The Moose That Saved Christmas

By Lowell Forte

Calamity strikes Christmas Village, newly relocated deep in the Yukon Territory, when the reindeer are stricken with food poisoning from bad moss, and Santa, for the first time ever, must consider cancelling Christmas. Teams of elves and Eskimos are dispersed into the Yukon wilderness to find and train potential substitutes. Elf Printer's group is assigned to put together a team of moose. He tells of finding, naming, and training Mabry, Mason, Malcolm, Masher, Merlin, Markham, Mica and Master. Success seems at hand when a pack of wolves show up with other ideas. The story ultimately concludes in the parlor of Clement Clark Moore on Christmas Eve as he puts the revised finishing touches on his poem 'The Night Before Christmas.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lowell Forte
• Release date: Nov 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9780982941737

Book preview

The Moose That Saved Christmas

The true story of the crisis that threatened

the cancellation of Christmas

- A Novel -

By

Lowell Forte

About

Disaster strikes the newly relocated Christmas Village when the reindeer take ill and are unable to pull Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve. Elf scrivener Printer heads up a band of Eskimos charged with locating and training a team of moose to serve as reindeer substitutes. With success at hand, and Christmas Eve fast approaching, a pack of wolves shatters the group’s efforts, and they have to fight for their lives, and Santa may have to cancel Christmas for the first time ever.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 by Lowell Forte

Published by Lowell Forte at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

The author, Lowell Forte (lowellforte.com), ashpolepublishing.com, and Smashwords have provided this ebook to you for your personal use only. It contains material protected under International and United States copyright laws and treaties. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the intellectual property rights of this author.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9829417-3-7

The Cover

Daniel Smith does to the creatures of the wild what Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh did to the rich and famous—capture their souls. Karsh did it on photographic paper. Daniel does it on canvas. His paintings are magical because they pull you into the scene. After spending hours trying to find the perfect art for the cover, I literally stumbled across the picture of the moose. It stampeded off my computer screen and I followed its tracks to Daniel. Perhaps the authenticity of his paintings comes from living in Bozeman, Montana, and taking research trips, sometimes with his equally talented son Adam, into the wilds where he finds his subjects in their natural habitats. To enjoy his paintings and read about his exploits and awards, which are plentiful, visit Daniel’s website at www.danielsmithwildlife.com.

Dedication

To Mary, a.k.a. Goober, always my homeport and safe harbor, she sends me off to sail the wild seas of creativity.

Table of Contents

Chapter One : The Reindeer Crisis

Chapter Two : Plans

Chapter Three : Camp – Training Begins

Chapter Four : Up

Chapter Five : Wolves

Chapter Six : The Return

Chapter Seven : Telling the Tale

Chapter Eight : A Moore Merry Christmas

Epilog

Glossary

Chapter One

The Reindeer Crisis

It happened long, long ago, before Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas, as he was also called then, became more popularly known by the nom de guerre Santa Claus, which is based on the Old Dutch name Sante Klaus, which means St. Nicholas anyway. For purposes of this story, I use the more current Santa appellation for convenience and because the old elf actually prefers it.

My name is Printer, which is a great name considering my job is to make sure all the presents delivered by Santa on Christmas Eve are neatly and properly labeled. As the chief scrivener of Christmas Village it is also my job to keep a journal of major events, and this story is about as major as an event can get, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

Santa had recently relocated his operations to the North Pole from a hidden valley in the Alps, not far from the borders of France, Germany, and Switzerland. The expanding population in the area made discovery of our secret elfin enclave inevitable, and Santa feared that discovery would ruin the spirit of Christmas, which resides at the very heart of the holiday.

The spirit of Christmas works best by being more spiritual and living within the hearts of people and not some specific geographical location. That’s in part how he explained the relocation project.

In fact, truth be told, our new location isn’t exactly at the North Pole either. Familiar with man’s tendencies toward exploration, Santa knew it would only be a matter of time before someone dog-sledded his way to the top of the world to lay claim to be the first there. Think how surprised the intrepid explorer would have been to discover not only he wasn’t the first, but there was a complete community—our Christmas Village—already well established and in operation.

The Village can be very well disguised, to the point of being virtually invisible to humans. But if one were to trip over it, we would be discovered, and we simply couldn’t have that. It’s part of the magical mystery of the holiday.

So, we relocated at a point well north of the Arctic Circle. It’s desolate and offers the added benefit of shortening Santa’s flight times by enabling him to circle the globe at a point with a much shorter global circumference. He takes great pride in the fact that modern airlines now use the same technique on their Northern Hemispheric transcontinental flights.

The location also made the importation of raw materials for gift manufacturing and food for the reindeer much easier, and that is where our story really begins—with the food for the reindeer.

During the summer months, reindeer prefer what biologists call vascular plants—flowering ones and ferns and such. Their traditional diet during the winter is lichens, which have the appearance of crusty moss but are actually a combination of fungi and algae. They also like such treats as carrots and apples and even roasted potatoes, but lichens are their favorite and that is what caused the problem. Something was wrong with the supply of lichens brought in. Who would have thought lichens could spoil, or that North American lichens were chemically different from the European and Russian varieties the reindeer were used to, but the herd had a terrible reaction and fell very, very ill. Donner and Blitzen became the sickest, but the others—Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, and Cupid—were almost as sick.

Even Santa’s usually infectious ho-ho-ho had little effect on the animals, so he called in a fellow named Asakak, the famous Lapland reindeer herder, who, with a few