Bears

by Cyril Dabydeen

Ross, built like a jockey, who'd shot the largest moose in Northwestern Ontario, let out, "The goddam bears shouldn’t be here at all!" But Mack, the Camp Superintendent--a war veteran, who’d been given the job of overseeing the park as a sinecure--smiled wryly; and maybe he indeed wanted to give it to the Americans. Give...what?

Now the fuss about the bears rummaging at the campsites at the Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park seemed all, and everyone was excited.

But Ross kept squirming as he watched Mack hop into his jeep, his left arm jutting out from the window like wooden poles. Now Mack would drive around the campsites, Ross figured, then return to stomp around, military style. Ross, in his early fifties, a few years younger than Mack, didn’t see eye to eye with the Camp Superintendent. See, Ross had once owned a gun store, which didn’t grow into "anything big" despite the love for hunting in the area. "People in Thunder Bay don’t want to drive all twenty-five miles to buy guns from someone in Kakabeka," he’d said to us, the other park rangers, "though they come to see the waterfall thinkin’ it’s one o’ the wonders of the world!"

Ross made a face, a strange face–and I knew he didn’t want the bears to be the centre of attention; maybe it had something to do with loyalty to the town of Kakabeka; and the bears were his responsibility, a "hunter" and all as he was, wasn’t it? But I was a newcomer, even an outsider: What did I know?

And did Mack really want to give it to the Americans?

The town depended on the "tourists," Ross mumbled to the rest of us, sounding cryptic. Then, "Shithead," as he grimaced; he meant Mack, of course, as the Superintendent’s jeep hurtled past again. "Americans really don't mind the bears," Ross said with a grimace, sort of. Why he said that, I wasn’t sure.

Mack came round and once more asked us to figure out ways of getting rid of the bears. Really, Mack? Ross arched his eyebrows. "No one wants to get mauled by a hungry black bear, right?" The Superintendent looked at Ross with a sneer, then looked at me and winked; and maybe it was because Ross and I were getting closer in an odd way; maybe too, Mack also saw me as different. How different?

"And did the townspeople deliberately move their garbage without letting the bears in on it, as Ross had said, if only to himself? Ross murmured that the animals were bound to forage in the park, and shrugged...he left it at that. Not Mack? Then to me, only, Ross hummed, "Those bears will leave just as they came." 

Mack overheard him. "They will?"

"Yeah," said Ross.

"How d’ you know?" Mack grated. Then, like something he planned to do all along, he let out, "We must close the park!"

"What for, Christ not in the middle of the tourist season," Ross threw up his arms. And indeed, Ross was a legend of sorts--the closest Kakabeka came to having a hero, we knew: his picture had been splashed all over the Northwestern Ontario newspapers after he’d shot the largest moose in the area. Ross also wanted to open his own amusement park to attract people from across eastern Ontario, so the rumour went.

Attract Americans too, no doubt. And Ross had asked the town council to declare Kakabeka a huge camping area: the Disneyland of the North. But no one wanted to change things that much! "The bears will leave of their accord," Ross said. "We can't close the park."

The waterfall hissed in the background, gurgled; sprays leapt high.

Mack rubbed the back of his neck, looking doubtfully at Ross. And mostly Americans frequented the park, we knew. Did Mack really want to give it to them? The Superintendent drove off again, rolling uphill, then downhill, looking for campers that the bears might maul, I figured.

Ross simmered; and indeed, he said, the park had never been closed during the tourist season. Warily he looked at us. With rake in hand we trudged towards the campsites...to inspect and be on the lookout for bears, no. Really? Mack’s jeep hurtled past again, and I waved the rake in my hand at him. Maybe he grinned, hurtling away. And I figured Ross would now make his way to the front end of the park because word would soon start getting around about the campsites soon to be swamped by black bears. Imagine Thunder Bay folks flocking to Kakabeka, guns firing!

When I saw him again, Ross lamented: "People here shouldn't have carted their garbage away leaving the bears to starve." What was he thinking?

"Bears must eat," someone shot back.

Mack, the Superintendent, hollered, "We must trap them!" His truck roared past again.

"Trap them?" Steve, a lanky ranger, let out.

"What for?" Ross baked.

Oh, the sheer difficulty of trapping the bears, I thought. Ross wrinkled his forehead, ominously this time. What was he really thinking?

***

Steve and I started doing the rounds in the middle campsite area; and he conjured up a snarling, growling bear. Rrr-aaaggh! It was a game we were playing; we both laughed.

Alone in the upper campsite area, I came upon a silver-haired professor from the Southern US of A, who drawled about having never seen a bear in the wilds before. "This is not the wilds," I said.

"Bears running around, I mean," he stiffened, face elongated-looking.

Bear-imagery in the novels of Faulkner, I conjured up; the professor was writing a book about Faulkner, he wanted me to know: Faulkner’s life around the Mississippi, in Louisiana mainly. Now he wanted to get a first-hand look at bears. "When I'm not teaching, I travel up to Northern Ontario. It’s not unlike the American south, you see," he said.

"Really?" I was skeptical. "It's Canada you’re in." It was what Ross might have said.

The professor looked at me searchingly. Did he want to know where I came because I was, because, well..I looked like a foreigner? Odd, I began thinking that the Southern USA and northern Canada weren’t that far apart...because of the bears. Not jaguars, because of my background, eh? Nor India’s tigers...because I was thinking too of Kipling’s Mowgli?

The professor took out a notebook and scribbled something or the other.

At lunch-time I told Ross about meeting the professor. He squirmed; and was it still about giving it to the Americans, as Mack wanted?

I imagined Mack in army boots, once more; and no doubt Ross saw Mack being appointed as Park Superintendent as a slight to himself–it should have been his job. Again Ross hummed, "The park shouldn't be closed"; and he knew too that Mack had phoned the Ministry of Natural Resources...alerting them to bears running wild in the park!

"They promised to send..." Mack said when he came to us again, sounding more officious.

"Send what?" we chorussed.

"A cage."

Ross growled, "The media will be all over here now. Kakabeka doesn’t need that." And when Mack took off again, Ross scoffed, "It means we will really have to trap the bears." He looked at me. And sure, he’d shot the largest moose in the region. But bears?

"They're smart creatures," Ross said.

I kept thinking he knew the region like the back of his hand; maybe he knew a lot about bears too. "How many bears d’you think are running round here, Ross?" Lennie, another ranger, asked.

Ross merely muttered something about the townspeople should have known better than to move their garbage to a different spot, which no doubt caused the bears to now come to the park to forage. "About three or four bears,"he answered Lennie.

But others doubted him. "There could be about six," Marve said.

Jimmy rasped, "That's too many."

I thought of the English professor hoping to see real bears here...as we kept doing the rounds, making sure the campsites were clean: no empty beer bottles and wasted food lying around; and we still wondered how many bears were actually here. Ah, Ross’s stories about bears: one story about when he’d been camping in Quetico Provincial Park...when a big black bear came at him in his tent! Ross had grabbed a chain-saw and frantically waved it left and right, revving it up. Then the bear stood on its hind legs and looked at Ross, maybe strangely. Then it slowly turned...and left.

The look in Ross’s eyes as he told us that story. Right then I figured he’d made it up. Didn’t he? Mack’s truck roared past again, he was yelling something or the other.

I swept away the dirt left by the latest camper, who might have heard of rampaging bears in the park. The upper campsite area was quiet now. Too quiet. I peered among the brush, trees. Another story: about a female bear mauling an old man out on a farm not far from Timmins; the bear cubs watched the entire gruesome business, Ross told us.

Against a clump of pine I saw a young bear rummaging, unmindful of my presence. A real black bear: I was seeing it close up! Ross, where was he? The bear tore at overhanging pine leaves. Anxiously I looked around...for its mother. My heart thumped.

Then I saw someone...the English professor. Click, went his camera, as he moved closer to the cub. "You know," he said, as I drew near,"bears are really wild animals." Click-click. He was excited as a schoolboy. I imagined him showing his freshman class the pictures, telling everyone about bears in the south. Not the north? Click. His eyes on the aperture of the camera, he wanted to get the best shot. The young bear stood back, and watched him...us, then again nonchalantly munched leaves.

"My wife's sleeping in the tent," the professor added. He looked at me, as if he remembered something else. "There are more bears around, aren't they?"

"Could be?"

The cub turned around.

I told him we were planning to trap the bears.

"Grizzlies...they are?"

"Grizzles?"

Quickly the professor folded his camera into a brown case and hurried back to his tent. No sooner the cub trotted off into the thick brush.

I figured everyone would leave the park before long.

Mack drove by again and hollered: "Seen any bears yet?"

"No," I lied, waving my rake at him. And Steve cleaned the adjacent campsite, and loudly he reminded me of Mack’s concern for American tourists...and "giving it to them."

I simply said the English professor might soon leave.

Steve said a reporter from the Thunder Bay Herald was asking questions about precautions taken to prevent children from being mauled.

"Did the reporter really ask that?"

"Yes." Steve was grim.

***

Ross and some of the other rangers began unloading a huge cage with the help of a giant crane. Mack, in his half-ton, kept "overseeing" the operation; he kept muttering how it was done during the war.

Ross eyed him strangely. I pretended being dim-witted. "What's that for?" Then, "That's a really large cage, Ross. "

"It's a big bear we're after," Ross waved me off, sort of.

A small crowd followed the cage to the upper campsite area as Ross directed setting it up; and the rest of us assisted.

Mack folded and unfolded his thin arms, smug-looking.

Was it really about the Americans? Now the reporters indeed asked about bears mauling children? Did they actually want this to happen...for a good story?

Ross said we must put sardine in the cage as bait; as he and Mack argued for a while. And again, it was talk about closing the park for good–for the entire season, no?

Did the residents of Kakabeka really want that?

The next morning overturned garbage bins were all over the place: the bears had indeed been around; the animals were hungrier than usual.

How many were there really?

But the cage was empty. "Those bears," said Ross, "they're smarter than you think." He looked at Mack with a frown; and something was going on between them for sure. "Just dumb animals," scoffed Mack.

Ross pursed his lips, thinking about doing things his way.

Mack sneered, thin arms again folding. A bear in the cage would ease the tension between them, I thought.

We idled at the back at the campsite area to rake and clean, and reassure the guests, mostly the Americans, that all was well. But we were in the "wilds," weren’t we? Then Mack drove up again: to announce now that he was really going to close the park!

Ross insisted that the bears were, well...harmless; he repeated this to the reporters who came around. Bystanders balked. It was no longer about the Americans, was it?

Wait until the next morning, I thought.

***

I was the first to spot a snarling, fighting beast in the cage; and then campers in every direction came, all rushing to see it. Odd, some applauded--it was the excitement they were waiting for!

I looked around for the English professor; there was no sign of him.

Ross went around the cage, muttering to himself.

Mack poked at the bear with a stick from a distance as the animal slapped at the cage harder. Oooohs! Aaaahs! from the crowd.

A man from Arizona said, "You mean that thing was around, and to think I went for a walk alone." His frail wife clung to him. "Bob, let's get outa here."

The bear immediately slapped at the cage, harder, as Mack laughed. Giving it to the Americans? "It's the only bear around," Mack said. "He's now caught, you have nothing to worry about."

Did he still want to close the park?

More campers came around, from everywhere. Girls in cut-offs; the guys, barechested, imagining being beach boys. The beer bellies grinned. Canadians?

"You sure it's the only one?" asked the man from Arizona. "What if there are others?" shrilled his wife. "What d'you know about bears anyway?" She looked at me contemptuously in my uniform.

"There can't be just one bear around," another hollered.

"There is...believe me," Ross said. Odd, he turned and looked at me. "Why should I believe you?" shrieked the Arizona man’s wife. Oh,

fear of being mauled was everywhere. Was it what Mack had in mind?

"Shoot it, please. You must!"

Guffaws.

Mack began directing things, army boss as he was; and Ross was strangely compliant. We tried hoisting the cage...with bear and all, onto a half-ton truck. The crane whirled, jiggled.

Mack curtly said I must go with Ross to set the bear free. Why me?

It was the Ontario Government’s rules: we had to let the animal free in the "wilderness." Ross acknowledged this, looking at me. And why was I in Northern Ontario anyway? I forced myself to imagine the professor telling his class of young students in the south about bears in Faulkner. Not bears in the north?

Steve smiled at the gals in cut-offs. And Mack really wanted me to go with Ross to release the trapped bear in the wilderness?

We drove fifty miles or so, looking for a suitable wilderness spot to set the bear free. Ross kept murmuring and then surveying the area in his dourly quiet way. He arched his brows, looking at me again. Are there bears in South America? Ross was laconic. "Jaguars," I hummed.

The bear at the back of the truck pounded, scratched.

Bears had long memories, I was told. Cougars...jaguars, also?

Indeed elephants...in India, Africa too, no?

The bear at the back grew quiet. Ross held the steering wheel tightly.

His hunter's instincts; maybe Ross wanted me to see him in action.

I assisted him pulling the cage door open from the back of the truck. I was afraid the beast would turn back once it was free...and attack?

Ross merely said he'd done this before, and heaved harder.

At once the bear jumped out of the cage!

Ross shooed it away; but the bear growled a few yards away, looking back at us. Wasn’t it the same young bear I’d seen earlier?

"Bears are dangerous when they're like this," Ross said.

"Oh?"

Then the animal bounded off...into the forest. "See, bears are not all the same," Ross hummed, yet waving it off. Again I thought about the Faulkner professor.

Ross started the truck, repeating, "Bears are not all the same."

Back at the park, the professor with camera came again, now ready to take pictures of...me, it seemed. Not Ross? I hammed it up.

A frizzie-haired woman nearby asked, "With your bare hands you fought it off?" Mack grinned from his vehicle. Ah, something about Americans.

Someone blithely said, "Bears have a way of coming back. They’re very territorial. Intelligent creatures, you know."

Mack was alarmed. "We must close the park now."

"What for?" Ross grew agitated.

"We have a responsibility."

"But..." A pained expression rivetted Ross’s face.

***

On the lookout for bears once more we were; and the rumour spread about the park now being closed...as if throughout Northwestern Ontario. Ross said it'd ruin the season for the people of Kakabeka. Maybe a few campers would remain behind, no? The young beer-guzzlers mostly, wanting to have fun in the "sugarbush," they called it: bears or no bears...how they laughed. One slapped his female companion’s ass. Ouch!

"You know," I said to Steve, "maybe it was only one bear." Steve made a face. Again the English professor showing photographs to his freshman class I summoned. Ooohs, aaahs! No one had been mauled to death?

Steve and I surveyed the other campsite area with sparse brush, spruce, pine, birch. Clusters of overhanging branches I looked at. Maybe we wanted to prove Mack wrong, that there were no other bears around.

Prove Ross wrong too? I cogitated.

A distinct rustling sound I heard. Steve put a finger to his lips; and suddenly we didn't want to be surprised by a vicious bear--armed only with rakes. Then we saw Ross...with a broken branch in one hand.

Two large bears stood a few feet from him; and Ross was intent on what he was doing. "Shhh! We just can't leave him alone," said Steve.

One bear growled, sending shivers down my spine.

Ross...I didn't want to see him mauled. But he was actually talking to the bears, wasn’t he?

Steve nudged me. "What's he telling them?"

Ross waved a branch, giving the bears a command, it seemed like. He was within arm's length of the largest bear, the mother. Another bear raised a forepaw. Ross was now like a lion-tamer or animal charmer I'd seen on TV; he kept shooing the bears off like a bunch of truants.

Then the bears trotted off. "Did you see that?" I pointed.

"It's incredible," said Steve." Mack should've seen what we just saw."

Alone Ross walked back to the lower campsites, going to the front, as if nothing had happened. We followed, a few yards behind.

We saw Mack explaining to all the remaining campers at the front that they must leave...the park would be closed. But residents of Kakabeka didn't want their park closed!

Yet Mack was determined. "The park must close," he bellowed.

"What about giving it to the Americans'?" hissed one ranger, and laughed. "The Americans don't want to leave," another hooted back.

"The townspeople’s are not to blame; I’m a resident. Christ, people should be allowed to put their garbage wherever they want. Don't blame us, Mr Mackie!" raged another.

The youngsters cheered: "Yeah-yeah Mr Mackie!" A blonde female in cutoffs whooped it up.

Strange, right then Mack wanted Ross to come to his assistance.

Didn’t he? Then Ross said in a clear, authoritative voice, "The bears are no longer here."

"Eh?"

Everyone circled Ross, he now like a ring master in a circus. Ross turned, and looked at us. He said, "Bears won't be here again, mark my words." Was he talking to us...to me only? "You can't put bears in a cage for long. They have a special sense, see," he added. The American professor listened keenly, I noted.

I figured it was Ross's way of telling him and others that northwestern Ontario wasn’t just "the wilds." Then he squirmed. "Go on, tell them," Ross said, pointing to me. "Tell them everything."

I fidgeted. Everyone waited to hear what I would say.

The beer-guzzlers snickered.

I began telling everyone about the bear bounding away, going into the forest. But it was as if I was talking about what happened in a foreign, exotic country.

Mack folded and unfolded his arms, smugly. He would no sooner take off in his truck again, while the young people whooped it up. The reporters scribbled quickly; and one or two wanted to interview me, only.

Not Ross? Steve and the other park rangers smiled cynically.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ross chatting with the English professor. Camera again: Click-click. Giving it to the Americans, was it?

Not about a veritable Disneyland in Northen Ontario?

It was what I began telling the reporters, because it was what everyone wanted to hear no doubt...from someone like, I figured. Different as I may seem, or not at all, being in the wilds.

Cyril Dabydeen's novel Drums of My Flesh was nominated for the prestigious International IMPAC-Dublin Literary Prize, and won the Guyana Prize for Literature ($5000 US). His other novels include Dark Swirl, The Wizard Swami, and Sometimes Hard published in the UK, and six collections of short stories, including North of the Equator (Beach Holme), My Brahmin Days (TSAR) and Jogging in Havana (Mosaic Press). His poetry and fiction have appeared in over 60 magazines world-wide and anthologized in over 20 volumes in seven countries. His recent poetry books are Imaginary Origins: New and Selected Poems (Peepal Tree Press, UK) and Uncharted Heart (Borealis Press).