colours and the night, and it was a very crisp night.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n After snapping a few photos of the elk, C\u00f4t\u00e9-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.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I took the steps, the elk just turned around in the opposite direction and started running in the opposite direction along the trail,\u201d she said, adding that this, in itself, was also an impressive sight.<\/p>\n The elk continued along the trail for approximately 250 metres before veering left toward Forest Lake.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure if he went to tell his friends he saw me,\u201d C\u00f4t\u00e9-Pharand said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n Among the hundreds of comments to C\u00f4t\u00e9-Pharand\u2019s 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 C\u00f4t\u00e9-Pharand), also taken at the park in mid-January.<\/p>\n The photo was posted by Lance Collins, who said this was also his first encounter with an elk at the park.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve talked to other people, and they\u2019ve seen them as well, but you see them once, maybe, and that\u2019s it,\u201d he told Sudbury.com.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of exciting, really, for us, to see owls calling from the trees,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve never seen moose there, but I know there are moose out in this area. I\u2019ve seen them crossing the road.\u201d<\/p>\n Just a few months before her elk encounter, C\u00f4t\u00e9-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.<\/p>\n The local elk sightings are uncommon, but not unheard of<\/a> in the region, with elk long being reintroduced to the area<\/a>, including in the Burwash area approximately 20 kilometres south of Sudbury.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the late 1800s, native elk were made regionally extinct in Ontario due to unregulated hunting and habitat loss,\u201d according to the Province of Ontario website<\/a>. \u201cFrom 1998 to 2001, we worked with local and provincial partners to reintroduce elk to four separate locations across the province.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n![\"030226_tc_elk_at_kivi_park3\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/030226_tc_elk_at_kivi_park3.jpg;w=960.jpeg\"\/)
\nAn elk outdoor enthusiast Lance Collins saw at Kivi Park in mid-January, around the time Nancy C\u00f4t\u00e9-Pharand also photographed an elk at the park. Image: Lance Collins
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