A winter skating trip in Sweden turned into a rescue when a group of skaters found a moose trapped in a hole in the lake ice. The animal had tried again and again to climb out, but the ice kept breaking under its weight. So the skaters picked up an axe and cut it a path to shore.
Viktor Johannessen filmed the rescue and posted it on YouTube on 1 February 2017 under the title Älg i vak, Swedish for “moose in an ice hole”. Within days it had been shared around the world.
How the moose was rescued from the ice
According to Johannessen’s description, the moose could neither pull itself up onto the ice nor break its way to land. His partner, Sigrid Sjösteen, started chopping a channel through the ice towards shallower water, where the animal would be able to touch the bottom.
The couple took turns with the axe for about 30 minutes. Stroke by stroke, the channel opened a route the moose could follow, and once its hooves found the lake bed it was able to walk out of the water. The video ends with the exhausted animal safely on land. Cottage Life’s contemporary report describes three people taking part in the rescue on the frozen lake. Watch the rescue in Johannessen’s upload.
Moose in Sweden: size and habits
Sweden is home to an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 moose in summer, and about 100,000 are taken by hunters each autumn. In Swedish the animal is called älg.
- Size: adult bulls normally weigh 380 to 700 kg, cows 200 to 490 kg
- Height: about 1.4 to 2.1 metres at the shoulder
- Swimming: moose are strong swimmers and can dive more than 5.5 metres to feed on water plants
- Winter diet: mainly twigs, branches and bark
Their size is exactly what makes broken ice so dangerous for them. Open water is easy for a moose; climbing onto a slippery, crumbling edge with several hundred kilos of body weight is not.
Ice safety on frozen lakes
Skating on natural ice is one of the great joys of a Nordic winter, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources offers clear ice-safety guidance:
- About 10 cm (4 inches) of clear, new ice may support one person on foot; old, partly thawed ice can be weaker even when much thicker.
- Thickness can change from a foot to an inch or two within a few steps.
- Ice near the shore, over currents, near bridges and under snow is often weaker.
- Cracking and booming sounds usually just mean the ice is expanding and contracting.
Call for help if you see an animal in the ice: moose are unpredictable and injure more people than any other wild mammal. Stay on firm ground, keep pets back and phone the local emergency or wildlife service with the location. The wildlife response guidance from Ohio’s DNR explains how trained responders handle injured animals.
For more frozen-lake stories, explore our Lake Baikal photography feature, or meet the cat a hiker followed near Gimmelwald.
Hats off to you! :)
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