Quite a few years ago, I took a funeral service for a lady who had served in the WRNS (Women’s Royal Naval Reserve also known as the Wrens) during the Second World War. She married but sadly never had children. Instead, she did have a teddy bear whose name escapes me, let’s call him Albert. Every Saturday, she and her husband would go out for the day perhaps by coach or more often by train and Albert always went with them. Picture them, if you will, ‘en train’, perhaps in a carriage all to themselves with Albert sitting between them, a small suitcase in one paw. It was important that he was positioned so that he could blindly stare out of the carriage window and watch the world go by. In his suitcase, Albert always packed the same two items; a spare jumper and a spare pair of large plain buttons so that he could change his eyes should the occasion arise. Who doesn’t travel with a spare pair of eyes?

At her funeral in the small seafarers’ chapel where I worked, her large coffin was placed on trestles by the altar,  to one side sat Albert in his small deckchair staring blankly at the deceased whilst the organist played that well known 1907 John Walter Bratton classic, ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’. I kid you not! In truth, the eccentricity of it all made it a memorable and touching tribute to a lady who was by turns hearty, a little domineering maybe even formidable, but kind and caring to a fault.

In my own memory resides a teddy bears’ picnic of a completely different order. With the benefit of hindsight and the experience of living, I would feel fear these days. At the time, I knew what was happening but had no real appreciation of the danger that Nick and I were in. My considered view is that it is better for humans and bears not to mix.

I don’t think that I have ever seen a bear in the United States other than Smokey, so I apologise in advance that this tale comes from an encounter in Canada as opposed to the United States – the subject of this blog – but ultimately we are all cousins aren’t we?

As I recall, Nick and I were on our way through Canada to New York. Nick may dispute the story but this is my version. Our 91^st lift with Bob Falcon was a good one. He let us into his vehicle just a short while before darkness fell and I have a very strong memory of passing Winnipeg just as the light was fading. We needed to move on eventhough we had no deadline to meet, I guess it was just road fever claiming us for its own, that insatiable urge to keep moving.

I remember learning about Winnipeg from geography lessons in school, and suddenly there it was, lying before us on an open plain, seeing it was a magical experience. Then the darkness consumed everything and we began to wonder where we would sleep that night. The journey seemed to go on and on, the Great Lakes were also there in the darkness, waiting for us but all I wanted was to stop.

It was around 10 or 11 o’clock at night when Bob announced that he had pretty much reached where he was going and that he would look for somewhere to drop us off. By this stage, Nick and I were used to every type of dormitory accommodation from restaurant doors and hedgerows to barns that kind folk opened up for us. In the end, we settled for what careful research has led me to believe was Nayon Campground 100km outside Winnipeg on the Trans-Canada Highway. There was nothing else that we could see in the dark so we agreed to be dropped off there and thanked Bob and wished him well.

We were grateful for being driven right into the heart of the camp, it had been a long day, we just wanted to crash, there was no enthusiasm for putting up tents so we decided to park ourselves on a couple of picnic tables we found. There were two tables next to each other, so Nick and I simply rolled out our mats and sleeping bags and lay down in a line, head to toe. There was a moment of a few words of chat then  silence as we looked up at the stars and pondered everything, maybe a few more words, then a longer silence, then sleep.

It was peaceful, the road was some distance away, the night air was cool, it was  really easy just to let go and drift off. As I lay down to rest on my hard wooden bed at the end of a long dusty day, the light from the stars above, which had travelled from a time before the world was born, lulled me to sleep accompanied by the cooling breath of the surrounding forest. I closed my eyes and all was still.

I still don’t remember what awoke me suddenly some time later, nor how long I had been asleep. Did something rustle? Was there an unexpected sound? Had my bed been knocked? Whatever it was, I raised my head a little and stared down at the end of the table. I could see the stars still shining but I also quickly became aware of a large shape obscuring the view. It looked something like this.

All I could see was a large shape with two round bits on the top, and then I saw it move.

Being as quick-witted as I am, I soon identified it as a bear. It was clearly picking food from a bin because it was holding something in its paws and then using its claws to very delicately unwrap whatever it had found. My guess was that it was a takeaway wrapper that someone had very kindly left in the bin at the foot of my bed. It was at that moment that I wondered about the food left in our rucksacks. We had been warned by Rangers that it was ok to camp in the woods but that under no circumstances should we leave food in our bags at night, or outside our tent.

Very gingerly, I reached over my head and tapped Nick on the foot. I told him to make no noise and just remain where he was without moving. I’d never had this sort of encounter before but the remedy for our situation was as clear as day, don’t move and be quiet! Nick responded, and just as he was coming to there was a sudden movement at the end of the bed and although I could barely see anything, there was the sensation of a very large shape moving quickly away past my left shoulder. When it had gone, we got our flashlights out and swept the light around our part of the camp site. There were no bears to be seen, but the odd pair of eyes, here and there, reflected back at us from either the forest edge or from within the forest itself.

The next morning, we woke as the sun rose. It doesn’t take much to get up when your bed is a picnic table and you are already wearing most of the coming day’s clothes. Keen to see where we had ended up, Nick and I went for a little stroll waiting for any possible shops and restaurants to open their doors to us – frankly there wasn’t much about.

Slowly, it got brighter and we were soon able to walk around without bumping into things. It was clear that we were on the edge of a forest, the campsite was perfectly placed for both passing travellers and hikers who wanted more. Then we saw the high chain link fencing and something that looked like a caged area, and on it in very clear writing was a Beware of the Bears sign, and ‘Do not Feed the Bears’ – abit late now I thought.

Perhaps we should have been filled with fear, but not really, just a chuckle that we had unknowingly dodged a bullet. We’d found somewhere to sleep for the night, we’d had a very close encounter with the natural world and the bears had been fed courtesy of a trash can left at the end of my bed. I call that a win, win, win situation.

There are said to be just three types of bear in Canada, the grizzly, the black bear and the polar bear. I am pretty sure that we didn’t meet a polar bear that night, and I’m fairly confident that we didn’t have a Grizzly feasting next to us in the forest. I believe it was a Black Bear that I saw in the darkness. Although not at risk, the Black Bear numbers in Canada settle around the 300,000 – 400,000 mark, which given the size of the country means you would be quite pushed to run into one.  There is also something called a ‘Spirit Bear’, the Kermode Bear, which apparently is part of the brown bear species.

 I finish with this piece of advice I once came across. It’s simply this, if it’s Brown ‘Get Down’ and play dead. If it’s Black – ‘Don’t look back. Leg it, but don’t run!’ Oh, and remember to pick up small children otherwise you might find you have a Mowgli and jazz situation on your hands, for those who love The Jungle Book.

Time to stop.