"UNCLE BEAR"
Mother Black Bear Relaxing with Cubs
While the sun rises on an early summer morning in northern Minnesota woodlands, seventy or so black bears awaken and prepare, as though programmed, to meet visitors. All of them whether big, small, old, young, male, female, parent, or cub gather in an open meadow just like livestock returning to their barns for grain. By six A.M., volunteers leave the cabin where they spend their nights. They carry buckets of food for the bears who return to the woodlands until the evening meal. Visitors may not enter the woodlands.
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| Mealtime at Shute's cabin |
It takes a two-hour-drive from Duluth to reach Orr. But only thirty minutes are needed to reach the sanctuary from Voyageurs National Park in International Falls. Hundreds of visitors drive to watch the bears during limited hours between Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day. The access road to the sanctuary itself is closed during much of each day to protect the animals.
The "wildness" of the bears is preserved as much as possible. Although indiscriminate feeding by visitors and others may unfit bears for life in the wild, the sanctuary provides food such as corn under controlled circumstances where animal behavior can be observed in reasonable safety. Another goal is to counteract the stereotype that black bears are dangerous and troublesome to human beings. But like Vince Shute the sanctuary appreciates bears as loveable creatures. Some years ago I heard about his work with bears. Unfortunately, Shute was no longer alive when I made my first trip to see the bears at his sanctuary.
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| Hungry Cub |
The Minnesota-born Shute worked as a logger cutting trees with his work crew in the forests around Orr. In 1941 he built a small cabin as his bachelor quarters near the meadow where bears now meet. Like other residents Shute both disliked the bears for ransacking his cabin to seek food, and also was ready to shoot them. Then in the 1950s he started to leave food for them outside the cabin and ended their intrusions. Eventually, he concluded: "Bears are not mean animals. They are just hungry." By the 1990s he was feeding about eighty bears.
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| "Burt" |
One day an injured bear appeared. Some one had shot him. Shute nursed him with aspirin and chicken soup. The bear recovered and was known as "Brownie." Whenever Shute took a nap, the bear flung a protective arm around him. They became the best of friends. Neighbors heard about them and spoke of their local celebrity as "Uncle Bear."
Reaching his eightieth year and facing ill-health, Shute worried about the future of "his" bears. He agonized that people might not be as understanding of them as he had been. In 1994 he discussed these concerns with a wildlife photographer Bill Lee and his wife Klari. The couple shared them and agreed to promote the establishment of the American Bear Association. The Association assumed responsibility for the sanctuary, combining Shute's land with adjacent tracts. That year the sanctuary was named in his honor. Shute had to enter a nursing home.
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| Young Cubs |
The Association relies heavily on volunteers to assist its staff in maintaining the sanctuary. It retains the exposed meadow where Shute fed his bears. Evergreens and other trees surround the meadow which has a new cabin for volunteers and an observation platform for bear watching. The Association has expanded its educational activities in publicizing the need to ensure the wildness of bears. Its staff must devote time to such matters as parking by visitors who follow a narrow dirt road to the sanctuary. And staff must teach bear etiquette to photographers. Occasionally, interns and other young scholars need assistance in their research pursuits. Despite the limitations and responsibilities, Klari Lee is pleased with the enthusiastic visitors: "When I see them happy, I forget my fatigue." But the need remains for more volunteers and donations to pursue the vision of Vince Shute.
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| Vince Shute 1914-2000 |
On July 4, 2000 Vince Shute died at the age of eighty six. It is said that on that day the bears seemed to realize that something sad had happened as they came out of the forest in large numbers passing by his cabin home on the rim of their meadow. Shute was cremated and his ashes were buried in the forest around the meadow. He had returned to his bear friends. It is probable that some friends are descendants of Bert and others whom Shute befriended many years ago. Bert is still alive and gorges himself eating so much in the summertime that, when he hibernates in autumn, his belly seems to touch the ground. Likewise, during summers, new generations of cubs grow up and play with their nursing mothers in the quietude of the sanctuary until all, too, hibernate in the forest. When autumn winds reach the sanctuary, the bear season is almost over for another year.
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The American Bear Association P.O.Box 77, Orr, Minnesota 55771 Phone: 218-757-0172 bears@rangenet.com |