Folklore Facts: The History and Folklore of Island Part Two

A handmade wooden toy pits man (?) against bear — too often the case on Prince by Jim Hornby Edward Island.

In Part One of "Bear Facts/' which groups for protection against bears. An none have been seen . . . and it was featured in Issue 22 (Fall-Winter, 1836 visitor to Morell stated, "Bears was generally believed that they 1987), Jim Hornby treated readers to a are said to be frequently seen in this had disappeared entirely. history of the black bear on Prince neighbourhood." In 1862, the Guardian Edward Island. In the conclusion to his recorded that "Bears are becoming very The actual shooting had occurred on study, Hornby chronicles the passing numerous and exceedingly troublesome February 7, 1927. The late Bernard of Ursus americanus in the province, east of Souris." Even near the turn of Leslie of Souris Road was 16 when and examines its long afterlife in the century, bears were reported only he and his 18-year-old brother, George, Island folklore. as "gradually becoming scarcer" in the hunted and killed the bear. George Dundas area. noticed the tracks where the bear had The extinction of the bear on Prince crossed the north end of Souris Line Forgotten But N o t Gon e Edward Island was explained, a bit Road, heading east by Hainey's Brook. prematurely, by a commentator in 1900: Bernard told me the story. "A thaw espite their large size (even the "The forests have fallen before the came, a February thaw, and the bear Dvolume of their breath could give woodsman's axe. Bruin has also dis- pulled out of his den going to make them away as they hibernated in snow- appeared." This extinction, while inev- another quarters for himself." The next covered dens), and the constant en- itable, was so slow that a National morning the Leslie boys waited until croachment of civilization on their Museum of Canada publication would their father left for Souris: "We didn't ranges, Island bears could feel, with cautiously state as late as 1958 that the tell him 'cause he'd ruin the whole Mark Twain, that reports of their death black bear "is now believed to be extinct thing on us; he'd have to come." They were greatly exaggerated during the on the [I]sland, although from time to armed themselves with two 12-gauge 19th century. In 1806, John Stewart time reports are received of animals shotguns: a n old bolt-action and a newer wrote that "in less than half a century, having been seen." double-barreled. Aside from some buck- I have no doubt but the bears will be shot, their ammunition was one shell, entirely extirpated." John MacGregor into which they put a 3A inch ball bear- wrote in 1828 that "they are now much Last B e a r Hunt ing. Then the chase was on. reduced in number and rarely met Bernard Leslie described the hunt: with"; 11 years later, S. S. Hill opined The Evening Patriot's headline for that "they will soon disappear." In February 8,1927 - "Large Black Bear We tracked that bear from 9 o'clock the 1850s, Isabella Lucy Bird, author Shot at Souris Line Road" —marked in the morning and it was one of The English Woman in America, the last killing of a bear on Prince o'clock in the afternoon before we observed that "Bears, which used to be Edward Island. In the next edition, the found him. We walked through a great attraction to the more adventur- editor of the Patriot remarked on the the woods with no track, just fol- ous class of sportsman, are, however, surprising persistence of the animal, so lowed the bear's track. Into bushes rapidly disappearing"; but since the often thought to be extinct: and thickets — you wouldn't know lady spent most of her Island visit in but you'd meet the bear in the Charlottetown, we can be certain only Some of the older people have thicket. And there was snow came that the animals avoided city streets. been much interested in the report that night, about three inches of Other observers disagreed with the of a bear being found abroad in snow. You'd have to crouch down prophets of imminent extinction. As the province at this late date. to get through the thickets you late as the 1830s, city folk gathered at They remember when they were know. And we walked and walked. the foot of Gallows Hill, now the corner boys of hearing of bears in the At last we came to a place . . . of Euston and University Streets, before woods. Indeed, we all remember and here was the bear. He was on heading west; they wanted to travel in the stories ... but for many years a little hill, but we could see him

27 breathing, we could see his body Larry-donk-dow, Larry-larry-dow. more recent appearances on record. going up and down under the When it came time to feed the per- Successors to the dancing bears occa- snow. He was sleeping, see. He'd former, the showman would strap the sionally have been brought here for camped there for the night and bear's legs together, remove the muz- shows, such as during Old Home Week. slept. He broke some boughs and zle, and bruin could enjoy its repast." Sometimes, too, the consequences can made a little bed for himself. So Another dancing bear had a grisly be grisly. In early October 1984, a black Geordie took the first shot with meal after performing at Brackley bear brought to the Island for "wres- the ball [bearing] cartridge, and Beach in 1874. Its master charged the tling" exhibitions bit off parts of fin- he's about 15 feet from him when substantial sum of 10 cents to see it gers of two young men who entered the he fired. The bear was lying on dance: "The man played a mouth organ ring with it in Tyne Valley. his right side and it got him as the bear sort of kept time to the through the left hip. And that music, then as the dance ended the ball came up through his hip and keeper asked for something to feed the Poem, Song, Recitation cut the jugular vein going out the bear." The man was later found killed side of his neck. That's what fixed by his bear on the Mill Road, and is Though (presumably) no longer with the bear. said to be buried at Brackley. The bear, us, Island bears have been celebrated The bear jumped up on his hind having broken its chain, was shot by in a number of expressive forms. Among feet then, and snarled and roared Charles Gregor. these are a poem, a poem/recitation, and jumped a bit, and then he lay Performing bears were not confined and a folksong. down, he fell down with weakness to the 19th century. There are many The poem "Bear Hunt," too lengthy I guess. So Geordie took the gun from me and he stepped up closer with the buckshot. And the buck- shot never went through the bugger's hide. But the ball really was the one that killed him." J*%\ The brothers skinned their prize on the spot, using only pocket knives, and 4*#; . C MMnfefe brought the skin home in triumph. The carcass, weighing over four hundred pounds, was later boiled to render the grease — a smelly business, Bernard recalled. They were asked to send a firkin of bear grease to , for which they happily received $14. Ber- nard Leslie wasn't sure the English- man got the results he wanted from the grease: "I don't know if it makes hair grow not. I don't think it did."

Dancing Bears Although wild bears have dominated 1 the story of their species on Prince Edward Island, no account of Ursus americanus would be complete without M. \\ a reference to dancing bears, an ancient ^m if rather seedy form of entertainment offered here by itinerant showmen for many years. The earliest Island refer- ence in print may be the curiously exotic passenger list from the Royal Gazette in 1830, announcing that the Pictou packet had arrived in Charlotte- town with (besides eight other pas- sengers) "a company of French Rope Dancers, a Female Preacher, and a Dancing Bear." With the number of j. y*"£J>«ij bears resident on the Island at this time i t seems odd that they were brought in for amusement, but perhaps the local bears were too busy avoiding the local Nimrods to spare time for dancing. William D. Johnston remembered seeing a dancing bear with its master in Montague. They "travelled from Curious bystanders look on as a dancing bear, muzzled and chained, strikes a pose place to place exhibiting bruin's ability with his handlers in 1890s Charlottetown. to waltz to his trainer's tune of Larry,

28 apologized to a bear before killing him. 'Excuse me, my lord Mokowa,' he would say, 'not my will but circumstances over which I have no control compel me to do it.' This was to prevent being haunted by the animal's ghost." In addition to this spirit belief, Indians told Hunter-Duvar several tall tales about bears. One was that an Indian had fallen on "a sleeping bear that started up and angrily exclaimed 'where the deuce are you coming to' or words to that effect." Another Indian told Hunter-Duvar of seeing in the woods "two bears sitting on their haunches and laughing consumedly at some joke that one had told to the other." A modern bear joke associated with Island Micmacs runs as follows: "A school asked the to speak on 'How Indians caught the bear.' He said, they dug a hole beside a big tree, filled it half full of ashes, put boughs on top. When the bear came sniffing around they kicked him in the ash-hole." A similar This bearskin robe was "made expressly for A. Home & Co. of Charlottetown, but story was collected in Charlottetown it is unlikely that the bear in question was an Islander. as directions for "How to catch a bear." "You dig a big hole and in the hole you and poorly versified to print here, was seemed to fill") are reminiscent of a put a barrel of flour, a mirror and a written anonymously to commemorate statement made by noted hunter John block of ice, and then you cover up the the killing of a bear near the St. Peters Jay in The Weekly Examiner & Island hole and the bear falls in the flour and Road in Marshfield. The bear was dis- Argus of December 28,1883: "When he looks at himself in the mirror and covered on the property of a prominent and the others were in hot pursuit of a thinks he's a polar bear. He sits on the public figure, Robert Poore Haythorne, bear, the animal has turned to see how block of ice and gets pneumonia and and chased across the road to the far they were behind, stood upon one dies." In Ernest W. Baughman's Type grounds of Marshfield School, where foot as straight as a man, that he might and Motif Index of the Folktales of the fatal shot was fired by James see the further, and shaded the sun England and North America (The Wyatt. A detailed report of this hunt, from his eyes with a paw as he looked." Hague, 1966), the two preceding items written by Haythorne, appeared in the are classified according to narrative Examiner for July 27, 1863 as "Bear characteristics as motif X955(a): "Lie: Hunt on the St. Peter's Road." The Bears in Island Folklore Remarkable killing of bear." However, poem "Bear Hunt" is remarkable only neither of these two "methods" is men- for the lack of detail provided in its It is hardly surprising that such tioned by Baughman. 272 lines. a complex animal lives in the folk Some bear folklore involves fending A far more appealing bit of verse is memory of Islanders. The contradic- off bears as opposed to killing them. "The Hunters and the Bear," written tory qualities associated with the bear J. B. Schurman's responses to an 1876 by Lizzie Macintosh of Belle River and include, bravery, endurance, strength; history questionnaire included a story dated February 8, 1902. Although no also brutality, clumsiness, gruffness, of a man holding a bear's tongue, and a bear was found — it has been sug- ill-temper, misanthropy, moroseness, belief: "It used to be said that if you gested that the sight of a large New- uncouthness. Among Island Micmacs looked straight into a bear's face he foundland dog inspired the hunt -—the I have found a surprising lack of bear would not come at you." poem is interesting as social history, lore, but they presumably revered the Several of the stories collected revolve and for the sympathy it expressed for bear as a symbol of physical power, around unusual evidence of contact the bear. Its pleasant cadence has lent both because of its size and the fact with a bear. Here is one: "An ox arrives itself to use as a recitation, and some that it can survive months of hiberna- home with a bear's paw stuck in its older people remember it as such. tion without eating. John MacGregor hindquarters. When the bear struck, A Kings County folksong about a scornfully noted an item of folklore the ox ran so fast that the bear's paw bear hunt has been printed at least about bears (which is sometimes used was torn away." From West Prince twice: by Edward D. Ives as "The Bear to explain why female bears have no comes the story of a mare that was at Grand River," (in Lawrence Doyle: breasts): "It seems extraordinary, that scared by a bear in the woods; next The Farmer-Poet of Prince Edward a bear on leaving his den is nearly spring the mare's foal was found to Island) and by Randall and Dorothy as fat as at any period of the year. have a bear claw in its front leg. This is Dibblee as "The Bear Song" (in Folk- The vulgar, but absurd, belief is that related to Baughman's motif X1202: songs from P.E.I.). Since the song is they live during winter by sucking "Lie: animals inherit acquired charac- thoroughly discussed by Dr. Ives, I will their paws." teristics or conditions." A take-off on add only that, again, the bear's point John Hunter-Duvar, the 19th century this theme is the following story: "They of view is rather sympathetically Island man of letters, collected a claim that a pregnant woman if she expressed. Two of the lines ("He came number of stories concerning the rela- saw anything and got a fright, it would out on the road leading down to the tionship between bear and Micmac. He affect the baby. So this woman was in mill/He looked at the sun and his eyes states: "Formerly an Indian always the woods, and she was that way, and

29 she got an awful fright from the bear. Now, it did affect the baby — he was born with bare feet." The most popular tall bear story I have heard on Prince Edward Island is The winter set in quietly along Belle River shore, an internationally reported one: a man suddenly meets a bear; he escapes injury by reaching down the bear's throat and pulling it inside out. The story is listed as tale type AT 1889B, and as Baugh- man's motif XI 124.2. Both listings include other types of animals as well as bears. A version of the story appears in a French tale collection first pub- lished in Paris in 1579, where a lynx is pulled inside out, "just like an eel when you skin it." Another, and unsurprising, folkloric use of bears has been as bogeyman fig- ures to frighten both children and adults. One example derives from a trip that John Bell and family made from West River to in 1820. A local history records, "To cheer their journey through the woods the tree was pointed out that Alex Macquarrie climbed to escape from a bear and they were told how the bear climbed up after him and gnawed the flesh from his heels." This heel-gnawing of treed men, whom the bear often has pursued up the tree, is a recurrent story told of at least six Island men, and may indicate a traditional narrative theme. A clear example of the bear as bogeyman can be found in a Chelton man's recollection in a letter to the Guardian during the 1950s of "the tall stories I used to hear of bears and a bear's fondness for baby meat." In the One day two little urchins enjoyed a pleasant romp, Evangeline region, the belief existed among Acadians that whistling at- tracted bears. And in Albany, Prince County, area people were afraid to go down the Arnett Road after dark That night, when darkness covered this peaceful, quiet land, because bears were said to lurk there. Many years ago a young Scot from Fernwood was given a bear scare as a prank by his fellow wood-cutters. The knew that his mother was constantly admonishing him not to tear his trousers. So, a local history of the area records: "When Hughie would be work- ing in or walking through a particu- larly tangled area of brush, the cry would be raised, 'A bear! a bear!' Hughie would then make a dash for safety at And when the springtime visits this land and Bruin's lair, terrific speed — and with disastrous results." The bear was also employed as a Miss E. Macintosh frightening figure in games, as the fol- Belle River, 1902 lowing two examples attest. A bear game or prank occurred at the first tea From Hesta MacDonald, party in Crapaud: Belfast Historical Society After ten, we saw a bear crossing the . The big boys chased it with sticks into the woods and bared it, and it turned out to be George Palmer dressed in buffalo

30 Place and Person Names Me the Tales. Another family, the "Bear" Hughes of Dromore, has carried the Bears have made a remarkable imprint name for several generations. The name on Island place names; but, because is traced to an Irish-born ancestor, who many names have been changed or was "probably a little cross." The nick- forgotten, their number has gone name "Rory the Bear" seems especially unnoticed. The great majority of these appropriate. One man that bore it was place names are from Kings County, a former rector of St. Dunstan's Uni- where the animal itself has been most versity, Father R. V. MacKenzie. He persistent. was called "Rory the Bear" because, as The first such name that will occur to a contemporary recalls, he was "slightly many is Cape Bear, Lot 64, a transla- ferocious." tion of the French "Cap a l'Ours," Sometimes a bearish nickname de- which dates from the mid-18th century. rived from an incident rather than a At that time, nearby Murray Harbour resemblance. Many years ago, a woman was known as "Havre l'Ours." Another living on the Baltic Road (between name that comes quickly to mind is Priest Pond and Red Point in Eastern Bear River, a community as well as a Kings) was out stooking grain, with river (and, at one time, the name of a her infant daughter in a basket. A bear post office and railroad waystation) in grabbed the child, which was mauled Lots 43 and 44. In explaining the origin before it could be recovered. It is said of this name, geographer Alan Ray- that the child was thereafter known This bearish mailbox reminds passers- burn writes, "It is reported that Roder- (in Highland Gaelic) as "the bear's by on the outskirts of Montague that ick MacDonald killed a 600 pound bear leavings." the black bear may be gone from Prince there about 1820 after a four-hour fight." Edward Island, but he is not forgotten. Among the Island place-names used by the Micmac is another "bear river" Conclusion {Mooinawaseboo), today's Belle River. robes. He was running on all The Micmac name for Gillis Point Times change. A recently-heard refer- fours. The poor fellow was done translates as "bear trapping" (Moin- ence to "bear bait" stemmed from the out and he laid [sic] down pant- agenetjg). In Eastern Kings, on the American term "Smokey the Bear," ing. A man got some pound cake North Side, the bear-related name of meaning a highway patrolman. An and fed him. Timothy's Bush has been noted. On the Island bus driver used the term "bear South Side are Basin Head, formerly bait" as a sports car passed him at high Of this incident, one can only observe called Bear Creek, and Black Pond speed. The driver explained that if that it is a long way from pound bounty (Loch Dhu in the original Gaelic). At there was radar ahead the sports car to pound cake. the outlet of Black Pond is a large would hit it, and so we could drive a bit A game called "Bear Won't Come" — boulder named Bear Rock, after a bear faster if we wished. a version of "Hide and Seek" — was that was found sheltering there by a As for homegrown bears, well, no played at Cape Traverse school around girl herding cows. The former name of one's caught a rug since the Leslie the turn of the century. It was played a fishing station at that location, "La brothers in '27. Since then, there have near some bush where one child ("the Bear," may derive from the same been many reported sightings all over bear") was hiding. The other children, incident. A local history of the area Kings County: at Ashton, east of St. simulating many real encounters, pre- relates, "The story went that a Perry Peters, in August 1937; at Avondale tended to be picking berries nearby. from Souris shot a big bear at Loch and Keefe's Lake in the fall of 1949; The bear would attack from cover and Dhu . . . . (These bears, of course, are around Dundas, "at least four times" try to catch some unfortunate. The never described as medium-sized or between 1953 and 1956; at North Lake game was played until only one child, small.) Not far away, in the Boughton in the early summer of 1958; at the the winner, had escaped the bear. Thus, River area, was "Bear Trap Road." Anderson Farm near St. Peters Lake perhaps, did the young mimic the fears Other localized place-names are Bear around 1962; and (reported by tobacco of their parents. Swamp near Freetown, in Lot 25, and pickers) at Commercial Cross in the A final example of the bear as bogey- Bear Spring in Glen Valley, west of mid-1970s. None of these sightings has man occurred about 25 years ago, when Hunter River. The latter name has been confirmed, but the reports refuse a Burnt Point man promoted a bear fallen into disuse since the spring has to die out. Once all too real a part of story in to keep people out of his been dry for many years. Island life, the bear continues to have corn. The rumour started when his As the foregoing list suggests, the an afterlife in the memory and the neighbour's big dog scared a horse, appearance of a bear in the neighbour- imagination. and someone mistook the dog for a hood was a landmarking event. Any bear. The man heard about a "Burnt tree that was involved in a bear story Sources Point bear" being abroad. "I didn't tell was an object of local curiosity (as has them there wasn't," he later recalled. been shown) for years after, especially Source materials for "Bear Facts" are "It was surprising all the people seen if claw-marks could still be seen on it. too numerous to list individually, but that bear." The story grew when he The bear's man-like qualities have include Island newspapers spanning told a visitor that the bear was "always led to its use in nicknames that empha- the last two centuries, as well as local out in the corn." Finally, a lamb that size some men's bear-like qualities. In histories. Some of the living oral tradi- had been buried was dug up by some the provincial archives, for example, tion was collected from personal con- dogs. "I said the bear dug it up." By there is an 1832 reference to an old tacts and interviews. this time the story was big enough to Donald "Bear" MacDonald, and during The author wishes to thank the many keep human predators from this man's the 1970s, the "Bear" MacDonald clan people across the Island who assisted corn for quite a while. was mentioned by Walter Shaw in Tell in the project. iSi

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