Stories that have taken place with my friends keep drifting through my head from time to time and so I will recount this funny one that Walter Demoskoff told me.

Walter was a Logger that took him away from his family. He would leave Sunday night to return the Friday afternoon.

This particular Friday in midsummer was very hot. Walter liked cold beer and so he arrived home and took his beer down the basement to relax. He had no air conditioning and decided to strip right down to cool off.

His children ran into the house, screaming “a bear, a bear is in our yard, Dad something!”

So Walter ran up the stairs and grabbed an axe that was just in the porch. As he said after, “I had no idea what to expect and my immediate reaction was that I should have something to protect myself.”

“Where is the bear?” he called out to his children.

“Out by the Baunya” they pointed in that direction.

He admitted that it may have been a fool thing to do but at the time I was thinking of my family’s safety and off he went to the Baunya.

” I was coming around one end of the Baunya and the bear was coming from the other end and we were both were surprised to meet. I hollered while raising my axe as I was going to retreat. The bear obviously never saw a naked man with an axe before and we both retreated to opposite ends,” Walter recalled.

” I recovered slightly and decide to go to house not realizing that the bear was going the same direction as my dog Jeb started barking and scared the bear up a tree. I decided that the cold beer was waiting for me and cautioned the children to stay back and let the bear escape and went back to my beer.”

“Jeb thought that it was his responsibility to guard the yard and sat on his haunches to bark at bear. This carried on into the night making sleep an impossibility. Jeb barked until he went hoarse and I thought that would be the end of it.”

“Bill Voykin’s dog came from next door to continue the vigil and barking”

“At early dawn, I sleepily took my chainsaw from the back of my pickup and decide to fall the tree so the bear could get away. I neglected to do my normal looksee and sure enough, the tree fell on another and became a ‘leaner'”

“So I proceeded to fall the other tree and both fell downhill away from my house. The trees were about 60 feet high and so as the bear crawled out from the branches, he looked back at me and I swear he waved with his front paw as if to thank me and say goodbye.”

“I automatically waved back and watched him walk away.”

And so this is a story about my friend Walter and a bear.

Walter and his good wife Ann are both deceased now.

The incident happened about 1975.

Written by Elmer Verigin December 03, 2018