Saturday Stories. #18

Hi everyone! Well, today’s Saturday Stories will take us back a few years to a time my dad and I owned some property near, but not bordering, a river east of here. We had 162.5 acres of beautiful land. I walked all over that property and had plans to make some walking trails all over. Anyway, while building a cottage I did have a small cabin to stay in as well, a little safer than sleeping in a tent, especially since we knew there were a number of bears in the area.

The local garbage dump was only about one km away in a straight line from our place, though about 5 km to drive there. So, bears would often walk through our property at night heading over to their favorite “restaurant” for a good meal, then in the early morning they would head back to where they lived. It was a good thing to always keep in mind when staying out there.

Always nice to see new growth in the spring.

Especially since some of those bears were rather large. Anyway, I often stayed out there to enjoy the solitude and all the wonderful birds and other wildlife. I even saw a cougar out there a couple of times. They are beautiful animals. So, one time while staying out there I was out watering the flowers I had planted in containers. But I got that certain feeling that I get at times.

It’s a feeling like I am being watched. The area around the cabin was somewhat open, though there were pine trees all around. I had cleared the lower branches off the trees so I could see a good distance away. It looked nice, sort of park like, and it also made me feel better, a little safer since I could see farther away in case a bear decided to show up. I looked all around in every direction, but saw nothing. I moved to the next side of the cabin and continued to water flowers.

This is not the bear of my story, this one is a 2 year old and was on my deck one morning.

That feeling did not want to go away. I walked right around the cabin and looked off through the trees, but saw nothing. Still, I just could not shake that feeling. I kept looking around, even looking around the cabin frequently, but nothing ever showed up. Obviously nothing was around, it was just a false ‘feeling’. I thought. I finished up watering the flowers, looked around again, saw nothing and went inside and sat down beside one of the windows.

I had just sat down when a big female bear walked right past the window. She was one of those brown variations, I had seen her before. She also had a cub with her. The window was exactly 3 feet off the ground, the top of her back was just above the bottom of the window. That makes for a big black bear. I measured her foot prints the next morning, and the approximate length of her body.

Here he is again going after one of my hanging bird feeders, which he finally broke.

She would have been between 600 and 700 pounds. That is a big bear. She did look well fed too. Her and that cub were out there watching me while I was watering those flowers and obviously were not far away. Another day I was up and ready for a nice morning walk. It was 6am and I looked out each window and was unable to see anything, so I opened my door and went out and started heading for my walking trail.

My car was parked right close by and a bear came around from the other side of the car where I could not see it. He immediately stood up on his hind legs, sniffing. I started to back up slowly to my cabin. He dropped down, started moving his head menacingly and pounded the ground a couple of times and I was constantly walking backward to my cabin.

Here is another bear, bigger than the little guy, climbing my neighbors Black Ash tree.

He then started moving towards me and since I was quite close now to my door, I turned and ran! I just got the door closed and the bear was there, standing against the door, grunting and pushing the door. Fortunately it was a good, solid door. It was only an average size bear of about 300 pounds, but that is still a lot bigger than me.

I watched the bear for a while and he finally walked off, disappearing among the pines. I then went to my car and drove to the nearest town for breakfast. The things that happen sometimes. Well, I do hope you all have a wonderful weekend and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2024 Steve McLeod.