Early Days in the Forest Service Volume 4

TRUE, MISCHIEVOUS, AND DESTRUCTIVE BEAR FACTS
By Leon L. Lake

I was transferred to the Kootenai National Forest in December 1938 and stationed at Warland until Mach 1945. However the first winter I worked in the Supervisor's office where Karl Klehm was the Supervisor. My job was compiling Work Project Inventories for the entire Forest. In the spring of 1939 I moved to the Warland Ranger Station. In my sojourn on the Warland District, I became acquainted with a good many new problems.

Lincoln County embraces the largest portion of the Kootenai National Forest and within this big area of 2,354,993 acres there was an estimated total of 1,000 black, brown and grizzly bears; besides oodles of White tail and mule deer, elk, moose, mountain sheep and mountain goats in the Cabinet range.

This story refers mainly to black bear troubles. They had become quite a problem in some ways and somewhat destructive in others. They were mischievous, inquisitive and adorned with a ravenous appetite for sweets, bacon and garbage. They loved to mutilate the big signs by tearing down or biting big chunks out of them. They also loved to break into a cabin or lookout station and leave it looking like one of Hitler's bombs had just exploded but this seemed to be good pastime for those kingpins of the Forest.

Once while riding over trail inspection, I ran into five bear in one day and quite often I usually saw one or two.

One day after the 1940 fire season ended with a big rain in August my wife and I took half a day and went huckleberrying up toward Banfield Mountain. It was getting late evening and we were about ready to go home when all at once the dog barked and out came a black bear. I sicked the dog on the bear and he went up an old snag; took a big look at the dog and down he came after him. I went to the car after my six-shooter and a camera. Back came the bear so I said sic him again but the dog had to have considerable backing so the bear went up a tree only a few feet and came down after the dog and barely missed him with his paw. Then he stopped to take a look at me only about 10 feet away with a rock in my hand. I heaved it at the bear's head, and lo, a bulls eye. It stunned the bear and he raised his paw and rubbed his head and when the daze wore off he ducked and lit out for parts unknown. Afterwards it dawned on me that I could have gotten into serious trouble with that bear.

Another bear depredation incident occurred after my packer and his seven mules returned home from work on another big fire. He had been gong night and day so after a day or two resting up we sent him up to Lawrence Mountain to pick up a tent camp, which had been vacated for ten days or two weeks. Upon arriving everything was O.K. so he went on to Parsnip Mountain to pick up the excess supplies and inventory the balance and close the shutters. Arriving back at Lawrence Mountain after dark he found that a big bear had made two exits into the tent and tore everything to pieces, what few food supplies that were left were scattered all over the bed, the stove torn down, the gasoline lantern smashed up. In fact things were in a terrible mess but he managed to crawl into some bed sheets without supper and in the morning he tried to find something to eat, load up his mules and hit the trail. Lawrence Mountain was an emergency point with no tower, the camp being one-half mile away from the peak.

In 1940 for about two weeks in July we had a bad fire season. Dry lightning storms hit both day and night. All of my district men were out on fires and there was scarcely any sleep or rest during this period. The Kootenai Forest had about 450 fires the most of which were during this period. One district joining mine had 150 fires, with several Class C's over 300 acres in extent, yet the fire danger was low and only a few lookouts manned. Fires weren't supposed to spread but they did. The Forest had 150 burning all at the same time. Consequently labor had to be shipped in from Minneapolis and Seattle to man the bigger fires on several districts. Well, a fire had been reported by a distant lookout so I started for it with two CCC boys following and I would pick up an old woodsman en route. This fire was across my district boundary, but the Raven District was unable to send any men as they were swamped.

Now an unmanned Lookout called Sugarloaf was on the district boundary and I could see the smoke from this point so I tied up my horse and went inside but, behold, a big bear had made a big exit on one side, tore up everything inside except the fire finder and went out on the other side. Luckily I could get a reading on my smoke and thence ran a compass line to my fire, blazed a line back down to the trail and there were my men. After getting the fire under control I went for water for the men and then on to Boundary Mountain Emergency Lookout Station where I arrived about 1 a.m. in the morning. From this point it looked like the City of Butte all around and north into Canada.

After checking in with my Dispatcher, I pulled out for another fire located in the head of Cripple Horse Creek where the Warland Peak Lookout man had been gone to it for two days. It was under Weigal Mountain Lookout. This man, Rex Fleming by name, had held that one-acre fire alone but was nearly starved as his rations were all gone. I tried to get a phone call through the Weigal Mtn. Lookout but lightning had burned out the phone so I rode back to Boundary Station and ordered more men and the packer to come in with supplies. He had just got in to headquarters from other fires. Well, he made those 17 miles up the trail in the night to our fire with more men on the way. Rex Fleming was sent back to the Warland Peak to take over, and relieve an emergency man sent up by the Dispatcher.

Now to get back to Warland Peak Lookout, the CCC's and a foreman had built a new quarters on 12 ft. tower legs and in July I went up there to wire in a telephone. The Lookout man, Rex Fleming, was helping as necessary, when all at once we looked up and saw a black bear packing away our saddle blankets and pack bags. Well, we ran him down to a point where he dropped everything and we carried everything back and placed them inside the new quarters. I resumed my job and then heard the garbage cans rattling and there was that bear again. I told the Lookout man that I would like to get his picture so he went after some hot cakes and threw them at the bear and believe me he would catch them with his paw as if he were trained. Well, all I had was a 120 Brownie Kodak with me so we had to herd the bear around in sunlight and I would try to get as close as possible to snap a picture. I was about fifteen feet away from this big bear and snapped a picture and then tried to get a little closer when all at once he suddenly stopped, looked my way, opened up his mouth and brought his right paw around towards me as he bawled out Woof-WOOF. Mr. Fleming yelled out did I have enough pictures and I said, "you bet I have," as I tried to recover from the shock and flatten down my hair.

When we sent the Warland Peak Lookout man to that Cripple Horse fire we located a qualified emergency man at Rexford so he was sent up to take over. So many fires going we overlooked telling the new man about that pesky bear. The observation tower is 100 feet high about 30 feet from the new quarters. The new man looked down there towards his quarters one day and there was that miserable black bear taking a bath in his wash tub. Well of all things that would raise one's ire that was it. Water had to be packed in 5-gallon man packs for about three-fourths of a mile and any reserve for laundry or bath was placed in the washtub on the north side of the cat walk. The new lookout man had forgotten to close the door to his stairway, but he scared the bear out.

When the regular Lookout man came back they exchanged talk about that pesky bear. Well, Mr. Fleming decided that he wouldn't get up into his quarters while he was there. Those years, bear were on the protection list until the hunting season opened. One day Fleming looked down toward his quarters and saw his garbage can turned over from where it sat in a corner of the railing, so he went down at once and raised the stairway trap door and looked in the cabin and there was that big bear on the table helping himself to sugar, syrup, milk and other canned goods. Well of all things and what table manners: Fleming opened up the door and yelled at the bear you get out of there you d—n bear as he took down his six-shooter. Well the bear pranced around the room with his paws hunting the exit where he came in, leaving footprints on all the windows. He finally found where Fleming forgot to close the sliding window and he jumped about fourteen feet to the ground as the Lookout man bounced a few bullets off the rocks near his anatomy. That bear never returned after that.