Papa Bear Is Free

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We miss him, but (and I do understand that this is a matter of theology!) Papa Bear is free. He has lived here, in the big five-acre pen, with lots of trees and rocks, a pond and a little meadow, for over ten years. Then, one day in August, he wandered back into a deep grove of green bush, laid down, and went to sleep . . . and he didn’t waken.

We estimate, on rather inadequate data, that he was between seventeen and twenty years old - not especially old for a black bear. However, his early life had been rather horrific: raised in a single stall in a barn, fed hay and scraps of this and that, taken out only when hunting dogs needed training in the skills of attacking bears - and his teeth and claws removed so that he could not harm the dogs. (The teeth were not pulled out, they were bashed out . . . ) So, on a warm summer night, he lay down and he went to sleep. Mama Bear still misses him.

Both Papa and Mama had perfectly good Ojibway names, Nungoon and Giises, until they managed to produce a cub - we were late with the vasectomy, and the cub, quite unexpected, was named Oops. Since he had both teeth and claws, he is now living free. His parents lost the dignity of proper names.

Papa weighed about five hundred pounds. Tony simply dug a grave where Papa had chosen, and there he is - still inside the fence, but not really . . . . . he is free, he can wander through the woods wherever he wants . . . . he can live as he never could before.

We still miss him.

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