We've reached White River and set camp in the public park here near the impressive Winnie The Pooh sculpture.
According to local legend, a Canadian Army Captain, on his way to the First World War, stopped in town and bought a black bear cub from a local trapper for 20 dollars. 'Winnie' was named after the Captain's home town of Winnipeg. The two travelled to england where Winnie stayed at the London Zoo while the Captain went off to war in Europe. After the war, the Captain donated Winnie to the zoo because Winnie was so popular. The children's writer, A.A. Milne would visit Winnie at the zoo with his son, Christopher Robin. Milne wrote books with Winnie The Pooh as an important character and has charmed children and adults ever since.
White River (about 90 km west of Wawa) has a population of 1000 people and is smack dab in the middle of bear country. I suppose it's a bit of a no-no to hunt bears with Winnie's legend in the air and the many related tourist gift shops in town. It's a pleasant and peaceful town.
Many people have stopped to warn us that we should hoist our food in bags by rope up a tree so the bears don't come by our camp tonight. That's what we did last night in MArathon and that's what we'll do tonight, by golly. Even though an elder native told us the bears wouldn't bother us, I don't want to take any chances.
They caught two bears in town last night. They like to hang out across the road, appearently, at the Robin's Donut shop and feast on the castoffs. Hope people don't actually feed the bears donuts because they think they're cute. Don't feed the bears!
Tomorrow we hope to reach Wawa. I hope we do - if the chain doesn't break (twice yesterday) or some other mechanical failure. Oh, and it's moose country too!
End Ship's Log entry...
-- Major Dude
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network
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