Strange Tales Unusual Pets and Their Owners Over the Years By Elle AndraWarner
Have you heard about the pet moose that leisurely meandered with its owner in Grand Marais? Apparently in the 1900s, pioneer Anna Charlotte Johnson (1881-1944) and her pet moose could be seen walking in downtown Grand Marais. Born in Arvika, Värmland, Sweden, Anna immigrated at age 10 to the U.S. with parents Karl and Kajsa Jonaeus, and in 1907 married Grand Marais fur-trader and trading post owner Charles J. Johnson. An accomplished artist and leader in the art community, she also ran the trading post gift store (current site of the Johnson Heritage Post Art Gallery). Today, the west wing of the Art Gallery is dedicated to her original artwork. In Hovland, there was another pet moose, this one with pioneer settler and early homesteader Laura Alice Hogeboom Harriman (1881-1957). According to an interview with her daughter on WTIP North Shore Community Radio historical series “History Speaks,” Laura and her brother heard a noise in the forest and found a baby moose with its foot lodged between two logs. After they freed the leg, the moose not only followed Laura home, but followed her around everywhere, as if Laura was her mom. According to historians, having a pet moose was not uncommon years ago. In Canada, there’s the story of John Connell of New Brunswick (“Moose Man of Miramichi”) and his pet moose Tommy. In the early 1900s, he saved the young moose from freezing, domesticated it, trained it like a horse, and rode Tommy by saddle. In the 1920s, Biddy was the pet moose of Dr. Wallen in Thessalon, Ontario; not surprisingly, the town today is the only place in Canada with a bylaw stating “moose are not allowed to roam streets freely.” And in the 1940s, Albert Vailloncourt of Sudbury, Ontario, had two pet moose named Moose and Silver that appeared at events in Ontario and the U.S. Over in Europe, the famed musical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (17561791) kept a starling as a pet for three years. And the famous Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali (1904-1989) had a pet ocelot that accompanied him to places like restaurants and galleries, with Dali sometimes telling people it was a painted cat. Beavers as pets? In the late 18th century, the fur-trader and explorer Samuel Hearne 34
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Grey Owl (also known as Archibald Belaney) and his pet beaver Jelly Roll. | OTTAWAAC
[ABOVE] First lady Grace
During his administration at the White House, Herbert Hoover adopted an opossum and named it Billy Possum. | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (1745-1792) while working for Hudson’s Bay Company and living in northern Canada, kept several pet beavers in his sitting room, writing in a letter, “they become so domesticated as to answer to their name.” Likewise, the prolific Canadian author and conservationist Grey Owl/Archibald Belaney (1888-1938) had two pet beavers, Jelly Roll and Rawhide, about which he wrote four books. U.S. presidents while living at the White House have had some unusual pets. Benjamin Harrison (23rd U.S. president) and his family had two pet opossums from Maryland—Mr. Protection and Mr. Reciprocity—that could be seen running around the White House. Theodore Roosevelt (26th U.S. president) brought an assortment of pets to the White House, including lizards; chickens; a one-legged rooster; guinea pigs; parrots; a pony; a pig; several dogs; a barn owl; a badger the children named Josiah; and, later a hyena. Grace Coolidge, wife of Calvin Coolidge (30th U.S. president), had a menagerie of pets including a raccoon she rescued,
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Coolidge and Rebecca, the raccoon. According to the Library of Congress, “Mississippi supporters sent Calvin Coolidge a live racoon for Thanksgiving dinner in 1926. Instead, first lady Grace Coolidge named it Rebecca and made it a family pet.” | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali would named Rebecca, and built a sometimes tell people that his pet ocelot was tree-house for, protected by actually a painted cat. | ROGER HIGGINS a chicken wire fence. AcThe world’s largest pet? Well, that could cording to reports, she was brought on family vacations. The next pres- be Bailey Jr., the 1,900-pound pet buffalo of ident after Coolidge was Herbert Hoover Jim and Linda Saunter in Spruce Grove, Aland he adopted a wild opossum that had berta. Publications from around the world wandered onto the White House grounds; and TV’s Animal Planet have told the story of Bailey, with mentions of his car rides Hoover named him Billy Possum. in a specially-converted reinforced vehiBack to pet raccoons, a famous Canadian cle driving around with Jim. In an article one was a family member for a time with in the UK Daily Mail newspaper (Nov. 9, award-winning wildlife author Lyn Han- 2011), Linda said, “He has a bond with Jim cock, a Canadian-Australian now living on which is just incredible...They have shared Vancouver Island. In the 1970s, the raccoon the bond since Bailey Jr. was only a few was an orphan just weeks old when the weeks old when we adopted him after a Vancouver Zoo—knowing Lyn’s reputation tragic death [2008] of the first buffalo that raising orphaned animals—gave her the Jim and I had raised.” She adds that Jim young raccoon to care for. After Lyn wrote had wanted to become a buffalo whisperer a best-seller book There’s a Raccoon in my to show people “that this level of commuParka, Tabasco became a Canadian media nication between man and bison is possifavourite, travelling everywhere with Lyn— ble.” from camping in Okanagon to cross-counIt’s important to note that federally and try trips, press interviews, schools and libraries. Years later in 2006, Lyn wrote a provincially, it is illegal in Canada to hold heart-warming best-seller sequel Tabasco the ‘wildlife’ in captivity as pets, while in the U.S. each individual state decides which Saucy Raccoon. pets are banned.
