The night raccoons saved Scaachi Koul’s dumb cat

“I promise you will laugh at least once per chapter,” Scaachi Koul says about her latest memoir, Suckerpunch. It’s a big promise, given that the book recaps three wretched years in which she got divorced, lost her job and learned her mother had cancer, all while coping with the pandemic. 

That said, Koul has a special ability to find a sliver of bright hilarity in the darkest cave. Her Slate columns always draw laughs, even when she’s reporting on the state of the States. As the jokes fly, the Calgary-raised, New York-dwelling writer lays bare some deep soul-searching, which seems relevant to many individuals, communities and even nations right now. 

“It’s about having to rebuild your life and rethink the stories you tell yourself about who you are and what you like and how you like to do things,” Koul says about her book, which came out March 4. 

That reimagining includes her relationship with the natural world. “Even growing up in Alberta, which is lush with parks and skiing and snowboarding and hiking and all this stuff, it just wasn’t something I did a lot of,” she says of outdoor recreation. “But I think after my divorce, I did notice that I kind of had a new relationship with physical activity and with being outside.” 

Don’t get too excited, though. Despite an admission that she recently enjoyed a 15-kilometre Vancouver hike, Koul insisted during our Moose Questionnaire that she still self-identifies as “an indoor cat.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity — all opinions are the subject’s own. 

What is the most awe inspiring natural site you’ve witnessed in Canada?

I lived in Calgary, so I would see aurora borealis sometimes. I remember thinking it was so crazy people did not have that where they were. I thought that all the time about stuff in Alberta. 

The Chinook weather pattern in Calgary is talked about like it’s a person. It is a personified weather event that people look forward to so much — ‘I think there’s one coming today!’ — when it’s been minus 25 for five days. 

And then I remember finding out that doesn’t happen in other places. Like, ‘You guys don’t just get a bunch of hot wind? That’s weird.’ 

What’s the most awe inspiring sight you’ve seen outside of Canada?

I went to the Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania, on a little safari. That was very cool. Seeing animals that close is incredible, a really profound experience. Having to sit in a tiny little car and wait for an elephant to walk by you, and being like, ‘Oh, this thing could kill me’ — but it is so disinterested in it. Tanzania was a gorgeous place to be and it just looked so different than where I grew up. 

Think of three iconic Canadian animals. Pick one each to kiss, marry and kill.

I will kiss raccoons. I love raccoons. You can’t enjoy a New York City raccoon like a Toronto raccoon, who you can have a whole conversation with. In Toronto, I had a family of raccoons in the backyard, like six raccoons. We would see their little feet prints, they would play in the hammock while we were sleeping. 

One day, my idiot cat somehow got out, and she was gone all night. I was devastated. I was like, ‘She’s dead. She’s gonna die.’ She had no survival instincts. The next morning, as I’ve been crying all night, I wake up and at the back door is my cat. She’s covered in dirt, she’s meowing, she’s starving. 

I let her in. She’s eating. She’s totally fine. 

I hear this scratching and I go to the front door, and it is the raccoons, all of them, in the middle of the day. I am convinced that they found her and they hung out with her all night and then brought her home. So I love the raccoon. I have a lot of fealty to them. I would kiss the raccoon. 

I would probably marry a moose. I respect their formidability and the fact that they will kill you if you hit them with a car. I think that’s really impressive. 

And then I would kill the loon. I don’t like birds, and I don’t like that one. They are mean and they like to peck, and I think they have gotten a little too haughty because we put them on our money. That was a mistake. I have written several letters to the federal government about this and no one is writing me back.

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Name a person or group doing something meaningful for the environment that everyone should know about.

Activists in Canada who are fighting for clean water. It’s crazy to me that there’s anybody who lives in this country who cannot turn on a tap and drink that water. 

Name one person who could significantly help mitigate the climate crisis if they wanted to.

I guess Justin could have done it in the last 10 years, but he didn’t. So now he’s dead. Any of them? How about anybody? Any one person who demands that we give them money for their campaign, or wants us to door-knock or asks us to give them our stupid fucking vote? Any of them. I would love if any Canadian politician did anything. 

Outdoor cats, yes or no?

No, no. Get a dog if you want that. Cats are to be inside, ideally placed on a heated blanket and fed four-to-800 times a day. 

Tell us about a time you changed your mind about something, environmental or otherwise.

I used to believe more in personal responsibility for the average consumer. I felt like, ‘Oh, it makes a really, really, really big difference how I recycle and if I use a straw and how many paper cups I use if I get coffee at a takeout place.’ 

I still think it’s good to be a mindful consumer. I recycle as much as I can, which, by the way, in the States is impossible to do. But I thought it had more impact. And then — who set the ocean on fire? Was it BP?

Yeah, Deepwater Horizon exploded, in the Gulf of Mexico. 

When they set the ocean on fire, I remember being like, ‘I don’t think my use of plastic straws did this.’ 

I have understood more how much corporate and governmental malfeasance feeds into climate change and that they have done such an effective job of making me feel responsible. As I get older, the more I’m like — there are these entire infrastructures that are determined to make me feel like this, for their benefit, so that they can keep setting the ocean on fire. 

When have you tried to change someone else’s mind about something, environmental or otherwise?

Every day. I’m always trying to convince them. I sometimes succeed. Sometimes I’ll write something and I’ll get a nice email from someone. I get this a lot from men who read stuff I write about women, gender and feminism and sexual assault, who are like, ‘I didn’t think about it like that; I didn’t think about it at all.’ That’s nice. I’m trying every day.

That leads into our next question. Researchers at Yale University, the France-based Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society and other institutions have found women tend to be more concerned about climate change than men. Why do you think that is? 

I think men seek to avoid any existential crisis. And this is like the most existential. Why don’t they go to therapy? Same question. They don’t want to think about it, they don’t want to reflect, and it is painful to do so. So that’s probably why.

If you could dip a toe off Canada’s coastline, which ocean would it be in?

I would go east because I haven’t been. I’ve been west a lot, and I don’t want to go there. Everything in Vancouver closes at eight o’clock. It’s like a Richard Scarry town, like everyone’s driving a little apple. It’s bedtime at eight. 

Choose one: Rocky Mountains or Great Lakes?

Oh, Rocky Mountains, for sure.

What’s a beautiful or useful thing you’ve owned for a really long time?

I have a gold bangle that I wear every day that was my grandmother’s. She wore it her whole life and then she died 10 years ago. I wear it all the time. I don’t know if I can take it off anymore. 

What’s one way you interact with the natural world on a daily basis?

Oh, I walk everywhere all the time. I love Prospect Park. If something is 45 minutes away and I can go through the park, I’ll just walk. 

It’s so funny to be Canadian in New York in the winter, because people are having what can only be described as full mental breakdowns over five-degree weather. Which to me is perfectly balmy. No one wears an appropriate jacket in New York. I’m constantly bewildered by people saying, ‘I’m so cold.’ Well, you’re wearing, like, the idea of a sweater, and it’s four degrees and snowing. 

If you could ask one person, alive or dead, their thoughts on climate change, who would it be?

Can it be someone in the future? I feel like the only thing that would really change certain people’s minds is if we built a time machine and got someone from the future to come here to some tribunal. I imagine they would get out of the time machine on fire, because everything would be aflame by then. 

I need somebody to come here on a spaceship and give me — not even information. I have the information. I need them to do mind control, to make any government do anything. 

Pick one: smoked salmon or maple syrup.

Oh, I hate maple syrup. Controversial. I don’t like it. I guess I like it on pancakes. I have no other use for it.

Whose relationship with the natural world would you like to have an impact on?

I am always trying to get my parents to go outside. I think as they have gotten older, it has been tougher to navigate Alberta weather. And they are also indoor cats. Every so often I say, ‘You know, it might be nice to go to Fish Creek Park and sit there for a bit, or take a drive by the river, just to maybe enjoy the sun.’ 

Would you rather be invited to visit David and Victoria Beckham at their Muskoka, Ont., cottage, or Harry and Meghan Sussex at their B.C. oceanic escape?

Harry and Megan. I have several questions for them. Number one, what did they do with the Netflix money? Number two, can I have some of it? Three, who is their agent? Can I have their agent? Because I would also like to get Netflix money — but not do the project. 

The fourth is maybe about the Queen, but I probably have more Netflix [questions]. 

Question nine is like, do you have the diamonds? Please give them back. 

Camping, yes or no?

Absolutely not. I know it’s like an old hackneyed joke at this point that children of immigrants always say, ‘My parents left so I would not have to sleep outside.’ But I don’t want to be outside. I don’t want to pee or poop outside.  I don’t want to sleep outside. 

I don’t want to be worried about what a bear is going to do to me. Let me walk on a sidewalk. If I get hit by a car, so be it; it wasn’t a bear. Bear is so dumb. Bear is hard to explain. Like, if I ever got bit by a bear and have to be like, ‘I was camping,’ I would expect people to be like, ‘Well, you deserve it for sleeping in his yard.’

Enjoying the Moose Questionnaire? Read more from the series here. We’re going to ask as many artists, athletes, politicians and cultural personalities as we can to answer it, so let us know if you have suggestions.