Bear Encounters: Tales from the Wild Side

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

This engaging look at wildlife takes the reader for a walk through the
woods in the company of the author, his wife, and his friends and
neighbours. Jim Nelson never loses sight of “the mystery of creation
in all its original power and grandeur.” Bears, in their natural
habitat, serve as perfect reminders of that home truth.

Hunters, who share the wilderness with bears, require “The Patience
of Job,” the title of the third chapter. Thomas and Leif hope that Job
Jameson will guide them once again, as he has done on many hunting
trips. However, this time the two hopefuls discover him sitting on a
stump while staring into space and holding a bottle of whiskey. His tale
emerges slowly and dramatically with Nelson’s typical humour, which
sits well with the turns and twists of life in the woods with bears.

The last tale, “Respect,” involves a bakery and a bear called
Buster in the small mountain town of Jasper during World War II. Salt
and flour, beans and pork, even clothing and gasoline were being
rationed. Mr. Fonger owns and runs a small grocery outlet in Jasper with
the help of Mary, his 19-year-old daughter. Corporal William Sykes had
left his train at Jasper with the innocent intention of stretching his
legs during the stopover, but after meeting Mary he plans to stay the
night in her family’s boarding house. Possibilities bloom.

An epilogue concludes that bears’ fears of and respect for humans
usually create a live-and-let-live co-existence. Bear Encounters offers
its readers 13 fascinating and unusual tales.