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Outdoor Corner: The legacy of Peanut Butter
Gene Plihal
for Smoky River Express
As I narrated in previous weeks, Peanut Butter became a symbol of the wilderness for me. As the years passed and he continued to grow, I came to the realization that no matter what, eventually this game of baiting him and getting pictures was going to have to end. So one fall, I finally made that decision, no more baiting of Peanut Butter. I knew he would be fine because his feces at the bait location contained a multitude of berries and plant substance as well as hair, the latter indicating that he either found a dead moose or deer or killed one for variety in his diet.
But I was intent on discovering one last fact about him, where his den was located. Each spring he came out early and checked on his bait to see if there were any offerings.
Even in the depth of winter I would see tracks in the snow around his old bait site from the previous year indicating that on warm days he would make efforts to come out of his den for a brief “trip around the block”. But the rare trips I made to his remote location in the depth of winter made it impossible to follow his tracks to the den because most often the tracks were already filled in with fresh snow and only existed in clarity under the protection of a spruce or pine tree branch.
So, the last fall that I baited Peanut Butter, I waited for the first light snowfall in hopes that he would come out of den one last time to check his bait and then return with discernible tracks back to his den. Alas, in late October, our first snow came. Indeed, Peanut Butter appeared at the site. When I made this discovery I thought this was my opportunity to find his den at last.
At the bait site itself tracks were prominent and clearly visible in the snow. But, as I followed his tracks, I discovered yet another facet of his cunning. As any outdoorsman knows, after a light snowfall, the first melting occurs with snow on logs and under spruce trees because of the wood’s colour and mass which conducts heat. Ergo, the snow is first melted on logs and under trees, if any snow manages to get through the branches to hit the ground under them. Guess where Peanut Butter chose to walk back to his den? You guessed it, by straddling logs and walking under trees.
After discerning the general direction that Peanut Butter was heading, even though I couldn’t follow his tracks because of his cunning ability to utilize logs and deadfall for his path, I made a general 180 degree sweep of the area within a half mile of his bait. No luck! I extended the sweep to a mile. No luck! Were the books wrong about the den usually being located right next to their main food source?
I guess I’ll never answer that question because I never did find Peanut Butter’s den. And, I never returned to his bait site with the intention of restocking his bait supply. It was time for Peanut Butter to totally fend for himself.
Did I see Peanut Butter again? About two years after I ceased baiting him, a client and I were within a mile of where Peanut Butter had his bait site. As we were travelling down a trail heavily covered in brush, a cinnamon bear quickly shot across the trail in front of us.
This bear had the same markings as Peanut Butter! It was a fleeting glimpse of a bear which resembled Peanut Butter. I smiled thinking, very good chance that this was he, or an offspring possibly of Peanut Butter. In either case, this bear was extremely sensitive to human presence, as was Peanut Butter. In either case, this bear was extremely sensitive to human presence, as was Peanut Butter. If this wasn’t Peanut Butter, I thought, at least the gene pool of the elusive cinnamon bears in the remote area was still alive.
Peanut Butter would be about 18 years old today and his antics and intelligence probably endowed him with a better than average chance of living this long.
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