A few weeks ago I found this handwritten sign at the entrance to the path through the forest by the Englishman River estuary. Oh. I immediately reached into my messenger bag, pulled out my camera, removed the lens cap, and hung it around my neck. Slipped the strap of my binoculars off my shoulder and grasped them in hand. The date was several days previous, but just in case, no?
The river was clear, the moss and algae on the rocks along the banks almost fluorescent green under the sunshine and as I stood watching the water flow by through the estuary to the sea, I saw a group of 5 or 6 large salmon swimming in the opposite direction, upstream. Ah this is the season when the salmon return from the ocean to spawn in their home rivers – and then die. On their way they pass by a veritable line-up at the buffet – shore birds, eagles, river otters, fishermen and…bears. All looking for lunch.
The bear sighting sign was no surprise. A month or so ago my friend’s houseguest spotted a bear at the end of our street. When it noticed him it took off, climbed the chain link fence (you can see where it is bent out of shape) and disappeared into the forest. Our forest.
The interesting thing was the reaction of some of the neighbors when told of the sighting. Some didn’t believe it. “Oh that’s not possible. There’s no bears here. There haven’t been bears here for 15 years.” Wrong. One was a couple of blocks away the first year we were here, sightings have been reported in the local paper for several years and I met a man a week ago who had a very disturbing run-in with a bear on his property on the outskirts of town two years ago. (A word about the term “outskirts of town”. This is a small place. That would mean only a few blocks away). This guy did everything wrong, everything you shouldn’t do, when he encountered this bear and ended up royally pissing it off. He went out to the yard with a stick and confronted it, in an attempt to chase it away. Instead, to make a long story short, he ended up cowering in a neighbour’s gazebo in terror. He eventually managed to remove himself from a tense situation but was subsequently afraid to be out in his yard for at least the next four months. I’m sure he wishes he’d just stayed inside and turned up the volume on the TV.
Ultimately, it doesn’t go well for Bear when it comes too close to where humans live.
On this day at the river, after watching the shorebird and eagle action at the estuary, I decided to return back to the parking area by another pathway I hadn’t used before. When I came to a place where the path narrowed tightly through some high thick bushes I stopped. Berries. Hmm. What else do bear like to stock up on in their pre-winter sleep gorgefest? This was a little dodgy. So, avoiding the berry patch path I turned away and took another pathway that I thought would be a shortcut through the forest to the main entrance.
Some shortcut.
There I was, all by myself, deep in the woods, between the river salmon and the berry patch with bears on my mind.
I started to sing.
“La de da, here I am, coming through, la la la, no need for alarm, it’s only me, la de da”.
I don’t know the pathways of that forest as I do my own and it took longer than I thought to cross through. Or maybe it just felt like a long time. It felt dark in those woods, even though it was the middle of the day. Along with thick brush under the trees were large old stumps from logging of yesteryear, each one looking like an outline of a dark bear. Had I not seen the handwritten sign at the entrance they would have looked like tree trunks. Whose bright idea was this to go off the main path where there were other people walking and travel through deep woods all by myself?
I sang louder.
“La de da. Here I am. Coming through.”
So if you happen to be in the woods one day and you hear the sounds of someone trying to make a racket singing to bears, do not be alarmed. It’s just me – Goldilocks.
Hipster Bear – Angie Roussin pinastyles.com