JAKOB TALKS TO ME ABOUT BEARS.--THE BEAR'S NIGHT.--WATCHING A BEAR
SEEKING FOR WINTER QUARTERS.--THEY ARE VERY SUSPICIOUS.--I TELL A
BEAR STORY IN MY TURN.
Since I had heard of the Bear's Night, I wanted to know more about these
animals and their habits. After our supper, I said to Jakob, "Talk about
bears to me--tell me about them." "All right," he replied. "I will tell
you all I know about them."
"At the end of the summer and before the first fall of snow," he began,
"the bears are very fat, for they have had plenty of berries and roots
to eat. They are so fat that they can stand the long fast during the
Bear's Night; but when they go out in the spring from their snow cover,
they are very lean. We dread the bear more in the spring than during any
part of the summer, for he is voraciously hungry all the time and goes
after cattle, horses, sheep, or reindeer."
"I do not wonder at their being hungry, for the poor bear has to make up
for his long fast," I said.
Jakob continued: "The bear chooses a place in which he can lie
comfortably, such as under boulders or fallen trees, where he can be
protected from the snow. He becomes suspicious after he has chosen the
place for his Winter's Night, and for days he walks round and round to
see that there is no danger and to make sure that no enemy can see him.
He wants to feel perfectly safe before he goes into winter quarters. By
walking round wherever the wind blows, he is sure to scent danger, and
if he does he moves away and goes to seek some other place. The bear is
very wary; it is almost impossible in summer to pursue him without dogs,
for he is so quick of foot and always on the alert, that when a hunter
sees one he has to be more wary than the bear to approach within
shooting distance of him. When badly wounded he attacks his enemy
suddenly."
After Jakob had done speaking, I said to him, in my turn: "Let me tell
you a bear story. One autumn day when I had crossed the mountains by the
great Sulitelma glacier and was descending the eastern slope on my way
to the Gulf of Bothnia, my Lapp guide and I saw a big brown bear in the
distance, but as it was almost dark we decided not to go after him, for
the country was very stony. We camped that day in a forest of pines, in
order to be sheltered from the wind, for we were to sleep without a fire
so as not to make the bear suspicious. After taking our frugal meal of
hard bread and butter, my Lapp said to me, 'To-morrow we shall see the
bear; it is late in the season, and I am sure that he is looking for his
winter quarters in the neighborhood, and at the first indication of a
big snowstorm he will make ready for his long sleep, for the bears know
when a snowstorm is coming.'
"'How can they know?' I inquired.
"'I cannot tell you, for I do not know,' he replied, 'for I am not a
bear; but they do know. Do not the swallows and other migrating birds
know the approach of winter and then fly southward?'
"'They do,' I replied.
"That day we were very tired, for we had been tramping all day, down and
up hills and leaping over boulders which covered the country in many
places, and the wonder to me was that we did not break our necks.
"The place we had chosen for the night was by a big boulder almost as
large as a small house. There we could be sheltered against the cold
wind of the night that came through the trees. I picked out a stone for
a pillow, then stretched myself by the side of the boulder on thick
lichen that grew over the barren soil, and made a comfortable bed. My
guide did likewise. Then we bade each other good-night and soon fell
asleep.
"The next morning we wandered in the neighborhood where we had seen the
bear, but that day we did not find him; then we moved in the direction
whither we thought he had gone. That evening we saw another boulder some
twelve or fifteen feet high. 'This will be a fine place of shelter for
the night,' I said to the Lapp. He replied, 'It is just the place we
want. If the wind shifts we will shift also, so as to be protected.'
"I lay flat along the boulder on the thick reindeer moss, the Lapp did
likewise, and soon after we fell asleep with the pure bracing wind of
the mountains blowing over our faces.
"The next morning we saw the bear; he was a long way from us. The Lapp
said to me, 'I think the bear expects to winter round here; we must
watch him and follow him.' Soon after the bear disappeared.
"'Do you think he has scented us?' I asked. 'I do not see how he could,'
my guide replied, 'the wind is in the wrong direction for that. He has
gone for some reason of his own, you may be sure. There may have been
people on the other side of the hill and he has scented them.'
"We moved all round our boulder to scan the country, but there was no
bear in sight as far as our eyes could reach. After a while I noticed a
small black spot on the top of a hill. It was the bear; he was looking
all round. He then walked away and disappeared. Soon he appeared again,
and we saw him walk round and round a cluster of pines. The Lapp said:
'The bear is walking, making a ring in that manner. He tries to find out
if there is any danger for him, and by walking round he is sure to get
the wind, no matter from what direction it comes. Sometimes the bear
will try a number of places for several days before he selects one.'
"'How clever the bears are to walk around in that manner,' I said.
"Suddenly the bear disappeared. 'He has scented us,' said the Lapp, 'and
I think he will never come back here. We have eaten all the food we have
with us. We shall have to feed on berries the rest of our way. This bear
will probably remain in this region and take up his winter quarters
around here somewhere. I will find out where he will lie. Come to me
early in the spring, before the snow melts, and we will kill him.'
"'All right,' I replied; but the following spring, I regret to say, I
was travelling in another part of the country, but I heard that Bruin
met his fate at the hands of my Lapp when he aroused himself from his
long sleep and came out from under the snow."
The bears in Sweden, Norway, and Finland are very fine animals and
attain great size. They vary in the color of their fur, some being
almost black, but generally they are of different shades of brown. I
think they rank in size next to the grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains.
They are sometimes dangerous, but not so much so as the grizzly.