Unwelcome Visitors on a Dock

Indian Lake Marina lies in a rough, wooded area, well away from most development. This adds to ILM’s charm — try having to wait for a doe and her fawn to get off the dock before you can unload your car — but sometimes we’d see more of the local wildlife than we wished.

The cocker spaniel next door had been a model of decorum during his first few weekends on the dock. Then he tried to defend his family from a skunk taking a shortcut across the stern of their houseboat. Newt and that skunk argued and tussled all the way up the hill from the dock, across the lots of two trailers, and into the woods.

His duty done, Newt sought assistance from his owner, whom he encountered just as Roy opened the washroom door. The enterprising dog dashed between his legs, ducked under the door into the shower enclosure, and sat down above the drain to wait for a bath. He had a long wait. Nobody, his master included, could stand to enter the room, much less wash the dog.

Poor Newt. The pup had such a gentle disposition that total strangers were often found hugging him like a teddy bear. Now he had to endure the “skunk treatment.” The supply of tomato juice on the dock ran out after one bath, but in the bilge of Jack’s boat there rusted several large cans of clamato juice. Allowed to dry on Newt’s blonde tresses, this concoction actually killed the skunk odour. Newt acquired a slightly fishy aroma and an auburn tint to his hair for a few days, but otherwise seemed unscathed by the encounter with the striped intruder.

Skunks may cause sporadic upsets, but for sheer, grinding annoyance, no animal can match the racoon. These bandits are seasonal feeders, but they insist that human leftovers are the best seasonal food available.

For years Wayne devoted considerable ingenuity to keeping the racoons at bay. At the time he had built a dumpster onto the chassis of an old Ford pickup, with a system of ropes and pulleys suspended from the shed roof to raise and lower the cover. This lid was too heavy for racoons to lift, so when it was in proper operation the coons felt free to shop elsewhere. This usually meant a raid on the one of the docks.

On a farm the .22 calibre solution to varmint problems is simple and effective, but you can’t shoot around a marina. Boaters are by and large peaceable creatures who have no desire to do violence to a warm-blooded animal who shares their tastes in food, drink, and accommodation. So the racoons thrive.

Our son woke us one evening by pounding on the cabin roof. He claimed that just as he had reached the scariest part in the novel he was reading by flashlight, he noticed the face of a racoon peeking down through the forward hatch at him. By the time we got the stern cover unzipped the intruder was long gone, of course. Our big worry was that our dog would go through an expensive screen in pursuit of the varmint. So we waited, one eye open, for the next two nights.

Then the raid finally occurred. After all that waiting the only thing I managed to do was shatter a stout mahogany boat hook on the overhead railing of our stern cover. It got in the way of my swing and created an amazingly loud “BONNNGG” which woke half the marina. The racoon was undamaged, though it prudently hopped overboard and avoided our boat from then on.

Racoons are funny on film, but they make even worse guests than human non-boaters.

Kind-hearted Andrea could not believe that any creature that cute could be so reviled by the people on the dock. That was before she brought a large bowl of shrimp salad to the boat for the pot-luck supper the following night. She put the bowl into her refrigerator and went visiting without a further care.

They must have had a sentry by the loading ramp. They raided as soon as the mosquitoes had driven everyone inside. Three of them came down the dock. They must specialize, because one unsnapped the convertible top, another opened the latch on the refrigerator, and the other, presumably less skilled vandal, spread uneaten food all over the interior of the boat. These coons did everything but spray-paint the walls.

When a neighbouring boater saw the commotion and tried to chase the burglars out, they were none too eager to leave. Freeway, a yappy schnauser, found himself unceremoniously turfed into the drink by the largest racoon. Then the victor waddled down the dock and climbed a tree. The other two used the distraction to slip overboard and swim ashore.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, for the rest of the summer the racoons kept returning, often twice a night, in search of further treats. A sleepy boater with a boat hook is no match for a marauding raccoon.

The problem abated considerably the year a local building contractor set up his trailer between the woods and the garbage depot. He didn’t say anything, and we knew better than to ask. All we knew is that for as long as he was at the marina, no screens were destroyed, and occasional food left on tables in boat cabins was likely to be there in the morning.