Driving away from my house a couple days ago, I scared a young black bear out of my neighbor’s apple tree. Jumping down to the lawn, he (or she) loped off into the close by woods in that silky distinctive manner of all bears.

Several years ago, the first post on my personal blog was The Streets of Fernie. A simple meditation on transportation in Fernie, it starts with the statement, “I live in a town where a skateboard is considered a reasonable and viable form of transportation.”

At the time I lived in Main Town and had for several years. The words in The Streets of Fernie were the truth of my daily experience.
About a year ago I moved to the fringes of town. A single house lies between my house and essentially undisturbed woods. In my new daily routine, I encounter more bears on my little dead end street than skateboarders. About a month ago the difference really hit home, so it’s time to take that week of a month ago and redefine the truth of the day.

The change in perception came mid-week and abruptly. I was sitting in my living room reading early in the morning. The sun just broke the ridge above Coal Creek filling the valley with a soft direct light. I glanced up and saw a coyote moving down the grassy hill across the street from my house. My neighbor across the street has been building terraces for a large garden, but the part of his land closest to mine remains in tall grass and occasionally he brings n a few cows with calves to graze. A metal stock fence separates the new garden area from the pasture.

The coyote trotted down the hill, single-minded moving through the tall grass, not looking either way, simply looking directly ahead and moving fast just this side of the steel stock fences my neighbor set up before bringing his cattle back.
This was on a Wednesday.

The prior weekend a small black bear raided the neighbor’s garbage. They tend to leave their garbage bins in a carport on the forest side of the house. The scent of fresh garbage pulled this bear out of the woods. My neighbors threw rocks, yelled, tried to get their dog to chase the bear (not a chance, Buck-o) and eventually managed to scare it back into the woods.

A couple mornings later, Monday, I was making coffee early in the morning and looked out the kitchen window. In the half light, a few minutes before the sun broke the ridge, I watched a three or four year old moose casually walk through the field behind my house, up the hill, down my driveway and across the road. No “Howdy”. Simply an ambling moose early in the morning, no doubt looking for that first cup of coffee same as me.. He never glanced one way or the other, just wandered on through.

And then Wednesday there was the coyote.

Coyotes are wonderful. Every time I see one I think back to one spring in Jackson Hole. My place was directly across the highway from the National Elk Refuge. A friend from school was visiting. She’d grown up in Pasadena (essentially Los Angeles) and was looking for some color for her writing. I invited her out to spend spring break with me in Jackson. One morning the second week, we walked out the front door to four or five winter mangy-looking coyotes who overnight hauled a calf elk across the highway and got it stuck on the barbed wire fence 30 feet or so from my door. They were protective of their meal. Michelle found more color than she expected. We kept going for huevos in town.

About 2 o’clock the day after the coyote strode through the pasture, my cat bolted through the open front door and jumped onto the windowsill. She gazed intently down the street. I heard a truck came up the road, turn around and go back down the road. I heard a door slam. Then very close together, two shots.

Bang. Bang.

The next day I ran into one of the CO’s. “I shot a cougar a couple doors down from your place the other day. It was lying under a tree and didn’t even move as I walked up to it.”

Bang. Bang, There goes the neighborhood.

After my little talk about animals on the loose with the CO, I thought to myself, It’s been a week of wild animals. I wonder what’s next?

The bookend. Bear to Bear.

On Saturday the word filtered through town a grizzly mauled two men up on Proctor. Keith and his buddy provided the perfect bookend to a week of wild things roaming in Fernie.

And none of them were on a skateboard.

As the fall progresses and the bears drop into town seeking easy forage, keep it inside. Take your apples down. Put your garbage out the morning of collection. And remember, we are still the guests in these mountains. Others lived here long before us and we should respect them and give them space.

They will do the same.