The Tatlatui Bear

I was loading up my Super Cub on the Firesteel River to check on a friend’s cabin that had been trashed by a bear. I had heard from my daughter, Carrie, on the HF radio over at the main lodge that she, Pilot Armin, and two guests, Bill and Peggy Jenkins, had discovered the bear’s mess at Bob Henderson's camp on Tatlatui Lake. It was mid-August, and Bob had closed camp and left back to town for the season.

Roland and Nancy, were staying with me at the Firesteel cabin.

“Would you like to come along?” I asked Roland.

“I’d be more than happy to,” he said.

Flying over Tatlatui Lake, we didn’t see anything on the ground so we dropped in on the lake and taxied to the dock. I secured the plane, and we gathered our tools.

Approaching the cabin, we saw that the siding had been torn off the back side of the lodge, exposing the storeroom filled with supplies, and the kitchen window lay at our feet. The inside of the lodge was a complete mess—the bear had ripped open bags of flour and punctured large cans of tomatoes with his teeth. Bear droppings were scattered throughout the mess. The bear had made himself at home, and by the look of the removed siding under the porch stairs, he was planning to spend winter hibernating under the lodge.

We heard a noise in the kitchen and backtracked to the cabin porch. I positioned my rifle on the porch railing, and Roland was ready with a hammer in hand. Two paws appeared from inside the missing window, then his shoulders, then his head. Spotting us on his porch, he growled and lunged.

I pulled the trigger, and was sure hoping the bear would fall outside rather than inside the lodge. As luck would have it, the bear fell back into the kitchen. Not a safe way to deal with a bear, inside the cabin. I approached with caution and yelled to Roland: "Coast is Clear!"

The place was a mess. We shoveled the debris into garbage cans, and then it was time to drag the big guy outside. I grabbed one leg and Roland grabbed the other, but he was much too heavy at 450 pounds, so we tied a large rope around our waists, and were able to drag him outside.

We replaced the window, secured the lodge, and removed the bear’s hide and head. His skull now rests in Roland’s man cave.

Who knows what would have happened to Bob's lodge if the bear had hibernated all winter.

Beannie called on the way home. “Everything okay?” she asked.

“Everything’s fine,” I said.

~ Story submitted by Roland Pascal