The Wonder of Wild Bears

 

As a young boy living across the harbor from Portland, Maine in the 1950s, my favorite book was THE LITTLEST BEAR by Inez Hogan. The Provincetown writer and illustrator elegantly told the story of a bear cub lost on an DownEast island. The small bear grows and grows until he's a powerful creature needing more space and the boy's father transports the big bear to the forests of the Allagash. There were no bears in Falmouth Foresides.

Still I have told countless friend about bears dining at a dump in Standish.

None of my family share my memory, but I recall the black bears politely noshing on refuse.

Bears were a major draw at Clark's Trading Post in North Woodstock, New Hampshire and I pleaded with my father to stop for our family to tour the vacation attraction. We were a large family of eight. He parked by the entrance and I stood staring at the black bear standing on a platform. We never went inside Clark's, although we once drove to the top of Mount Washington, the highest mountain in New England.

Two female grizzly bears from Montana inhabit the old polar bear cages in Manhattan's Central Park Zoo.

Betty and Veronica deserved better range than that old pit. I have seen a Grizzly south of Glacier Park.

"Damn that's a big dog," I said to Ms Carolina.

"Stupid, that t'aint no dog. That's a grizzly bear."

Later that trip along a river in Yellowstone Park, Ms. Carolina asked, "What you doing, fool?"

"Following these bear tracks."

"You really have a death wish. Grizzly bears can run 35 miles per hour, which is fastest than the fastest human and you're not even close to that fast. You have to put a tree between you and them. Grizzlies aren't great tree climber."

"Neither am I, but I bet I can outrun you and if a bear is after us, all I have to do is run faster than you."

"Not a chance you're faster than me or a bear."

Ms. Carolina didn't wait for 'ready, set, go'. She beat me back to the car by fifty feet and laughed, "Dead man."

"Not dead yet and ain't no bear going to kill me."

Sadly Ms. Carolina reached eternity in 2011 and today I read about a black bear attacking an Alpaca in an Anchorage Zoo. The Andean beast of burden had no tree to climb, but I do in Brooklyn and I smiled knowing Ms. Carolina would arrive there first.