I’ve added a scary Camp Phoenix story of an encounter with mating bears, to this column I posted last week, plus three photos of the sow that swam across the lake with two cubs and came ashore right in front of us.
The bear almost trampled me!
Our camp on Sourdnahunk Lake on the edge of Baxter Park is the best thing Linda and I ever purchased. Our kids grew up here and our grandchildren are now enjoying the camp, which is part of an old sporting camp, Camp Phoenix.
Reading through our camp journal recently, I decided there are a lot of good stories to be shared, so today I’m starting to write those in a new series I’ll call True Tales of Camp Phoenix. And yes, these are all true!
Today, we’ll start with bear tales
Walking Baxter Park’s perimeter road one morning, I noticed a big black bear coming up through the woods, headed my way. I watched him for a bit, then decided he was going to cross the road about 20 yards from me so I backed up and picked up a rock.
Well, when the bear got near the road, he turned and headed my way, just inside the roadside brush. It happened so fast that he was only about 20 feet from me when I shouted out to him. Luckily, he looked my way, swiveled around, and took off back into the woods.
Kids and Bears
Linda and I were walking our camp driveway one time with our young kids, and saw a bear coming down the driveway towards us. The bear stopped, glanced our way, then turned to its left and entered the woods.
We could hear the bear walking our way, through the woods. It went by us and re-entered the driveway about 200 feet behind us, sauntering on its way. The kids got quite a kick out of it.
The County is pleased to feature content from our sister company, Bangor Daily News. To read the rest of “A Scary Encounter With Mating Bears,” an article by contributing writer George Smith, please follow this link to the BDN online.
