Smarter than your average bear

Yeah, he acts tough from behind the safety of the bars and elevated viewing platform.
There were probably 30 bears roaming around the night we were there.

Georgie in front of one of the bear lockers on one of the islands we visited.

We have learned a lot about black bears on this Northwoods adventure. Throughout the park there are bear lockers for campers to put their food. This was fascinating to the boys. The North American Bear Center is not too far away, and the boys both picked little stuffed black bears as their trip souveneirs. But perhaps the most amazing bear experience we had was at the Vince Shute Wildlife Refuge. It was the best animal-viewing experience I have ever had, basically because the bears are not caged in- they are totally wild. The sanctuary was started by a guy who was a logging camp owner a loooong time ago (hey - cut me a break. I'm on vacation, not in history class). He also cooked for the camp and was sick of bears breaking into his kitchen and eating the food. He kept shooting the bears, but new ones just kept coming. So he switched tactics and set up a "bear feeding" area near the camp where he would leave food for the bears. Lo and behold, the bears started eating "their" food and stopped raiding the kitchen. The man (Vince Shute) grew to enjoy the bears and when he passed away he left his money and land to a foundation that would continue to feed the bears and educate people about them.

So we arrived at the parking lot, where a school bus picked us up and drove us to the "bear zone" in the middle of the woods. Keep in mind this is not fenced in - bears roam in and out as necessary. They built a big observation deck that we viewed the bears from. It was awesome - there were probably 30 or so bears there.

On the way back to the parking lot, the sanctuary employee gave us a little rundown on what do do if we encounter a bear. "Whatever you do, don't run," she explained. "Talk to the bear in a calm, gentle voice and reassure him that you are not a threat."

I looked around at my fellow passengers. They were all nodding and acting like, "okay." Meanwhile, I am sitting there thinking, Whatever honey. You know what? If I come face to face with a bear, the words "gentle" and "calmly" are not going to be in my f*&%ing vocabulary. Yeah, you all act like you're all brave now in the safety of this big yellow school bus but I guarantee 90% of you if confronted by a bear would be swearing up a storm, running like hell, and needing a fresh change of underwear when you got home.

*I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures - I forgot to bring my zoom lens to the sanctuary so had to take them all with the regular one, sniff sniff. Those pics would have been awesome with the zoom lens. :( I was too busy making sure George didn't feed himself to the bears, so the camera lens was not in the front of my mind. Priorities, people.