Date: 2017-12-19
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Dorothy: Do ¢ do you suppose we'll meet any wild animals?   Tin Man: We might.   Dorothy: Oh!   Scarecrow: Animals that ¢ that eat straw?   Tin Man: Uh, some. But mostly lions and tigers and bears.   Dorothy: Lions?   Scarecrow: And tigers?   Tin Man: [nodding] And bears.   Dorothy: Oh! Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!In Colonial America, especially in Puritan New England, there were two great fears: Indians and the Devil. The Wilderness was the natural habitat of the devil, and it was also where the Indians lived. The two were obviously in league, along with their minions, the mountain lions, wolves, and bears. There were no tigers. The duty of the good Christian settlers was clear: The woods must be chopped down and the Indians not vanquished through disease must be civilized, made aware of their sinfulness, and be baptized into the White Christ. Where wilderness existed, a garden should be made.Somehow growing up, I missed out on the lesson that the woods were evil and to be feared. The first place I remember living was a Levittown-type suburb in Baltimore, Maryland. The woods began a block away, and a path through the woods was the quickest way to school. The woods were my safe place. Whenever I was forced to go outside ¢to play,¢ the woods were where I went. I thought the woods went on forever and was somehow related to Winnie the Pooh¢s Hundred Acre Wood.  I searched diligently, but I never found Pooh Bear¢s house. I did find where the jack-in-the-pulpits and other wildflowers bloomed each spring, and without meaning to, where the poison ivy and oak grew most lushly.  The creatures of the woods were my friends, and I always felt bad when they ran from me. We moved away when I was 11 years old to places without woods, but whenever I step foot into the forest that feeling of safety and homecoming returns.  There are animals in the forest that can eat me or at least steal my food. I know that, and perhaps I should be more afraid of them, but I¢m not. Mountain lions, to the extent that they exist in the Eastern United States, are rare. A South Dakota mountain lion wandered more than 1,500 miles eastward only to be killed on a Connecticut highway in June 2011. A remnant population remains in Florida. Coming back from an overnight hike in Myakka River State Park near where I lived in Florida, I saw the unmistakable tracks of a panther in the sugar sand of an old rail bed. The rangers confirmed having seen a panther cross there before. I admit that knowing that there was something in the park that could eat me sent a frisson up my spine.  Black bears are found in every Appalachian Trail state, and their population is growing. I have seen at least one in each of the trail states, except for West Virginia and Connecticut. I always feel honored to see them. On my first hike through Shenandoah National Park in 1997, I saw six bears. I was hiking after Labor Day but before leaf season, a beautiful time in the park when there are relatively few visitors yet all of the park facilities are open. On my first day in the park, I came over a rise and saw a sow and her two cubs frolicking on the trail, engaged in what looked like a game of tag. I practice quiet walking and the wind was in my face, so I was able to observe them for some time. When I eventually wanted to pass, I clicked my hiking sticks together, a distinctively human metallic sound. Momma turned in my direction and scanned for me. Black bears are nearsighted, but eventually she saw me and huffed, a warning for me to keep my distance. At her direction, the cubs ran off the trail and hid themselves in the undergrowth. When she was satisfied, she walked about 20 yards off the trail, turned toward me, and nodded her head, giving me permission to pass. Many of the springs in the park were dry that season, and I had to go down to the ranger station in Simmons Gap for water. While I was there, I met the park¢s naturalist, on loan from the Fish and Wildlife Service, who wanted to know if I had seen any bears. When I told him that I had seen six, he wanted details. I retrieved my journal from my pack, and he seemed to know each of the bears I described. When I mentioned seeing a large male feeding alongside the trail not far from Simmons Gap, he got very interested and asked me how large the boar was. I thought about it and estimated 600 pounds. He said that that was his estimate as well and it was the largest bear in the park. He was curious how I came up with my estimate, so I explained that I had a rather large partner at work who we joked was twice the man I am. I pictured him on all fours eating and the bear was twice as large, making him 600 pounds. This brute didn¢t bother huffing at me. He simply looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and resumed his feeding. I didn¢t need to be convinced to back down the trail and wait until he had finished and moved on. The bears of Shenandoah show very little fear of people, but until recently, tended to ignore humans as nonthreatening and only vaguely interesting. With the increasing population of hikers, bears have become more aggressive in seeking out our food. Bear boxes, heavy metal boxes that require manual dexterity to open, have been placed at each of the park¢s shelters (called huts for some reason). I was once mock charged by a black bear in Great Smokies Mountain National Park. When I didn¢t drop my pack, he quickly lost interest. Outside of the national parks, my most frequent bear sightings are of their rumps as they run from me.  Some naturalists dispute this, but I¢ve always felt that I could distinguish between male and female mature bears. To me at least, the female has a more elongated snout, and the male has a flatter broader face. The female seems a bit more timid, unless she has cubs. As you might imagine, large hairy mammals that don¢t bathe tend to stink, and I¢ve often smelled bear before I¢ve seen them. It¢s a musky, yeasty, and especially for the males, acrid odor, sharper than hiker stench. Bears use the Appalachian Trail to get around in their territories and naturally poop on the trail. It doesn¢t take long to become expert at dating their scat and knowing their diet, and also to recognize their distinctive scratch marks on trees, a high as they can reach to make themselves appear larger.  The cubs are born while the sow is hibernating and stay with momma through the following winter. When she is ready to breed again in late spring or early summer, the yearlings are on their own. It¢s a very dangerous time for the young bears. If they have learned their lessons well, they will be fine, but it¢s a time of high mortality. The yearlings are most amusing, both fearful and intensely curious. I surprised one on Bear Fence Mountain in Shenandoah National Park on another hike. He remembered what momma had taught him and ran off and hid himself behind a bush, but then stuck his head out to watch this strange biped. Then he remembered momma and ran behind the next bush, and again stuck his head out, repeating this cycle of fear and curiosity five times. On another hike through SNP, I had tented above the shelter. When I left my tent in the morning, I could smell bacon cooking below and stood there peeing, thinking, ¢Bacon¢¦Bacon.¢ I became aware of a small black shadow about 15 yards from me. A yearling was standing there on two feet having the same delicious thought. When he became aware of me, he ran off.  There are gray wolves in Maine, but I¢ve never seen one. What I have seen and heard in many of the trail states are eastern coyotes, which are hybrids of wolves, coyotes and possibly dogs.  They move quite differently than dogs, almost gliding into invisibility.  I have never felt threatened by them, although I was surrounded by a pack when alone in late October a few years ago at Knot Maul Shelter in Southwest Virginia. There was no moon that night. I had gotten up to pee and put my headlamp on and went well behind the shelter. When I came back in front of the shelter, my light caught the reflection of silver eyes about 18 inches off the ground. I swept my head and found that I was ringed by coyotes, like a scene out of Jack London¢s White Fang, only I didn¢t have a campfire. It was cold, so I got back into my sleeping bag. I did put my hiking poles within reach, although I don¢t know what good they would have done. I suspect that the coyotes had come to the shelter in search of mice, which were quite abundant there, and instead found me. I quickly fell back asleep.  I¢ve seen most of the mammals common along the Appalachian Trail, including moose, deer (lots of deer), red and gray foxes, bobcat, mink, river otters, pine marten, fisher, beaver, raccoon, opossum, porcupine, striped and spotted skunks, gray, red and flying squirrels, various bats, cottontails, various mice, shrews, rats, voles, and chipmunks. None have posed a threat! Of course, there are birds aplenty, but only a peregrine falcon driving me away from Baker Peak in Vermont scared me.  I¢ve seen timber rattlesnakes and copperheads and many nonvenomous snakes. Compared to the snakes in Florida that include mean-tempered pygmy rattlesnakes and water moccasins, diamondback rattlesnakes, coral snakes, and invasive Burmese pythons, the snakes of the Appalachian Trail are a well-mannered, nonthreatening group. I¢ve mentioned black widow spiders and their affinity for privies, and there seems to be an AT tradition of calling every brown spider in a shelter a Brown Recluse. In fact, along the Appalachian Trail, only Georgia and parts of North Carolina and Tennessee are in its range. I am not fond of spiders, another reason I prefer to tent. Then there are the insects; particularly loathsome are black flies, deer flies, no-see-ums, and mosquitoes. And, of course, vespids, notably yellow-jackets. I often meditate as I walk alone, and it seems as though each time I reach a new understanding, I am stung by a yellow-jacket, a six-legged Zen koan to remind me how little progress I have made.  So, which animal scares me the most on the Appalachian Trail? Ticks. I will be wearing permethrin-treated clothing for my hike. I¢ve had Lyme Disease and unfortunately, having it once does not confer immunity, not to mention the other tick-borne diseases found along the Appalachian Trail.  There are other creatures along the Appalachian Trail seldom observed except perhaps as a fleeting image in peripheral vision. I mean, of course, the fairies that dance under the mayapple leaves in Spring and the demons who live under southern streams and seek out hikers who sleep past sunrise. And the wee folk, like the ones who live under the rocks in Mahoosuc Notch in southern Maine subsisting off of offerings dropped by careless hikers. I¢ve not seen them myself, but that doesn¢t mean that they are any less real than Santa¢s elves.Oh, how I pity the poor elves! Imagine their working conditions. Santa keeps them enslaved at the North Pole. Keebler locks them in trees and dunks them headfirst. Sure, they are always pictured as jolly industrious creatures but is this so different from the nostalgic depiction of slave life ¢ the sounds of gentle laughter and song wafting up to the master¢s veranda?  Have they no rights? Elves need to organize and join the Elf Liberation Front (ELF).  ELF will fight for equal rights for elves. Not special rights; just the same rights enjoyed by human workers. Of course, there are politicians who reflect back to the glories of slave times, when families were so strong, but do you think the law back then, or even now, recognizes elf marriages? Some even deny the existence of elves. They are God¢s forgotten creatures. So pity the elves. If elves were six feet tall instead of being wee folk, we wouldn¢t be having this discussion. Stand proud to your full height, dear elves! We stand with you.Happy Holidays, everyone!