The Killer Racoons of Oka National Park

• Author: DigitalMind
• Filed under: Camping
• Date: Feb 13,2008

Last summer, on our first camping trip, Marina and I went to Oka National Park. It’s not too far from Montreal (about 40 minutes) yet is in the middle of the forest. Nature everywhere, nice beaches, it was beautiful. Everything was great, except for the evil fearless racoons that live in the forest.

You can read about the camping trip here, this blog is all about the racoons…

It all started around 11pm, when most people turn off their fires and go to bed. Marina had just left the fire and gone into the tent. The coolers were about 10 feet away from the tent, near the picnic table. While i’m sitting by the fire, I hear something moving. Sure enough, there’s a relatively large Racoon who’s working his way into my cooler !! I make loud noises and shoo him off. Good thing this happened while I was there I thought, I get a couple of large rocks and put them on top of the cooler. Also, I know i’m going to get hungry so I take a Nature’s Valley Granola bar in the tent with me. (Which is in a tupperware container) Within minutes, I hear something outside the tent. That’s cute I think, they understand how to use a cooler. Little did I know they also understood how to remove rocks from the tops of coolers in order to get inside. They managed to take half my frozen burgers and a few other items out and into the forest before I noticed !! I got out of the tent, and the racoon (or racoonS, not sure anymore) very slowly walk off into the forest with my bag of burgers in it’s mouth.

ARGH! I take the coolers into the car and make sure it’s shut properly. Finally, it’s over and I can go to bed …

Or is it ?

A little later, when I’m almost asleep I hear a racoon walking around the tent and sniffing REALLY loudly looking for food. Next thing I know, a little paw pokes into the tent, at that exact spot where the 2 zippers meet to open the tent. Holy Smokes Batman !! I make loud noise, say HEY GET OUTTA HERE, it slowly turns and leaves. Now i’m awake, i’ll have a little snack. I open my granola bar, and within seconds the racoon is back. Sniffing all around the tent, and then BACK TO THE DOOR. Once again it manages to get it’s paw inside the tent, this time it actually starts pushing the zipper upwards (As in OPENING the tent) and getting ready to come in !! I make loud noises, say GET OUTTA HERE, and turn on the flashlight right in it’s face, which at this point is coming INTO THE TENT !! It leaves the tent, going closer to the cooler. I decide to leave the tent also, since it OBVIOUSLY wanted my granola bar. I figured i’d finish it outside. So i’m standing there, with a racoon 10 feet away from me, eating my Nature’s Valley Granola Bar. It’s just standing there staring at me… then slowly starts walking towards me. “What are you doing ! This is my food, i’m human, your afraid of me, GO AWAY” … it apparently is NOT afraid of me. It kept coming towards me while i’m eating my granola bar, making horrible Meowling sounds… it was very freaky. I guess the racoon won that round, because by the time it was 2-3 feet away from me it succesfully spooked me and I threw my granola bar into the forest in the opposite direction.

I made sure there was no more food in the tent, and went back inside. This was very spooky for me, the thought that an animal would come to the tent, open the zipper, and walk on inside wasn’t very appealing. Being the proper “Cable Guy” that I am, I had tie-wraps within arms reach (Yes, even while camping) and I tie-wraped the zippers together so that the only way IN or OUT, was to cut the tie-wraps. (Yes, I also had scissors in the tent) Now I could sleep in peace…

The Racoons spent some time trying to find a way into the car over night. We woke up to see racoon prints all over it. Atleast they didn’t make it in !!

The other nights we were there we were prepared and therefor had no trouble. We enjoyed hearing the other campers that arrived days after us “learn” about the racoons at night though. Hehehehehehe…

Let this be a lesson to all going camping : Keep your food away from the tent, and locked up VERY well !! Don’t bring food INTO the tent over night, EVER !!! Oh, and ALWAYS have tie-wraps in your pockets ! (And something to cut them open with after … I’d hate to hear about someone who locked themselves in the tent and then couldn’t get out!)

Oka was a great camping experience, and I plan on going back. I highly recommend it, just watch out for those psycho- evil- flesh eating- human hunting racoons !!!

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