Bearly Believable!
There have been bear sightings around our fair city lately and it's got people in a bit of a tizzy.
It's a little disconcerting when you hear a rapping at your door and when you go to answer it you discover a black bear on your patio swiping away at your door and window. Add to that the scene of a conservation officer crossing your yard with a rifle in his hand and you've got yourself quite the scenario. This actually happened to my friend who now has a bear trap filled with sardines, banana oil and other luxury items sitting across the street from her home.
Empty.
That bear is just too smart and is not coming back. Maybe if it was packed with chocolate...oh no, I digress, that kind of trap would catch ME!
So anyway this episode got me to thinking of my childhood when I lived in a little port town 150 km inland from the Pacific Ocean (and if you think that sounds like something straight out of a travel brochure then you're very perceptive because it is!!) called Stewart, BC. Nature was all around us--glaciers, mountains, record snowfalls, avalanches, snow slides... and bears.
Honestly, when I was three years old and still sucking on a bottle, my parents bribed me with two things in order to encourage me to dump the bottle:
1. I could get a talking Barbie (which my dog ended up eating about a month later)
2. I could pass my bottle on to the baby bears that lived at the garbage dump.
Well, how could I resist a toy and a baby bear?! Off we went to the dump with my bottle firmly implanted in my mouth for the final suck and then I got out, put that bottle on a log, and then waited for the bears to come. I don't really remember if any actually came that day but it was guaranteed that every time we went to the dump, or to my dad's work, we would see bears. Black bears, brown bears, grizzly, silver tips....they were around all the time. I even remember being in the back of the truck with my dad throwing out bags of garbage at the dump and trying to be careful not to throw one on the bears that were all around us. We weren't afraid of making them mad, we just didn't want to hurt them.
We were never afraid.
I also remember there being a lot of ruckus one evening in the playground located behind my house and when we looked out the window guess what we saw? There was a bear, reared up on it's back legs, with it's paws in the air, raking them across the monkey bars. It was fun to watch and was really no big deal. Never mind that this was less than 20 feet from my back yard. We just learned how to live with the bears.
Another time I remember being in about grade 3 walking home and as I approached the crosswalk I looked both ways. I didn't see cars but instead, just a little ways down the road, I saw a momma and her cubs crossing the road. I didn't freak out. I didn't run. I didn't get scared. I just crossed the street too and watched the cubs wishing I could play with one. I was only 7 or 8 years old! Crazy huh?
So today, in the news, I read about the road to Stewart being washed out and it made me a little homesick for the little port town of which I have fond memories so I did a little google search to see what information I could find. I found a town website with pictures of the old stores, a couple of glaciers and...
you guessed it...
bears.
If you want to learn more about my little town, click here.
Empty.
That bear is just too smart and is not coming back. Maybe if it was packed with chocolate...oh no, I digress, that kind of trap would catch ME!
So anyway this episode got me to thinking of my childhood when I lived in a little port town 150 km inland from the Pacific Ocean (and if you think that sounds like something straight out of a travel brochure then you're very perceptive because it is!!) called Stewart, BC. Nature was all around us--glaciers, mountains, record snowfalls, avalanches, snow slides... and bears.
Honestly, when I was three years old and still sucking on a bottle, my parents bribed me with two things in order to encourage me to dump the bottle:
1. I could get a talking Barbie (which my dog ended up eating about a month later)
2. I could pass my bottle on to the baby bears that lived at the garbage dump.
Well, how could I resist a toy and a baby bear?! Off we went to the dump with my bottle firmly implanted in my mouth for the final suck and then I got out, put that bottle on a log, and then waited for the bears to come. I don't really remember if any actually came that day but it was guaranteed that every time we went to the dump, or to my dad's work, we would see bears. Black bears, brown bears, grizzly, silver tips....they were around all the time. I even remember being in the back of the truck with my dad throwing out bags of garbage at the dump and trying to be careful not to throw one on the bears that were all around us. We weren't afraid of making them mad, we just didn't want to hurt them.
We were never afraid.
I also remember there being a lot of ruckus one evening in the playground located behind my house and when we looked out the window guess what we saw? There was a bear, reared up on it's back legs, with it's paws in the air, raking them across the monkey bars. It was fun to watch and was really no big deal. Never mind that this was less than 20 feet from my back yard. We just learned how to live with the bears.
Another time I remember being in about grade 3 walking home and as I approached the crosswalk I looked both ways. I didn't see cars but instead, just a little ways down the road, I saw a momma and her cubs crossing the road. I didn't freak out. I didn't run. I didn't get scared. I just crossed the street too and watched the cubs wishing I could play with one. I was only 7 or 8 years old! Crazy huh?
So today, in the news, I read about the road to Stewart being washed out and it made me a little homesick for the little port town of which I have fond memories so I did a little google search to see what information I could find. I found a town website with pictures of the old stores, a couple of glaciers and...
you guessed it...
bears.
 | |
| A common site...in fact this is probably just down the street from my old house! |
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