Christmas on Bear Mountain

First page of the story.

***Christmas on Bear Mountain*** is a comic story written and drawn by Carl Barks. It features Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck, Scrooge McDuck and James, as well as a nameless character, seen here as a mere stone bust, but later identified as one of Scrooge's ancestors.

## Plot

Christmas Eve. Scrooge McDuck, a rich but grumpy old man living in a vast and cold mansion, hates Christmas. In fact, he hates everything and everybody (and everybody hates him, too). His only known remaining family in town is his nephew Donald Duck, whom he has never met; he assumes (with the same disdain he has for all things modern) that Donald must be a "yellow-livered parasite", but still decides to put him to the test. He invites Donald and his nephews to spend the night in his cabin on Bear Mountain, where they will find food and gifts. Scrooge plans to sneak up on them in the night disguised as a bear, to test their bravery. However, real bears get to the cabin before them; confusion ensues, at the end of which Scrooge finally finds joy in life.

### Continuity

* *Crazy Christmas on Bear Mountain* (1987) sees the entire Duck family return to Scrooge's cabin on Bear Mountain for Christmas.
* *Return to Bear Mountain* (2017) is another sequel to the story set once again on the Bear Mountain Cabin, as is *Holiday Hideaway on Bear Mountain* (2017).
* *Another Christmas on Bear Mountain* (2007) features Scrooge time-traveling back to the events of this story in an effort to change history, of which he eventually thinks better.
* *The Richest Duck in the World* (1993), the last chapter of *The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck*, serves as a 'midquel' to this story, taking place in the timespan after the main of the action but before Scrooge and the boys' Christmas dinner depicted in the last page of the 1947 story. The story focuses more on Scrooge himself and on the more difficult aspect of his reunion with his family.
* *Family Ties* (2014) has Donald briefly reminiscing as to the circumstances of his and his nephews' meeting with Scrooge.
* *The Man Who Drew Ducks* (1992) features Scrooge returning to the pose of his famous first appearance in *Christmas*, posing for Carl Barks to draw his portrait. Scrooge's 2017 Continuum counterpart also sat and seethed in the same way at the end of the *DuckTales 2017* episode *The Last Crash of the Sunchaser* (2018).

## Behind the scenes

*Christmas on Bear Mountain*, first printed in *Walt Disney's Donald Duck* #178, was the first actual appearance of Scrooge McDuck, although a character very much like him had appeared in the propaganda cartoon *The Spirit of '43* four years earlier. The story was reprinted in *Walt Disney's Christmas Parade* #3, *The Best of Walt Disney Comics* #73, *Best Comic Series* #4, *The Carl Barks Library* #1, *Uncle Scrooge in Color* #1, *Donald Duck Adventures* #9, *The Carl Barks Library of Donald Duck Adventures* #8, *Walt Disney's Comics and Stories* #608, *Uncle Scrooge*#372, *Walt Disney's Christmas Classics* #1 and *The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library* #5.

Scrooge, contrary to popular belief, is not actually the focus of the story, as Barks had only written him as a one-shot character before he decided to bring him back for bigger roles. Most of the story is indeed taken up by shenanigans involving Donald, the nephews and the bears. Nevertheless, due to its pivotal role in Scrooge's drawn career, the story received several Scrooge-centered sequels and homages, including a painting by Carl Barks himself.