Bear Tale

On another web page, we were discussing boxing in springs, and I related this story to one of the other members. I thought some may like to read about some of the local adventures from this area. 

Almost a lost art in most of the country. I have walled them with log, field stone, and brick. The best are a two tiered type, top for drinking water, the lower boxed in with a cover, to keep things cold in. Good as any refrigerator. I helped the neighbor do one a couple years ago, and he has the bonus of watercress growing at the outflow. I do have a slow seep here along my driveway I've been considering boxing for a watering spot for the deer and elk, or whatever else wanders through. As it is, I have to keep replenishing my quench barrel out by the forge, as it seems to be unduly popular with the critters. I'm sure they don't have iron poor blood, or need any Geritol!

A good friend I worked with shoeing horses with for years, used to cowboy and guide out of the old McFarland ranch, a private inholding in Glacier National Park. It is a remote area yet, and was even more so in the fifties when he first started working there.

They had a regular spring house there, and had to carry water for the ranch house, and the bunk house every day. The old bucket they were using was getting old enough, that with the leaks, they were lucky to get half the water back to the buildings. There was a forty watt bulb in the spring house, powered by a generator that was started up at sunset, to shed a bit of light in the evenings.

The next trip to town, Mr. Mc Farland got them a brand new water pail to use. Gene headed for the spring house late that evening. The door was open, which was strickly forbidden, and he was cussing one of the others for leaving it open. He stepped inside the door, and immediately saw a huge shadow looming over him. He knew immediately it was a bear inside with him.

He immediately turned, and tried for the door, and the bear had the same idea at the same time, and they both hit it at once, knocking each other over, Gene falling into the spring hole, splashing water up on the light and putting it out, immediately plunging them into total darkness. He said he began beating on the bear with the new pail, trying to reach the door, but every time he would get it open a crack, the bear would make for it, and slam it shut again, bellering and squalling all the time.

He finally managed to get it open, and what he thought must be a monster bear, turned out to be a yearling grizzly cub. He was pretty relived, until he realized that momma was probably pretty near. He finally made it back to the cabins with what little water the now thoroughly smashed up pail could hold. And he says they didn't replace it again for another four years.

Incidently, if you are familiar with the book, Night of the Grizzlies, an account of one night in Glacier Park when three people were killed by grizzlies. Gene killed one of the griz involved while pulling a pack string across Gunsight Pass, with a .357 Magnum, using cast bullets.