The Bear Necessities

Week Six

The Bear Necessities

large bear prints

Small bear prints

We seem to be down to two bears, namely the big male whom we call Mr. 2:30 and cute little Spot. Mr 2:30 is big and probably should give us cause to worry, since he is oblivious to our harassment at this stage. Dear little Spot, on the other hand, seems to feel loved by at least some of us. He has been caught sleeping under the Lodge several times, usually by the Shepherd dog, but not by Toque. 

Since an incident when Seemee and I with the two dogs were pursuing Spot (so-called because of the brown patches in his black coat) on our quads, I have had some doubts about Toque’s seriousness with this particular bear.

We had driven the little bear, probably a yearling, into a wood on the edge of the Western Lagoon. When Seemee peeled off with his dog - to go back to work, I went to high ground and watched while Toque sniffed the perimeter of the wood. “We are a very professional pair!”, thought I.

Or perhaps that thought was just vanity. Toque sniffed his way right past the bear, who watched unmoving and silent. Bears cannot turn off their stink – and Toque was using his nose for sure.  I called him back and directed him to the bear. Toque and I speak the same language, so in only seconds he walked head-first into the departing bear’s rear end. And then – silence – as they disappeared into the brush.

I switched off my engine and cupped my ear, trying to overcome the effects of a few rock concerts 45 years ago and a subsequent lifetime of loud industrial noise, straining for any auditory clue. When I finally heard Toque’s chesty bark it came from far to the left. “Toque must have chased Spot to the beach” was my thought as I restarted the quad and rode quickly to ‘back him up’.

I was right. They were at the beach all right! Their mutual surprise that I had found them was comical. My first view was of Toque walking chest deep in the water and lapping up a drink. Spot seemed to be waiting while Toque refreshed himself. The time-out ended the second that Toque saw me. He put the attitude back on and went after Spot, who had been waiting patiently for Toque from the top of the beached docks. 

The two of them ran off playing their little charade for all it was worth. My disgust was feigned but I later made sure that we ‘had the conversation’.  I had basically had to hang around just in case they ran into Mr. 2:30, who would definitely be classed as a threat to Toque.

A day later and it happened again, under slightly different circumstances.  And this time Spot even chased Toque!  It didn’t bother Toque a bit, and when I asked him ‘point blank’ if he and Spot were trying to scam everyone, he just turned his head away and hung it low, as if in shame.

The social scientist in me wants to be Toque’s press agent on this.

On the day when we arrived this year, I watched Toque seated beside Madison, one of the Arctic Watch guides. She was feeding cashews to Toque with her left hand and peanuts to a red squirrel with her right. This brought back memories of my Malamute dogs Chinook and Misty 2 (both still missed greatly) back in New Brunswick, who were absolute best friends of the cats of the household. They were only ‘predators’ when outside of the walls of home. They would corner ‘neighbourhood’ cats using a co-ordinated pincer movement in the blink of an eye, and as any opportunity presented itself. Walking them was never boring.

The easy familiarity goes both ways, with the same squirrel recently issuing a typical squirrel-type ‘dressing down’ at Toque’s dish one evening last week. Toque was eating his dog-food on the back deck....dog-food which had sat for a number of hours unclaimed. The squirrel had drawn the conclusion that this food belonged to him and was sitting in front of Toque and advising him that he should leave it. Everyone came to hear it...it was so loud... he was jumping up and down and running around...

Toque simply ignored the squirrel and munched away.

There are so many squirrels that we haven’t tried to distinguish between them or to name them. We are offering them free funeral services, however, since finding that one of the bolder ones has been coming indoors by an avenue as yet unlocated by us. Our first clue was little bite marks on the bowl full of blueberry muffins! 

These Malamutes will scoop up a small rodent like lightening and ... well ... maybe I should spare you the details. The rodent does NOT stand a chance, in my experience. Therefore the Lodge squirrels survive because Toque sees them as part of his pack, AKA his extended family.

I am pretty sure that he sees Spot as a member of the pack too. This really can’t be a good thing, unless we are hoping to start a circus.

The heat has been oppressive, and the insects which come with the heat have driven us into bug suits as our normal workaday attire. The more northern members of our crew have been looking for jobs that can be performed indoors, and as a result we have painted floors, replaced the brake fluid on one of the trucks, done hydraulic work on the wheel-loader and installed an overhead door. Our northern canine has been hiding inside too – to escape the heat and the hordes of insects.

 He was being bitten by blackflies and his eyelids were swollen almost shut.

Toque making himself at home on the caretaker's bed

Ryan has taken a shine to the 277 Caterpillar, an all terrain loader, and can be found most days along the side of the runway, enthusiastically cleaning-up old tree roots and soil that remain from a decade ago when the runway was made. A couple of days back everyone was doing so well on their own that I decided to play with the other all-terrain loader for an afternoon and managed to build a forty yard stockpile for the driveway project. 

We recently switched the watering system over to another truck and WOW, did I ever get a big surprise when I fueled that truck. I had been pumping for a ‘while’ and when I stopped to peer inside the tank, thinking that it must be nearly full – well, ‘quel surprise’, it wasn’t anywhere close to full. The punch-line is that the Ford F-600 4x4 has a fifty gallon fuel tank!  I sure don’t miss owning vehicles like that and I feel extravagant even when the truck I am using belongs to someone else.  The International Paystar diesel 4x4 truck which the Ford replaces, has gone back to it’s intended role as a dump truck, and not a moment too soon. We really need something that can haul lots of dirt. 

 

It was a unique sighting for me. They were too big to be geese, and the noise which they made as they flew past in the middle distance, distinctly different from that made by geese. I looked them up and found that the bird formerly known as the Whistler Swan is now known as the Tundra Swan. They seem to have begun to nest at the northern end of the ‘back’ lake, perhaps two miles away.

Susan managed to get fairly closed to one of them, which was swimming in the shallows in front of the Lodge, late one evening this week.