a good long nap

Shh. They’re still asleep.

At least that’s what they tell me. Hibernating bears are getting a good long nap this year. Nestled snug in their dens an adult bear can sleep in peace until the sun warms up their den, or the cubs wake her up. 

While sleeping through the winter might be attractive for some right now, the black bears of Algoma have been at it since the leaves fell from the trees. But during the cold months we tend to forget about the bears. I thought about them the other day as I photographed ice covered beach boulders. Some of them resembled slumbering bears. They reminded me that elsewhere there other piles of ice and snow which are hiding a bear - or three. 

Thinking about our slumbering friends sent me on a Google search. I found Peter Tyson’s December 2000 Bear Essentials of Hibernation on a Nova/PBS website. The site gave a lot of good information as pertinent today as it was a thousand years ago. Bruins prepare for over-wintering by gorging themselves on a carbohydrate-rich diet of berries and other foods. (BTW, according to these stats, for every person killed by a bear, 60 die from domestic dog attacks, 180 by beestings and 350 by lightning strikes.)

During this period, they can gain as much as 15 kg per week. In early autumn, a bear (and its cubs, if any) will rake leaves, twigs, and other plant materials into the den to form a nest. As the fall progresses, the bears get slower and slower until they get the message to quit moving altogether. At this point the bear begins a cocoon life in its burrow, cave, hollowed-out tree, or rock crevice. The entrance to the den is just large enough for the bear to squeeze through; interior chambers are a metre or two wide and almost a metre high. Our furry friend has to roll into one very tight ball to fit the space. 

In the early fall, the heart of a hibernating bear beats about 40 to 50 times a minute for most of each night. By December, when the bear is deep in hibernation, the heart rate can slow to as few as eight beats a minute. Fat breaks down to supply water and up to 4,000 calories a day; muscle and organ tissues break down to supply protein. Then they can restore that muscle and organ tissue, take nitrogen out of urea and build more new protein. Plus they don’t get cramps or suffer degenerative bone loss while they are rolled up for months at a time!

 Researchers would love to know their secrets. Folks can’t resist trying to find out how they manage to survive. Bears hold such mysteries. On the website, bear expert Lynn Rodgers recalls his encounter with a sleeping black bear: “On January 8, 1972, I tried to hear the heartbeat of a soundly sleeping five-year-old female by pressing my ear against her chest. I could hear nothing. Either the heart was beating so weakly that I could not hear it, or it was beating so slowly I didn't recognize it. After about two minutes, though, I suddenly heard a strong, rapid heartbeat. The bear was waking up. Within a few seconds she lifted her head as I tried to squeeze backward through the den entrance. Outside, I could still hear the heartbeat, which I timed (after checking to make sure it wasnt my own) at approximately 175 beats per minute.”

This confluence of beauty, terror and cuddliness of the bear flows through our culture. We fear bears and at the same time we adore them. Folks used to make pets of them, chaining them to a post when they got too big to handle and then taking pictures of them. Probably the most famous bear, ever, has been Winnie the Pooh. Most of us are familiar with the notoriety Winnie gave the town of White River. This is where the WW1 soldier Harry Colebourn bought the young cub in August of 1914 when his troop train stopped at that CPR town. The $20 bear cub became the darling of the London England zoo and the muse that filled A.A.Milne’s pen.

I’ve always had a pet theory about Winnie. I’d like to share it with you now. I think that his real name is Winnie Depew, named after Winnipeg Street in White River and the Depew trapper that sold the young cub to Colebourn. Check maps of the White River area and you will find the Depew River and maybe Depew junction. The family was famous in the area, probably more famous than anybody knows.

But for now I’ll not worry about names of bears or whereabouts of the hibernating ones. I’ll just dream about them in their cosy dens and let sleeping bears lie.