When I was about eight, we found a perfect, complete bear track in the mud down by the river. In those days, signs of bears in Powhatan were extremely rare, although I understand that they are much more common now. We stared at the track and spoke in hushed tones of how it must have \u201ccome down from the mountains.\u201d My dad fetched some plaster of Paris and made a cast of the track, which remained a conversation piece in our living room for many decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast forward to my life in Southeast Alaska. In 1991 we moved to Coffman Cove. A few nights after we had moved into our new trailer we heard a ruckus out front. We looked out the window and saw twin cubs up on the porch knocking stuff over. Their mother was down in the yard, fit to be tied. I don\u2019t speak bear, but I imagine her vocalizations were something akin to \u201cTimmy! Tommy! You get back here right this instant!\u201d Timmy and Tommy paid her no mind until my husband set off a bottle rocket out of the window, at which time the whole family melted into the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How can bears be both hilarious and terrifying? I\u2019ve burned a few gray cells on that particular paradox, but am no closer to understanding it. The local running club had as their logo a person in sneakers and shorts running from a cartoon bear. At the same time, we have (rare) reports of black bears tracking, killing, and \u201cpartially consuming\u201d people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can\u2019t reconcile the two images, so I\u2019ll just file them under \u201cWhitman.\u201d As in the words of the poet, who said, \u201cDo I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.\u201d*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I guess I will just allow this dichotomy to exist. The few face-to-face moments I\u2019ve had with black bears were not funny at the time, but I can make them funny when I tell them. The one time I cut up and canned some bear meat, I struggled because its foreleg looked like the arm of a very large man, bloody and severed in my sink. A bear down by the fish creek looks nothing like me, and I\u2019m glad it doesn\u2019t. In a way, it looks much better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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