I saw this little fellow between the northern Ontario towns of Wawa and Sault Ste Marie (the Sault). It’s hard to tell from the shot, but he only came up to my knee. I think he was an orphan as there was no sign of a mother bear – though I remained safely in the car while taking this picture as I didn’t want to end up as mother bear bait. Those are flies around his head, it’s the season for black fly here, but they didn’t seem to be bothering him.
Where I saw this little bear isn’t too far from White River, Ontario, and that reminded me of another little bear that was taken from this area about a 100 years ago during world war 1. That bear was also an orphan and was adopted by a lieutenant Harry Colebourn when his train stopped at White River as he was being transported to the battlefields of Europe. The little bear was dubbed Winnie, after Winnipeg where Harry and his unit were from, and he became a mascot for Harry’s unit. Winnie went to London with them, and was eventually given to the London zoo where he lived very happily until 1934.
At the London zoo one of Winnie’s fans was a Christopher Robin, the son of A.A. Milne, who wrote the Hundred Acre Wood, the story of Winnie the Pooh. So for me, a 100 years later, it was very fitting to see this little reminder of the origin of that much loved story. I wish him well in his fight for survival, and I spent much of the rest of the day during my long car ride to Montreal thinking of Winnie the Pooh bear.
Here's another website where I found some information about Winnie http://www.just-pooh.com/history.html
Where I saw this little bear isn’t too far from White River, Ontario, and that reminded me of another little bear that was taken from this area about a 100 years ago during world war 1. That bear was also an orphan and was adopted by a lieutenant Harry Colebourn when his train stopped at White River as he was being transported to the battlefields of Europe. The little bear was dubbed Winnie, after Winnipeg where Harry and his unit were from, and he became a mascot for Harry’s unit. Winnie went to London with them, and was eventually given to the London zoo where he lived very happily until 1934.
At the London zoo one of Winnie’s fans was a Christopher Robin, the son of A.A. Milne, who wrote the Hundred Acre Wood, the story of Winnie the Pooh. So for me, a 100 years later, it was very fitting to see this little reminder of the origin of that much loved story. I wish him well in his fight for survival, and I spent much of the rest of the day during my long car ride to Montreal thinking of Winnie the Pooh bear.
Here's another website where I found some information about Winnie http://www.just-pooh.com/history.html
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