Letters from Muskoka

by Mrs. Charles Gerrard King

I whispered to my husband that I saw the green top of the tree moving, and that I had better get off with the baby for fear of the pony starting and throwing us off. He took me down, and we stepped across the tree, dragging the pony after us with the greatest difficulty; hardly had we got to the other side when from the bushy head of the tree out walked a great brown bear, who certainly looked very much astonished at our little party.

We were terribly frightened, expecting him to attack the pony, but he stood quite still. We thought it better to move on, slowly at first, and afterwards more quickly as we got nearer home. He followed us for more than a mile, indeed till we were quite in sight of our own door, then finding himself near a human habitation he gave one fearful growl before gliding off into the forest, and we lost sight of him.

When we were safely housed, and the poor pony well fed and locked into his little shed, I felt nearly dead with terror and fatigue.

My next interview with Bruin was in a buggy, three years afterwards, in which I was being driven homeward by my husband. This time we had two children with us, and had been to a considerable distance to purchase articles at a newly-established store, which could not be procured nearer. We were more than six miles from home, when the pony (the same mentioned before) began to be greatly agitated, refused to go on, then tried to start off, and gave loud snorts of distress.

My husband got out and stood at the pony’s head, holding him firmly to prevent his starting. The light was very dim in the shade of the Bush, but we both saw something large creeping along the edge of the forest next to where my husband stood; he had no weapon with him but his woodman’s knife and a thick stake picked up from the roadside. Presently a bear came slowly out of the forest, and advanced into the middle of the road at some distance from us, as if preparing for fight. I was terribly frightened, but my husband stood quite still, holding in the horse, but keeping in full view the bear, knowing what a terror they have of man.

After steadily looking at each other for at least five minutes—minutes of suspense and agony to us, Bruin evidently understood the difficulties of his position, and quietly slunk away into the Bush on the other side of the road; and we were glad to get home in safety.

At another time, I had a visit from a lynx; but as I certainly invited him myself, I could not be surprised at his coming as he did, almost close to my cottage door. My husband had been gone for two days on important business to a village a long way off, and on this particular evening I fully expected him home.

We were living in quite a small shanty till we could build a larger house; it had a fireplace on the floor, and an open chimney; the room was very low, and easy of access from the outside. I was living then with my three little children and a young sister of fourteen who helped me to take care of them. As it was getting dusk I thought I heard a human voice distinctly calling from the forest, “Hallo!” I went to the door and immediately answered in the same tone, “Hallo!” making sure that it was my husband, who finding the track very faint from the gloom of the forest, wanted our voices to guide him right. The voice replied to me. I hallooed again, and this went on for some minutes, the sound drawing nearer and nearer, till at length advancing from the edge of the forest, not my husband, but a good-sized lynx, attracted by my answering call, stood quite in front of the cottage—nothing more than the width of a broad road between us and it.

The children, most fortunately, were playing inside, but my sister and myself distinctly saw the eyes of the creature like globes of fire, and in the stillness of the evening we could hear its teeth gnashing as if with anxiety to attack us. Fortunately, through the open door of the shanty the savage animal could see the blazing fire on the hearth, and came no nearer.