Canadian Border, Bears and More Bears

Here is my view of the Canadian Border

I've been in Canada for two days now but yesterday has to be the best day. I doubt if it can be beat!

After all that blogging I did about crossing the border, here is how it went. We got to the crossing at Sumas.  Imagine this.. we were only fifth in line. The border agent motioned to us to come up to her station. She asked a few questions and looked at the passports and then she looked at ME! "I see you have a dog in the car." My owner started to hand over my Rabies Certificate papers, the ones we worked so hard to make sure they met all the criteria, and, with a wave, of her hand, showed she didn't want to see them. She said, "Are the dog's rabies shots up to date?" We all said, "Yes." That was it, she didn't ask about my dog food or about where I was born or anything. Soon we were on our way in a new land full of red and white flags with big red maple leaves on them. We were in Canada and headed for a big adventure.

Here I am in front of the Canadian Superstore. Can I drive?

The first thing we did was stop at the Canadian Super Store. As usual, I couldn't go in and they didn't get anything for me. So I just sat in the driver's seat and pretended I had a Canadian drivers license.

We drove and drove along the Frasier River, through the Gorge, and into the forests. It was a great trip. I was busy watching and so didn't go to sleep no matter how tired I was. They pulled me out of bed at 6 in the morning for this trip and so I was mighty tired.

As we headed through the woods something big and black lumbered across the road ("lumbered," get it? - a little coonie woodsdog humour). Suddenly they yelled, "Bear!". Now I didn't know what a bear was and why it was crossing the road but I looked really hard at that bear as we drove away. The bear disappeared into the woods.

This stinky bear was gigantic and scared the poop out of me!

Now that was interesting, but only a precursor to what was to come... the big excitement of the day. We headed up past more woods and looked up on the hill and saw an even bigger bear eating something. He looked down at me and I was glad we kept driving. But, Oh No! They decided they wanted a closer look and turned around and pulled up right below where the bear was. With the window partially rolled down I got a whiff of something that literally made the hair on my neck stand on end. Phew!

As they took pictures I had a good look at a beady-eyed huge brown bear. And he was feeding on a smelly deer carcass. And he was smelly too. He looked me in the eye and at that moment my instincts kicked in. I knew he was my mortal enemy. Me, Cinnamon, the nice hound, had a mortal enemy. I got so scared. With my tail between my legs, I started growling and baying. They asked me to be quiet but I couldn't control myself. I was terrified and it was my job to protect us all. Grrrrr.

This bear was ripping the deer flesh apart. Ewwwww!

Fortunately for me, they soon tired of taking pictures and drove off down the road. I was still shaken and it took me several kilometers to calm down.

Come to think of it, I was so shaken that I couldn't even blog about it last night.

My first bear! I sure had a story to tell all my American coonie friends!

Photography copyright: Elizabeth Rose Photography