Our hotel in Ottawa was in the hi-tech district. Evil sounding companies like tech-expert-super-tronics and such dominated the landscape on the left hand side of the road while unimaginative rows of identical houses in complexes such as wild river estates, presided over the right. It was kinda freaky and earily quiet on a Saturday night. It seemed unlikely that Bert and I would find anything to do.

Until we saw the elk. Head held high, a frozen prance captured on the end of a six foot pole the sign was clear - ‘Elk, 3km’. Hmm, elk huh, well who doesn’t like elk they’re like giant deer and the only thing better than a big version of something is the minature version. And I don’t think there’s any such thing as a miniature deer.

Forgoing a lazy adventure floating down the concrete ensconsed ‘wild river’ and not quite ready to take on the laser guided sling shots guarding the secret vaults of tech-expert-super-tronics we were left with the elk.

3 km we drove on.

2 km through the high tech housing complex and then the third on a tiny road. Glass and asphalt compounds were quickly replaced with dirt and trees.

‘Elk,” another sign read, ‘100m’.

We eased up the gravelled driveway and came to a stop in front of a big white house. As far as the eye could see 15 foot fences streched across the field. A sign on the door instructed us to ring for the elk, so we did.

After a couple of minutes a middle-aged lady came to the door. Bert and I glanced quickly at each other, we had thought that elk-raising had to be the product of some male cockamaney plan. We didn’t expect Mrs. Houswife sporting a happy mothers day pin and all.

“Ah,” she said, “do you want to see the elk?”

“Yes please.” Bert answered, he is a very polite gentleman afterall.

“Follow me” the intrepid housewife answered leading us into the garage. We marched across the concrete floor towards the french doors on the other side of the room. Just before we got to the french doors our housewife stopped. She quickly reached over and flipped up the cover of a large white freezer.

“We have four kinds of sausage.” She explained, “elk burgers and ground elk meat.” Stepping over to a second freezer she executed the same flip of the wrist to reveal another stash of shrink-wrapped meat. “Elk steaks.” she explained.

So Bert and I saw our elk. And hey, we bought some too. We stopped off at a grocery store (see previous post on description of breakfast) and Bert convinced the vegetable guy to give us some free ice to pack our elk in. It tasted good, I mean really good. I want to go back again and see those glorious elk in their big white freezers…is that wrong?

As for the lame mall - well I decided that it is so lame that it doesn’t afford any further mention. Let’s just say that a mall that takes up three entire blocks should have more than two dozen discount leather, dusty imports, and outdated calendar shops.