Do Bears....?

This story took place in July, although I’m only now getting around to writing about it. It was when Nicole was home in St. John’s, and I was living the messy life of a bachelor. I left work for lunch that day, and as I went out the loading doors at the back of the store, I noticed some tracks in the mud. Tracks I hadn't noticed when I had been out these doors earlier in the morning.

They were huge, and I instantly assumed they were bear tracks. I studied them more closely, trying to make sure they weren’t wolf tracks. Certain prints almost looked like the paw pads of a large dog, but there were too many toes. Some of the prints were a different shape, suggesting front and hind tracks. I made a note to myself to show these to the boss when I got back to work.

I don’t remember what I ate for lunch that day, but I definitely put Mackey out on her leash, as I always do when I’m home for lunch. After about a half hour, I brought the dog in and headed down my front steps and back towards work.

There have been a few select times in my life when, upon seeing something for the first time, I have instantly known what it was. The first time I saw a Picasso painting in Montreal, for instance. I had never seen that particular painting, but I knew from the style that it had to be Picasso.

What I saw that day was, in a word, breathtaking. I was filled with curiosity, amazement, and, in the more primal reaches of my brain, a sense of fear. It was a pile of S#!^ unlike any I had ever seen before. And as soon as I saw it, my brain told me in no uncertain terms, “That could only have come from a bear.”

The logic of this thought followed behind it, like the passenger cars of a train slamming into the derailed engine. You’ve just seen bear tracks over there. It's too big to have come from anywhere else. It's not from a moose. It's not from a wolf.

As I stood there, lost in all these thoughts and emotions, a possibly more profound thought came over me. “How did I miss this on the way home for lunch?” The pile was so huge, it had stopped me dead in my tracks. It was nearly as wide as the two tire ruts from our company’s half-ton. For that question, I had no immediate answer.

I went in the store and found my boss, who was putting something the shelf at the time.

“Do you know what bear s#!^ looks like?”

He grinned in a knowing sort of way (dare I say a s#!^-eating grin?) and confirmed that he did know of the subject. I took him outside to show him the tracks and the pile of feces between the houses. He confirmed what I already knew. He was so impressed that he got his wife and brought her outside to see the tracks as well. I don’t think he showed her the poop.

For the next few days, I was still at a loss to explain how I had passed “the pile” on my way home for lunch. Every time I passed it (I left it there for a few days until Macky tried to eat the remnants of the bear's undigested lunch), I knew it was too big to have been missed on my way home. My answer came one night as I was getting ready to go home. I was in the staff room talking to Darren, our produce guy. He works days for the town and evenings at our store. Occasionally he also works night in the drunk tank. He’s also the only justice of the peace in town. In other words, the man never stops.

“Did you hear about the bear that was in town the other day?” he asked me.

“No, but I think I saw its tracks.”

“Yeah, Ron (the RCMP officer) called me from work to help him chase it out of town.”

“Where was it?”

“Right here by the store. We chased it down by the river. Didn’t have to shoot it thought.”

“What time was this?”

“Right around lunchtime”