George’s Bear

By A. Sayward Lamb

This story begins in November of 1966, when my two sons, Jim, Ron, and I, went deer hunting beside Route 26, in South Woodstock, Maine. At that time I had an old, four-cylinder Jeep, pick-up truck. We left it parked in front of the Union Church, now used as a community building, at Andrews turn, while we hunted a place we called: “Guysie’s Strip”. It did not take us very long to hunt out that area, and when we got back to the Jeep, we found a note attached to our windshield. It read: “George would like you to bring your truck up to the “Woody” Benson place”. It was simply signed: “Alta”.

We knew the note was written by Alta Waterhouse, and George was her husband. They lived in Perkins Valley, in South Woodstock, and their home was right next to the entrance to the Commons road. My oldest son, Jim, was a classmate of their son, Alan, and the boys were very good friends.. I have known Alta and George for many years. I also knew exactly the place where George would be waiting for us, even though the note said only: “Woody” Benson place.

George had a favorite “stand” up on the top of that knoll, and I had seen him sitting there watching for deer, several times, over the many years that I have hunted that country. Anyway, with our note in hand, we piled into the Jeep and headed up the Perkins Valley road, bound for the “Woody” Benson place. We stopped by at the Waterhouse residence on the way, to see if Alta was home. No one answered our knocks, so we locked the Jeep into four-wheel drive and headed up the Commons road. We came to the junction of the road leading to the “Woody” Benson place, and turned right and headed easterly up that road. We had to travel slowly here because this was nothing more than an old logging road, grown in with heavy brush, that rubbed along the sides of the truck, as we moved along. The roadway itself was badly rutted and washed out in several places, but it was passable with our four-wheel drive engaged.

We were doing just fine until we got about two-thirds of the way to our destination, which was the opening, in some grown up fields, adjacent to the cellar hole where the farm used to be, many years ago. I started through a wet spot, but did not realize how wet it was, until my front wheels became mired in the mud. Fortunately, I had eased into that spot very slowly, so the rear wheels sank in very little. Rather than “bury” myself any deeper, I stopped where I was. I told the boys to go on ahead up to where we expected George to be. I stayed and got the Jeep backed out onto firm ground by throwing rocks and brush into the ruts. It took a while, but “Bluebird” did come out under its own power, so I turned the truck around and got ready to take a hike and meet up with the rest of them.

We thought George probably had shot a very large buck, and needed the truck to get it back down to his house. The ground was still bare, so dragging a big buck would be a difficult job for one person. I had hardly finished getting the truck out of the mud hole when I heard voices coming from up ahead, in the road. I looked up that way and saw Alan Waterhouse, along with Jim and Ron, dragging a bear behind them. Those young fellows had worked themselves up to a hard sweat, by the time they got to the truck. The bear was not a large one, and my guess was that it might weigh in the vicinity of 150 pounds, field dressed. The boys told me the bear dragged easily, as long as they kept it coming directly behind them. Their problem though, was to keep it in that position. It was so fat, or as they described it, “roly-poly”, that it was impossible to keep the bear from rolling into any sort of depression in the ground. It also caught up on trees, shrubs, brush, rocks, and other obstacles, as they pulled it through the woods. Many times they had to stop and pull it away from some obstruction. No doubt, it was hard work, even for those young fellows.

I think George was smart to get help. He probably knew about characteristics that made a bear roll around on the ground like a “bowl full of jelly”. When I saw George, he was walking along behind the bear, carrying the rifle in his arms. He had the easy way out! It was lucky Alta found our Jeep pick-up, and left the message, because it made a much shorter drag to get the bear home.

Of course we were all anxious to hear the details of how George shot the bear. After we congratulated him, George told us this story. “It happened fast. I was sitting by the deer crossing, and first thing I knew I saw a bear coming directly at me, right up close. I don’t think he was twenty feet away when I shot it. I had to shoot to defend myself!”

We all grabbed hold of the bear as best we could, and loaded it into the back of the pick-up truck. George sat in front with me, while the boys sat in back with the bear, and we slowly headed back down the old road, to George’s house, where we helped to hang the bear up in a tree. George offered to pay me for our troubles, but of course I refused. We were more than glad to help, and I’m sure the boys enjoyed the experience of helping drag the bear out of the woods, even if it was hard work. They told me later they were glad it wasn’t any bigger.

A few days later, Alta Waterhouse stopped by at our house in West Paris, and left a big piece of bear meat. I had never tasted bear meat, so I was anxious to try some. My wife, Cynthia, had some reservations about eating it. I sliced off some good looking steaks, and fried enough for the whole family. We had potatoes, fried onions, bear steak, and other good “fixings”. How did we like it? On the whole, I would say, “Fine!” The grain of the meat was somewhat coarser than venison, or beef. It also had a different odor when it was cooking. I believe this is what turned Cynthia “off”, because she says she would not care to eat any more bear meat. I called it good, and I believe I would enjoy eating bear meat anytime, especially if it came from a young bear, such as the one George shot.