This week while camping we had a masked bandit attack our chuck box. A raccoon visiting our campsite is not unusual, but what was attacked was highly unusual in our years of camping, a first time occurrence. The chuck box, which holds most of our non-perishable food items, cooking equipment and the like, was inherited from my in-laws. The attack on the chuck box was but one encounter with a well-fed wobbly raccoon.
We first started camping in 1998 and in 1999, I believe, is when her parents gave us the home-made chuck box with its Mirro Aluminum set of pots and pans, and plastic dishes. A similar set is in the Wisconsin State Historical Society. The plastic coffee cups had seen better days and are no longer used. Her parents used the chuck box for about 8 years and we have used it since 1999, with seven or eight years off of not family camping. Hence the cabinet has seen 27 years of use. I have repaired it a few times, but this is the first time in all our camping trips, that a raccoon has attacked the cabinet. From 1998 to 2007 we had almost 100 camping nights.
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| June 2019, our fist camping trip with our camper Lake Kegonsa State Park |
It is not that raccoons are not common visitors. Our first major trip, to Pattison State Park in 1999 we arrived at the camp site, and because we had spent a night with my wife's sister, and the day was hot after setting up we decided to get ice. Coming back from getting ice we saw massive dark storm clouds moving in. We got the ice unloaded, but failed to put some non-perishable items, like bread, in the car as the storm hit with a vengence. When camping with the two boys we had more food that could fit in the chuck box. While we waited out the severe storm in the tent, the three hour rain deposited over 6" of rain in three hours, we went to the bathroom and then to bed. The next morning we woke up to the bread bag being opened and several slices taken out.
The storm raised the water level of the lake (has a dam) significantly. And the water falls were powerful. Several roads were closed due to washouts the next morning as we attempted to make our way from Pattison to Amnicon Falls. The mayor of Superior would later lose a recall election for the city's failure to properly respond. We may have lost a loaf of bread, but boy the storm caused the falls to double their roar.
At Brunet Island we were camping with my wife's parents and her sister and husband. There cooler was broken into one night and the beef jerky was eaten. The next day my wife's dad went to town and bought some hot sauce which he put on some food in the cooler and the next night the raccoon once again visited and a few minutes later they heard a splash as the raccoon, they believe, headed to the water behind the campsite.
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| Our Chuck Box |
Given our experience at Pattison we started to put the cooler and food not in the chuck box in the van at night, and later putting the cooler under a picnic table bench, or now the side of our camper. Not that such always helps. One night we were tenting at Yellowstone State Park in Southwest Wisconsin. A hilly site, our tent was down below the pad which held the picnic table and screen tent. I had secured the cooler under the picnic table bench and later that night I heard a sound of something like gravel. A raccoon was attempting to push the cooler out from under the bench. Hence, I got up and had to take the cooler up the hill to where the car was parked.
But, we have never had a problem with the chuck box until 1:30 am on Monday, June 1, 2026. It was at that time my wife made a bee line out of bed waking me as she hit my dangling feet, and she said something was out there. She grabbed a Luci light, which did nothing to illuminate the outside, than I grabbed my head lamp and gave it to her. I then went outside, and saw that the tarp had been pulled off. It was not until morning that we saw that the raccoon, at least that is what we think it was, had gnawed at one of the doors of the cabinet so we now have critter teeth marks on what was once essentially a door that still aged quite well. The door folds down and becomes a counter for work space.
That is not the end of this critter. About 9:00 pm as the campfire was fading in preparation for us going to bed, my wife spotted a raccoon sticking its head out of the brush just a few feet from me. I yelled and my wife got up and scared it. The next night, but 15 minutes earlier, the raccoon was still brazen. Again, a similar setting as we sat by the campfire with our camper to our backs. We heard a noise, and I looked and there was the raccoon under the camper just in front of the spare that hangs below trying to grab the under carriage cover and what seemed like eat it. I yelled and this time it started to move, and I got up and saw it slowly sauntering away as its well-fed body wobbled up the campsite drive way to the camp ground road.
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| Close up of some of the gnaw or claw marks At least it did not figure out how to unclip the clips that hold the door closed. |
The next night we went to bed about 9:30, a rather late night for us, and were proud that perhaps the raccoon would not visit us this evening. That changed at 11:30 when my wife heard some more scratching. I went out and could see it once again disturbed the chuck box, knocking over the partial gallon jug of water set on top to help make any attempts more difficult. I went to bed, and again scratching. Got up again and looked under and around the campsite and the critter, as slow as it is, is even too fast for me and my bad feet. I think I repeated this a few times. I was now wide awake the critter, that masked bandit, having gotten the better of us.
We got complacent thinking its lack of making an appearance consistent with timing of the prior two nights may have cleared us of their presence. We were not so lucky.
I have to say, that first night of the visit when my wife got up, the though briefly crossed my mind that she is hearing things. But, memory quickly took me back to one of early years with the camper, we were at Laura Lake and she said she heard scratching under the camper. The next morning we could discern nothing being out of place. That was until our trip the following year, when we tried to get warm water but kept getting a fail warning for the propane. Nothing worked. Luckily it was in the nineties, so the mother nature did the warming for us. When we got home we took the camper to Jerry's and they found gnaw marks. Being Covid, supply train issues kept the new line a few weeks out. It was replaced and we covered the wires with plastic conduit and the propane with a copper grid type of netting. Apparently, ground squirrels or chipmunks like the smell of propane. The gnaws though not deep were enough for the sensor to realize the pressure was not quite right. Some of their techs doubted that was the issue, but Dave, the sales guy was certain, and he was right.
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| Some of the Geese at the Hartman Cr Beach |
My wife has exemplary hearing to go along with the eyes in the back of her head. She was the first to suggest our warning light was related to that last camping trip of the prior year at Laura Lake. The gnaw marks were on the underside of the propane line and far down. I think Jerry's found it when they took it off and inspected the line.
At least, as far as we know, my wife's hearing kept the masked bandit from doing any damage to the camper. But, we now have a marked chuck box to remind us of the masked bandit and its appearance at our campsite at Hartman Creek State Park. Its visit to our chuck box was the first time we had an experience with a raccoon attempting to get in. My wife feels perhaps we had been fortunate for those many years. The visit that first night in the early morning hours of June 1 made us undertake some additional precautions as moving some of the non-perishable foods and putting them in the car for the night. Most importantly the wife has a new buddy, the masked bandit.
