Turtle    

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     It was not unlike the sound of the porcupine, something slithering and being dragged across the sand, but when he looked out the door opening it was too dark to see anything.

     Whatever it was it stopped making that sound in a few moments and he thought he heard something sloshing into the water at the shoreline, but he had the fire now and plenty of wood so he wasn't as worried as he had been the night before.

     He dozed, slept for a time, awakened again just at dawn-gray light, and added wood to the still-smoking fire before standing outside and stretching. Standing with his arms stretched over his head and the tight knot of hunger in his stomach, he looked toward the lake and saw the tracks.

     They were strange, a main center line up form the lake in the sand with claw marks to the side leading to a small pile of sand, then going back down to the water.

     He walked over and squatted near them, studied them, tried to make sense of them.

     Whatever had made the tracks had some kind of flat dragging bottom in the middle and was apparently pushed along by the legs that stuck out to the side.

     Up from the water to a small pile of sand, then back down into the water. Some animal. Some kind of water animal that came up to the sand to . . .to do what? . . .

     It had been a turtle. He had seen a show on television about sea turtles that came up onto beaches and laid their eggs in the sand. There must be freshwater lake turtles that did the same. Maybe snapping turtles. He had heard of snapping turtles. They became fairly large, he thought.

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     The Snapper turtle is Canada's largest freshwater turtle. It grows up to 45 cm and weighs up to 15 kg. Its big head and long tail can go inside its shell. It has muscular legs. The skin of the turtle is black, gray, brown, tan, olive, or yellow. It usually is a combination of these colors. The head is large with strong jaws.

     Snappers live in ponds, lakes, rivers, and streams. If they are confronted in water they usually just slip away. On land they can be very defensive if confronted. They make hideouts in the muddy bottoms of ponds or under driftwood.

     This large turtle eats many different plants and animals. They eat aquatic plants, fish, frogs, birds, snails, worms, leech insects, larvae, small fish, and small mammals. They are scavengers and clean up dead fish and drowned animals.

     The young hatch from round eggs that look a lot like ping-pong balls. The turtles usually hatch in September or early October.

     Snapping turtles are shy, but aggressive. Their snap is not an act of aggression, but a defense mechanism.