Of bears, birds and caribou
by Sonny Orr

The radio crackled with urgent news: polar bears were in town, scrounging for any scrap of food they could find; perhaps a dog or two or some leftovers at the local garbage dump. Keep the kids off the streets and close your porch doors, we were told, just in case one bear is brave enough to drop in for a visit and a snack.

The Great Bear Emergency of 2007 reminds me of one year when a bear came to town and tried to do just that. One buddy, Mick, I’ll call him, was leisurely enjoying his usual fare of caribou à la raw, when he heard a commotion outside his house. He quickly looked outside his front window and didn’t see anything unusual and went back to his meal. A minute later, a shot was heard, quite loud and uncomfortably close.

Mick still saw nothing, so he tried to go outside. Strangely, the door wouldn’t budge an inch, no matter how hard he tried to push it. He called the police, but not much help came from them, as they were all out on an important call.

Soon, the sound of heavy machinery was heard outside his house. Mick looked out, completely baffled as to what the heck was going on. He soon saw what the problem was with his door: a massive polar bear had climbed up into his porch and was feasting on his caribou (in the north, unheated porches often double as a freezer during winter months). His neighbour, Tony, had shot the Ursus maritimus with his high-powered rifle while the bear was still in the porch. Much to Mick’s relief, it was not an unruly neighbour but a hungry bear that had caused all the commotion.

On another note, ptarmigan tracks are everywhere, even outside the band office in the middle of town. Shots are heard (just at the time of this writing) somewhere past the town garage. Where wilderness and town meet, you’ll see someone with a shotgun, shooting his lunch.

That reminds me of when we had to hunt way inland, near the Laforge area, just to get these feathered delicacies. When I was aiming for a few birds in the Hydro complex I heard a loud voice telling me, in French, not to shoot so close to the building. Completely wide-eyed with disbelief at his attitude, I fired off a quick shot. Then I left before the cops could show up.

Today, just like the days of old, the ptarmigan are everywhere, just waiting to be cooked for supper.

As for Rudolph the Reindeer’s cousins, the caribou, they are jamming the James Bay Highway, turning a short 10-hour trip turn into a 16-hour avoidance trial. The trip is longer, but the tempers are much shorter. The oohs and ahhs when the caribou are first sighted soon become waa’s and other expletives.

The driver oozes frustration at not being able to drive quicker than a crawl, lest the insurance company ask questions such as, “Were you driving carefully around the herd of 2,000? Did you not see those animals? Is this an act of God or just lousy driving skills?”

That reminds me of another person who had tried to get her vehicle repaired for a deal in Abitibi. She was quickly discouraged by the dealer’s answer, which was somewhere near the Prime Minister’s paycheck level and left town to head north in despair.

Not far into her voyage to home, out popped an unfortunate caribou herd, which she quickly managed to crash into and damage her vehicle beyond repair. When recounting this mishap, she gladly shared that she got a new vehicle out of the accident and had enough meat to last the rest of the winter.

So, looking at the bright side of nature gone wild and clashing with modern times, you can get by with a fortunate accident once in a while.