I once mentioned a grizzly bear.

[Rodney Mills]

I mentioned in a post previously, about my wife and myself hiking in Wyoming and that we had hiked past a game warden and he commented on the "bear bells" we had attached to our backpacks—they jangled as we hiked—and he joked in passing, "Ah! you're wearing lunch bells."

I further added that the next morning a grizzly bear had been sighted on the trail we were planned to hike that day, and caution being the better part of valor, we cancelled the hike.

I thought you might be interested in why we were so cautious, so I attach a photo of just the foot of a grizzly. I add, the bear had been tranquilized in order to implant a tracking devise and the woman is on the staff of the National Parks and Wildlife, Wyoming.

I further add that the Kodiak bear of Kodiak Island, Alaska is much larger.

I fished for salmon once on Kodiak. A boat dropped us on the opposite side of the island from the town of Kodiak, and we had to hike a couple of miles through the woods and meadows to a river noted for it's salmon spawning runs. We were crossing one meadow when I saw a pile of droppings. It was about the same shape and size as horse dung, but black in color and a heap about THREE FEET HIGH! I asked the guide if he carried a gun, he replied that he didn't as if a Kodiak bear was that pizzed or hungry to go for us...a bazooka wouldn't stop it. We saw one Kodiak bear later up on the side of a hill, but it was a long way off and I saw nothing near it to give me a reference as to it's size, it just looked bleddy big.

The only time I have seen a grizzly bears in the wild, the guy I was with had a pistol with him, and when we sighted one, he would fire a shot into the air and they moved away fast. That was on a similar salmon fishing trip, only this time to the Alaskan mainland interior. I and my youngest son Vincent along with the Alaskan general manager of the company I worked for and his young son—both boys were twelve at the time. Vincent, my son, still talks about it. A float plane dropped us; our tents, camping gear, and fishing tackle for three fantastic days of salmon fishing out in the Alaskan wilderness. I was so thrilled catching salmon on a fly. I was fishing at 2 a.m.; there were just a couple of hours of twilight; 22 hours of sunlight and fish, magic. Dinner was salmon, Alaskan Native style. Build a fire, catch a salmon (easy) and clean and fillet same, tie the fillets to a board; stand the board up along side the fire to cook, potatoes roasted in the camp fire ashes, a can of beer well chilled from laying submerged in the lake....We hated to see the float plane return to pick us up....Memories!

Cheers, Rodney

"It's a tough life, but somebodies gotta do it."

[j.sabourn]

Seeing that foot Rodney reminds me I have an appointment at the chiropodist this afternoon. Cheers JS

[Keith Moody]

we were camping down at a place called caddy lake one summer, it was in a campground so public washrooms were availible, one night i got up to (go badly) but when walking through the trees and upon opening the toilet door i looked straight into the eyes of a brown bear, i don`t know who was more surprised, me or the bear. anyway i hightailed it out of there so fast that i forgot what i went there for.
we knew bears were around the area as sometimes we would go to the local garbage dump and see them looking for food, but i had never been that close to one before OR since.
another time up at grand beach we again were camping with friends when walking back along the path from the water to the campground, a small cub passed 20 yards ahead of us this was followed by the mother bear, now you have to picture this, our friend and her 2 boys aprox. 5or6years old see these bears and immediatly gives the mother a name "jesus christ" turns around and runs off, she forgot about us and her 2 boys, anyway the bears walked off into the bush and right behind an outdoor theatre screen. we advised the rangers of the bear then went back to our camp and met up with our friend again who thanked us for bringing her sons back to her.
keith moody
R635978

[happy daze john in oz]

Well Rodders that sort of gives a new meaning to "Jingle Bells"

[j.sabourn]

Just got back from the chiropodist with two toes sporting iodine, the bear would of had her if tried that on him. JS

[john sutton]

. It wasn’t very long before I landed a job with a painting firm. One of the things learnt at sea was painting and varnishing. We did plenty of that on long ocean trips. The first job that I started on was finishing painting the seating at the local football stadium. It lasted a couple of days and then the boss informed three other English lads and me that we had a major contract to take us right through the summer. The contract was to paint ten bridges across the Peace River. We would be living on the job so that there were no expenses for lodging and he would supply us with food.
In reality it was four Englishmen who had never been anywhere near the Canadian Bush in their lives, two Canadians who were mainly there to drive us, a truck with a compressor ,a van with some sleeping accommodation and storage for paint and food and space for the tent. Yes tent.
The living arrangements were, the Canadians slept in the van and the four Englishmen slept in the tent. Washing facilities were the river which had plenty of fresh water. It had just been made in the Rockies, two days previously it was probably snow. The cooking facility was a fire which we made ourselves and kept going day and night with wood we collected ourselves, just like cowboys in the movies .This was supposed to heat our washing water and also cook our food. What actually happened, we washed in the river, it was cold, really cold in fact so cold that we all thought we had lost our genitals, permanently.Our meals consisted of corned beef sandwiches and cold tinned beans and sometimes tinned soup, with an occasional cup of tea, which of course none of us English would work without It was not nice sleeping in that tent with four large men whose main diet was cold tinned beans, Then there were the mosquitoes, lots of them, big ones. I really mean big ones. They didn’t just bite; they wrestled you to the ground and held you there so their mates could eat you.
Toilet facilities were rudimentary, in fact less than that. We English waited as long as we dared and then grabbed the toilet roll and rushed into the bushes. Nobody stayed out there long as, crouched down with trousers round ankles left you a prime target for the mosquitoes. I think they all acquired a taste for nice white English buttocks. Of course the bears encouraged us to hurry back to the campfire. Did I mention the bears? We saw several of them on the opposite bank of the river. Of course we had adequate defence against them should they attack. An axe. One axe between four of us. Bears on the loose are not something that we English tend to see in the normal course of our daily lives. The Canadians said not to worry as they very seldom attacked humans, unless they were really hungry. As we were English we didn’t talk bear language to enable us to determine whether they were hungry or not before we ran for our lives. The Canadians of course were sleeping in the van with metal sides for protection and a motor to take them away from trouble.
At night, just as we were dropping off to sleep, some idiot would say” what was that noise?” All of us would become rigid with fear, not daring to make a noise in case it really was a bear outside the tent.
The job was hopeless. It was impossible to spray paint on the steel bridge while the metal was wet. In the mornings everything was wet from the dew that had fallen in the night and we had to sit around until noon to let the sun dry it off. A bridge that should have been painted in a week was a quarter painted by the end of our first weeks work. At that time we expected someone to turn up with some wages for us as it would be nice to find a town with a bar and have a few drinks. Somebody turned up to check the progress but no money and give whatever excuse they could dream up for not paying us.
The English team decided that we’d had enough and forced one of the Canadians to drive us to Edmonton to confront the contractor and get some wages. His reply was that there was no money, the company was bankrupt and closing down. At this time we were broke,absolutely.I didn’t have enough money to even afford the YMCA so I took someone’s advice and went to the Immigration hall where ,I was told, they would find me a bed for a couple of nights and possibly a job.
The bed was in a dormitory sleeping about sixty of us. All down on our luck, skint and looking for work. I awoke in the morning to the sound of foreign voices and an unbelievable smell of sweaty socks. There had recently been a revolution in Hungary and many people had escaped, a lot of them to Canada and they seemed to be in a worse financial situation than me. I just wished that they had put clean socks on before leaving home. God knows what their underwear must have been like. I resolved that I wasn’t going to be a resident there for long but I needed some money, a job and somewhere to stay. The immigration office gave me some money, enough to get something to eat and I tolerated the dormitory for several days, trying to spend as much time away from the place and only sleeping there.
A job came up; it was decorating the inside of a new motel and was about two weeks work. I had to join the union before the contractor would take me on. I would have joined the French Foreign Legion to get away from the smell of Hungarian socks. He took me down to the union office where I became a member of the Painters and decorators Union, with a card and everything, then we started work. I was still staying in “Smelly Socks Hotel” but at least I was earning and the boss subbed me so I could get some decent food. At the end of the week he paid me and I was able to move back into the YMCA.

[cappy]

##as merchant seamen john ....we certainly saw it all .......but what an experience we had.......as we got older life was a doddle......and the memories.....no price could buy them ........we had it all at our feet .....regards cappy

[John Albert Evans]

Rodney,

Ive just showed the picture of that bears foot to my wife and she reminded me that some years ago we were driving from Vancouver to Trail in Alberta through a place just passed Penticton a little baby bear crossed the road right in front of us and what did we do. We stopped the car and got out to see the bear that was on the side of the road, what a stupid a thing to do, its a good job momma bear didnt appear but looking back I bet she wasn't very far away.Tourists eh.

John

[Rodney Mills]

My wife just reminded me that I had taken a couple of photos of a grizzly (using a long-lens while safely ensconced in our rental car). As I said in my opening post, it's hard to appreciate the size of these animals when they are out in a meadow and there is nothing near to use as reference.



Cheers, Rodney

[happy daze john in oz]

Yes such creatures do bring back memories, mother in law comes to mind first.

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