Cup of Blessings

Some of you who know me really well, know about my "connection" to bears.  I have always had a fascination as well as an intense fear of these creatures.  Since childhood I have had bear dreams.  Usually that there is a bear and I'm in it's presence but I'm never hurt.  I was told once by an Anishinabe (Ojibwe) medicine man that this is my spirit sign.  Makes sense.

So lately I've been on this kick of reading bear stories.  Not the Three Bears.  Much worse.  It all started when I ordered a book I had read years ago while visiting Glacier Park.  'Night of the Grizzlies' by John Muir is about the deaths of two women in Glacier National Park in August 1967.  It was bad, a situation that should have been avoided.  So after reading this a coworker was talking about her same fascination with bears and recommended a book.  It was The Bear's Embrace by Patricia Von Tighem.

This book details the author's mauling by a grizzly while hiking with her husband and the ensuing years of multiple surgeries, infections and post tramatic stress disorder brought on by the attack.  A really sad story and I found out after that she eventually did commit suicide.  I could feel for her pain.

I've also finished another book 'Bear Attacks of the Twentieth Century' which reinforces my feelings that I should NEVER hike in grizzly country.

While grizzly attacks are more commonly known even worse, I think, is a black bear attack.  Often when a black bear does attack it is to kill, not just to disable like a grizzly.  Further reading states that while a sow with cubs should be given a wide berth, male lone black bears are more prone to attack and kill!  Climbing trees won't save you.

Got the chills, yet?  I plan to take my daughters camping in Itasca State Park this weekend.  It's where the headwaters to the Mississippi River are and it's a pretty cool place.  We have never camped and Aliyah has been begging me to go.  I was worried initially that they wouldn't like it once it got dark, now I'm wondering about myself!  I think I've freaked myself out with all this reading!  Ahhhhhhhh!

If you want a good rush read one or more of these books.