My cousin Dan routinely sends family photos from the 1960’s and 70’s. Few of them are as surprising, and enchanting, as the Featured Image, from 1968. He says that’s a photo of a “bear cub taken in our backyard in Fort Kent”—one of the major Northern Maine towns on the Canadian border.
“Dad later gave it to the Houlton animal farm”, Dan explains. Oh, yeah? That wouldn’t be the first time. In November 2005 missive “Somewhere Between Dickey and Rivière-Bleue“, I tell the story of another bear cub—captured in the Maine North Woods and also sent to an animal farm in Houlton; 1966. So, it definitely wasn’t the same animal.
I am shocked that my cousins Debbie (left) and Carrie could get so close to the cub. Because the question: Where is the mother? Sows are crazy protective of their young, and they will attack ferociously and with little warning. Where is the cub’s momma?
Perhaps I don’t understand the context of the photo, because the sisters sure look giddy and fearless with the cub. Plus, their dad—an accomplished hunter and trapper—would have been acutely aware of danger, if any.
Photo Credit: Glenn Wilcox