Bears

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After a series of cheeky inside passes on our drive to work in the morning, our camp supervisor ran right over a bear.  He was a fat little bear, and he rolled around in the ditch a long time before he died.  His abdominal muscles contracted so fiercely with each breath, I wondered if he hadn’t torn his diaphragm, pushing his guts up into his chest.

I quite like bears.  I like running into them on the clear-cuts, and the way that they peer at you dimly, sometimes in confusion, and sometimes with curiosity.  I like knowing that they quietly go about their lives here, several hundred kilometers from the nearest town, and largely unaware that people even exist.  I thought it sad that this one little bear’s life was so rudely interrupted.  And I thought it sad that it ended in agony.

On the way back to town I saw a big black bear fooling around in the top of a trembling aspen.  I've never seen such a big animal in such a tall and slender tree!