a bear in the woodscanada 2016 – july(5)
click to read the canada 2016 posts

Connie and I are driving up to the cottage at Red Rock and there in the middle of the road is a Black-bear. Holy Shit!! Connie thought it was great; I thought, let’s get out of here NOW. I did manage to pull the camera out and get a few shots. It looked like a young cub recently weaned and not a full-grown adult. Thank god for small favors.

In all the years I’ve been coming up here, this is my first bear-sighting. It came as we were talking about the practice of people already living in this isolated, Northern Ontario, wilderness community buying cottages to escape the urban landscape that is the small town of Sault Ste Marie, population 75,000. Having a lake-side cottage, here known as a camp, is very common. Joe Sanguinetti and I laugh. They already live in the middle of the woods, why do they need a camp a bit of an overkill, No?

Connie also mentioned how much work it is to maintain two homes. I laughed; thinking how ingrained the idea of a camp is for people up here. The whole time we were growing up, we badgered our parents to buy a camp. Mafalda claimed she had spent enough time in the wilderness helping my grandfather tend his flock in La Sila. And Cicio was busy making a living and building a house to listen to us preteen, Canadian wannabes.