Bears. Bears? Bears!!!

On a little jut of rock that’s part of the shoals surrounding Rebel’s Isle there is a small maple tree that sprouted during the years of low water shortly after we bought this place. That rock is no place for a tree to try and grow, and over the years it has been stunted by wind and thin soil; twisted into a shape vaguely resembling a bear. We call it “Dancing Bear Island” It’s a kind of totem to a fact of life up in the far North. Bears. We’ve done some dancing with bears over the years. Let me tell you, if you’ve never been face to face with a bear up here, you can’t know the feeling. Bears are kind of cute from a distance, or in a zoo. Up close they’re scary. We cottagers have always had an uneasy coexistence with bears, made even more so by a recently expanding bear population. You see, cottagers like food; and so do bears. Bears can get along fine without the goodies we bring up with us, but they seem to like our stuff better. We give good garbage, and bears are good at getting at it. Our neighbour across the way learned just how good: He had a load ready for the dump locked securely in his camper-topped pickup, – he thought he’d take it over in the morning. That night he heard a loud scraping noise, turned on the yard lights and there was his camper all pulled apart and two black bears snuffling about inside it. They had pulled the door frame away from the body of the truck and ripped the camper-top from its mounting. Lesson learned. I’ve been at the dump myself and looked across the fifty or sixty-foot excavation, steaming with leftovers, and had the chilling shape of a huge black bear emerge from the shadows and rise up on its legs. It stayed put, just looked me over. I backed slowly toward the car. A bear can run forty-five miles per hour and it reaches that speed in three leaps. If she’d wanted me I was her dinner. Her two cubs came in view down the other end of the dump. Glad I didn’t get between them and mom. Our first bear on Rebel’s Isle came one stormy afternoon in August during a power black out. Power black outs are commonplace up here. Every time a storm blows through some wire somewhere gets taken out by a tree and all the lights go black, the clocks stop, and the transformers stop their low-grade humming. It’s one of those things you don’t really notice until it’s suddenly not there. It’s a wonderful state of calm; a special kind of peace. We sat out on the porch we’d recently added to the west side facing out into the big part of the lake. We were on rocking chairs, wonderful old wooden rockers, enjoying the serenity when along the edge of the porch there waddled a big black dog. A huge black dog. “Look Annie, we have a visitor… The dog began to climb the porch steps. The truth sank in. “It’s a bear!!!” Annie and I were out of our chairs and at the cabin door, we didn’t run, we levitated. The bear stopped. BEAR?! It seemed to think, where? RUN!! And the bear turned tail and raced down the steps and toward the shore. Inside, I was searching for the camera, Annie was racing about shutting and locking all the doors and windows. Camera found, I went out on the porch. There was the bear hesitating at the shore. I aimed my camera. Click! The clicking was Annie locking the door behind me. I’m sure she’d have let me back in had the bear decided to charge. The bear decided to swim. I got several photos of him, very tiny in the frame, mind you, but proof that we’d had a bear. Off he swam out of sight around the point. And back he came down the path from the point. By then he was thoroughly confused. “Wasn’t I just here?” I got more photos, he got back in the water and this time was gone for good.

We followed his progress on the far shore by the yelling and general pandemonium he created at one cottage after another. Like firecrackers in a series of chicken coops the traveling bear show moved along the shore until finally he must have moved off into the woods; probably on a scent-line for the dump. And everyone quieted down, and then, the power came back on. Peace at last in bear country. Hmmm.