Black Bears and Skunk Butts
Yesterday I took a walk in the woods with my 10 year old grandson Ozaawaa. We were walking a long trail north of our house that leads to a jackpine that has two bowling balls named “George and Peggy,” as companions.
After quietly discussing their current health, we walked single-file to a trail camera I had on a tree nearby, to remove its memory chip and put in a new one. Trail cameras record, all day and all night, what moves about the woods, and that camera’s location has proven to be the best I’ve ever found for one.
Walking down through a high-grassed swale where water flows during heavy rains, Ozaawaa begins talking about our possibility of seeing a bear. He didn’t sound fearful, as much as cautious, something I think Grandma may have had a hand in before we left the yard. The winds were strong around us, so I explained to him, “With the winds like this at our backs, our scent is pushed ahead of us and tells all the animals we are here. We won’t be surprising anybody.”
Hiking northward up the short incline of the swale, we turned west a little ways then turned north again up another rise framed-in by between two tall stands of red pine planted in 1990, where their needles carpet the ground and smother weeds and grass. A person or other animal can walk almost silently there. I saw Ozaawaa looking at his feet as he walked. “You should look ahead of you too, as you walk the woods. Look and listen to what is around you. Learn landmarks, pay attention to where you are and where you’re going.”
“When I’m in the tree rows, I listen closely for the sounds of bees. Hornets sometimes make their nests along the rows, in high grass, or in rotted logs or hang them overhead in their branches. Looking and listening can save you some real pain. You have to be cautious being out here.
Pointing at a green elevated box on stilt-like legs behind him, sixty-yards away, I said, “There’s your dad’s deerstand.” Pointing at various plants around us in a opening in the trees, I said, ”This is ‘John’s food plot’. See the clover and radishes and little sunflowers I planted here? They’re coming along okay, but they could use some rain.”
There were many big and small deer tracks in the area we stood; some old, some new. But no bear tracks. It was here, from John’s stand, I had seen three bears, two black and one cinnamon-colored, last October and where I had seen lots of bear sign this spring. We looked at the tiny rectangular-shaped field gloved by spruce and willow as around us the wind buffeted the tops of the nearby red pines, and the heart-shaped green leaves of distant hybrid poplars.
Ozaawaa said, “If I was walking here by myself and surprised a bear, I’d run to Dad’s deerstand and climb the ladder.”
“The bear will probably run the opposite direction cause they’re scared of you too, but no, you don’t want to run away from a bear, because they will chase -- and catch you,” I said, looking at him thoughtfully.
“If you run away from them they see you as prey -- like you're are a rabbit, and they will run after you. They are much faster than you. Even a bear can run 35 miles per hour in a short burst. Them black bears can climb that deerstand ladder even faster than they can climb a tree. They’d be knockin’ on that door, “Ozaawaa? You in dere? Ozaa . . . waa . . . .?
“No, you have to stand your ground -- even if you’re so scared you pee your pants. Sometimes they will stand up, just to see you better, like we were talking about yesterday remember? Just back away from them slowly, keep watching it, but don’t turn around . . . Talk to the bear. Say anything, but don’t make fun of its mama. They’re particularly fond of their mama’s and don’t like anybody sayin’ anything bad about them.
“And, you have to make yourself look BIGGER than you are, by holding your hands up in the air over your head or if you're wearing one, lifting your jacket in the air like this .... Don’t look them directly in their eyes, just look to one side of them. Instead maybe say, really loud, “Mister Makwa, you don't want to eat me! I taste like skunk butt!”
“But we won’t be seein’ any bears today. They’re long gone, because of this wind.”
We walked through an opening in the pines at the end of the food plot, but just to add a little more suspense to the environment, I said, pointing at a scattering of pine cones off to the side of us, “I took a picture of a big ol’ pile of fresh bear poop ‘there’ this spring . . . but it’s all rotted away by now.
“There’s Marty’s stand,” I said, pointing at another deerstand about 125-yards away through some tall willows. This food plot has clover, brassicas like radishes and turnips, and sunflowers in it too.
“What do foodplots do?” Ozaawaa asked facetiously, acting like he was sincerely interested in what looked like just a bunch of weeds (and are, mostly) where we were walking.
“Well, it’s all about eating, ‘Waa, I said. “Every day, all year long, deer are looking for something to eat. After all the crops are gone from the fields around here, deer have a little something to eat in foodplots like these. Foodplots keep deer coming back through here, from wherever they go, because they know they can eat here. There’s places they can hide and sleep here too -- and water in the creeks, ‘there’ and back behind those trees. This is a great spot.”
It was a warm humid day, so the wind helped move the air around. Clouds would sometimes block the sun, and that cooled us somewhat too. We started back toward home when I stopped Ozaawaa and said, “You know phones have a GPS in them that can map where you want to go and where you’ve been. I’ve never done it, but there’s a voice command feature ‘here’. . . and handed him the phone.
With the dexterity of a young Anishinnabeg person, he quickly thumbed pages open and said to the phone, “How do we get to ‘grandpa’s land in Wannaska, Minnesota?”
Up came a Google Map reference, and he pointed out to me the little blue circle that designated ‘us’ and its fan-like base that represented the direction we were facing and, because Google has inserted a lake where we live along Mikinaak Creek, we readily recognized the direction we needed to go -- him leading the way out of the foodplot, through the red pines and white spruce trees, through the Russian olive bushes, the red willow, paperbirch and back down through the swale, and past the jackpine and its two bowling ball friends.
We turned east at the threshing machine that had settled deep into the ground there these past one hundred years, I guess, and followed the trail past “The Wedding Tree” where Jackie and I were married one very cold December 31st in 2008 with several warmly-dressed friends in attendance.
Turning north again, our house in plain view behind us to the south, I had Ozaawaa climb the ladder of my deerstand I hadn’t visited all year. I saw that a window had been blown open by a rain storm and we needed to get it put back in.
Climbing the heavy duty ladder built on telephone pole legs, and trying to keep his balance at the same time, Ozaawaa attempted to open the awkward deerstand door.
“Watch yourself there,” I said to him as I stood on the ladder built to hold another grandson weighing over 300 pounds. “We don’t want to have you falling off this because I’d catch hell from your grandma for sure.
She would surely yell, “‘HOW’D HE GET HURT?? WHAT? YOU LET HIM CLIMB UP THERE??”‘ (Or words to that effect as this is, purportedly, a family blog.)
But this is the kid who lives along Lake Superior and the Apostle Island chain. I’ve seen him grip wet rock faces with his bare feet and jump from rock to rock, balancing precariously above the chillingly ice cold water. (His grandmother did not see this.) Climbing twelve feet off the ground, using a ladder four feet wide, is nothing to this kid . . .
I helped him get the door open. “Okay, look inside all the corners to check for hornets nests . . . You don’t want any surprises. One time, I opened this and there was a big ol’ raccoon in here starin’ me in the face . . . . No hornets, eh? Okay, climb in there. Can you manage the window?”
He couldn’t maneuver it good enough so I had to join him there. I showed him the little Buddy Heater that we have in all the deer stands; it had tipped over in the windstorm apparently. Then I showed him how it worked and how to light it, just in case he had to get in a cabin someplace in Alaska when he was freezing while on a polar expedition some day. He watched carefully, nodding in understanding -- but we’re not going to tell grandma.
https://www.fatherly.com/parenting/how-to-survive-bear-attack-children/
http://www.bearsmart.com/play/bear-encounters/ *
*Their advice about: “Stand tall and look it directly in the eye,” I fear, is not the best, as it counters everything I've ever read about it.
This website too, suggests otherwise. So you might want to verify that. https://thetrek.co/appalachian-trail/black-bear-safety-tips/
Yesterday I took a walk in the woods with my 10 year old grandson Ozaawaa. We were walking a long trail north of our house that leads to a jackpine that has two bowling balls named “George and Peggy,” as companions.
After quietly discussing their current health, we walked single-file to a trail camera I had on a tree nearby, to remove its memory chip and put in a new one. Trail cameras record, all day and all night, what moves about the woods, and that camera’s location has proven to be the best I’ve ever found for one.
Walking down through a high-grassed swale where water flows during heavy rains, Ozaawaa begins talking about our possibility of seeing a bear. He didn’t sound fearful, as much as cautious, something I think Grandma may have had a hand in before we left the yard. The winds were strong around us, so I explained to him, “With the winds like this at our backs, our scent is pushed ahead of us and tells all the animals we are here. We won’t be surprising anybody.”
 |
| Three bears on John's food plot in 2019 |
Hiking northward up the short incline of the swale, we turned west a little ways then turned north again up another rise framed-in by between two tall stands of red pine planted in 1990, where their needles carpet the ground and smother weeds and grass. A person or other animal can walk almost silently there. I saw Ozaawaa looking at his feet as he walked. “You should look ahead of you too, as you walk the woods. Look and listen to what is around you. Learn landmarks, pay attention to where you are and where you’re going.”
“When I’m in the tree rows, I listen closely for the sounds of bees. Hornets sometimes make their nests along the rows, in high grass, or in rotted logs or hang them overhead in their branches. Looking and listening can save you some real pain. You have to be cautious being out here.
Pointing at a green elevated box on stilt-like legs behind him, sixty-yards away, I said, “There’s your dad’s deerstand.” Pointing at various plants around us in a opening in the trees, I said, ”This is ‘John’s food plot’. See the clover and radishes and little sunflowers I planted here? They’re coming along okay, but they could use some rain.”
There were many big and small deer tracks in the area we stood; some old, some new. But no bear tracks. It was here, from John’s stand, I had seen three bears, two black and one cinnamon-colored, last October and where I had seen lots of bear sign this spring. We looked at the tiny rectangular-shaped field gloved by spruce and willow as around us the wind buffeted the tops of the nearby red pines, and the heart-shaped green leaves of distant hybrid poplars.
Ozaawaa said, “If I was walking here by myself and surprised a bear, I’d run to Dad’s deerstand and climb the ladder.”
“The bear will probably run the opposite direction cause they’re scared of you too, but no, you don’t want to run away from a bear, because they will chase -- and catch you,” I said, looking at him thoughtfully.
“If you run away from them they see you as prey -- like you're are a rabbit, and they will run after you. They are much faster than you. Even a bear can run 35 miles per hour in a short burst. Them black bears can climb that deerstand ladder even faster than they can climb a tree. They’d be knockin’ on that door, “Ozaawaa? You in dere? Ozaa . . . waa . . . .?
“No, you have to stand your ground -- even if you’re so scared you pee your pants. Sometimes they will stand up, just to see you better, like we were talking about yesterday remember? Just back away from them slowly, keep watching it, but don’t turn around . . . Talk to the bear. Say anything, but don’t make fun of its mama. They’re particularly fond of their mama’s and don’t like anybody sayin’ anything bad about them.
“And, you have to make yourself look BIGGER than you are, by holding your hands up in the air over your head or if you're wearing one, lifting your jacket in the air like this .... Don’t look them directly in their eyes, just look to one side of them. Instead maybe say, really loud, “Mister Makwa, you don't want to eat me! I taste like skunk butt!”
“But we won’t be seein’ any bears today. They’re long gone, because of this wind.”
We walked through an opening in the pines at the end of the food plot, but just to add a little more suspense to the environment, I said, pointing at a scattering of pine cones off to the side of us, “I took a picture of a big ol’ pile of fresh bear poop ‘there’ this spring . . . but it’s all rotted away by now.
“There’s Marty’s stand,” I said, pointing at another deerstand about 125-yards away through some tall willows. This food plot has clover, brassicas like radishes and turnips, and sunflowers in it too.
“What do foodplots do?” Ozaawaa asked facetiously, acting like he was sincerely interested in what looked like just a bunch of weeds (and are, mostly) where we were walking.
“Well, it’s all about eating, ‘Waa, I said. “Every day, all year long, deer are looking for something to eat. After all the crops are gone from the fields around here, deer have a little something to eat in foodplots like these. Foodplots keep deer coming back through here, from wherever they go, because they know they can eat here. There’s places they can hide and sleep here too -- and water in the creeks, ‘there’ and back behind those trees. This is a great spot.”
It was a warm humid day, so the wind helped move the air around. Clouds would sometimes block the sun, and that cooled us somewhat too. We started back toward home when I stopped Ozaawaa and said, “You know phones have a GPS in them that can map where you want to go and where you’ve been. I’ve never done it, but there’s a voice command feature ‘here’. . . and handed him the phone.
With the dexterity of a young Anishinnabeg person, he quickly thumbed pages open and said to the phone, “How do we get to ‘grandpa’s land in Wannaska, Minnesota?”
Up came a Google Map reference, and he pointed out to me the little blue circle that designated ‘us’ and its fan-like base that represented the direction we were facing and, because Google has inserted a lake where we live along Mikinaak Creek, we readily recognized the direction we needed to go -- him leading the way out of the foodplot, through the red pines and white spruce trees, through the Russian olive bushes, the red willow, paperbirch and back down through the swale, and past the jackpine and its two bowling ball friends.
We turned east at the threshing machine that had settled deep into the ground there these past one hundred years, I guess, and followed the trail past “The Wedding Tree” where Jackie and I were married one very cold December 31st in 2008 with several warmly-dressed friends in attendance.
Turning north again, our house in plain view behind us to the south, I had Ozaawaa climb the ladder of my deerstand I hadn’t visited all year. I saw that a window had been blown open by a rain storm and we needed to get it put back in.
“Watch yourself there,” I said to him as I stood on the ladder built to hold another grandson weighing over 300 pounds. “We don’t want to have you falling off this because I’d catch hell from your grandma for sure.
She would surely yell, “‘HOW’D HE GET HURT?? WHAT? YOU LET HIM CLIMB UP THERE??”‘ (Or words to that effect as this is, purportedly, a family blog.)
But this is the kid who lives along Lake Superior and the Apostle Island chain. I’ve seen him grip wet rock faces with his bare feet and jump from rock to rock, balancing precariously above the chillingly ice cold water. (His grandmother did not see this.) Climbing twelve feet off the ground, using a ladder four feet wide, is nothing to this kid . . .
I helped him get the door open. “Okay, look inside all the corners to check for hornets nests . . . You don’t want any surprises. One time, I opened this and there was a big ol’ raccoon in here starin’ me in the face . . . . No hornets, eh? Okay, climb in there. Can you manage the window?”
https://www.fatherly.com/parenting/how-to-survive-bear-attack-children/
http://www.bearsmart.com/play/bear-encounters/ *
*Their advice about: “Stand tall and look it directly in the eye,” I fear, is not the best, as it counters everything I've ever read about it.
This website too, suggests otherwise. So you might want to verify that. https://thetrek.co/appalachian-trail/black-bear-safety-tips/
Quirky grandpas are the best.
ReplyDeleteLove,love,love this dialogue for all kinds of reasons. You know one of them. Must be great to have a GP who can teach a youngin' how to make his way around the outdoors and its creatures. My Irish GP taught me the ins and outs of Jameson and Guiness, and barflys. No kidding. My GP was a bartender! And what he taught me served me well in my college years. HaTha!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteNothing like a good walk in the woods.