Ole Blue

While on vacation in northern Wisconsin, we encountered a bear for the first time at the cabins in Eagle River. For years, my grandpa always told us that bears hung out at the town dump, so we always thought that that's the only place bears were in that area. Apparently, the dumps are closed and the bears have discovered campgrounds and cabins.

Here's what happened! On the second night of our vacation, my cousin, Stephanie was in her cabin working in the kitchen around 9:30pm. She heard some rustling outside, but thought nothing of it. Raccoons often get into the garbage, but leave only a mess to clean up. She looked outside and saw a large black figure. Since it was close to being dark, she wasn't entirely sure.

Nate drove in late that night, since he had to preach on Sunday. I was waiting for him at our cabin. When we got in, we went over to my cousins' cabin. Not five minutes later, Ole Blue appeared. (Ole Blue is the name we gave our bear friend). We heard this loud crashing,which was Ole Blue knocking down the garbage cans. After waking up all the adults in the cabin and peering at the bear out the window who was literally 5 feet from us, my cousin, Sean grabbed his gun and went outside with Nate. They Ole Blue was about ten feet away by this time eating some of the garbage. He didn't seem to be bothered by them at all and just sat there eating his meal. Sean hollered to try to get him to go away, but nothing worked. He finally ran into the woods after a few gunshots in the ground.

Of course, we were nervous about the bear the whole week. We constantly were running to the window, looking for Ole Blue. We didn't want him to come back, but at the same time, it was exciting to see a 500 lb black bear standing in front of you.

He made one more appearance late in the week. He was walking by the lake by our cabin when some boys spotted him and started yelling. Ole Blue didn't harm anyone, but those boys stayed in their boat on the lake until he was gone.

We were pretty freaked out by seeing a black bear, but we came to learn that they are common where we were. It seems that they are used to people and are only interested in old trash.

Ole Blue sure gave us some excitement in Eagle River!