Hey-y’all!
I’m not in Colorado, but my sources there are keeping me abreast of one of my favorite things about summer there: close encounters with bears and cougars in the WUI (the Wildlife Urban Interface). Today’s news does not disappoint! A 19-year old camper in Ward was attacked by a bear. The Denver Post headline explains that the “youth camp staffer says he woke up with his head in the bear’s jaws.” Yikes!
The earlier print edition of the headline describes the experience even more dramatically, in my view:
From the Denver Post, July 10, 2017
Never fear, friends! The updated online version of the story reports that the bear was caught and euthanized. It makes it sound like the bear was put in a lineup and identified by the victim:
The victim of the attack, a 19-year-old staff member at a youth camp, saw the bear after it was trapped and told officials be believed it was the same bear that attacked him while he was sleeping.
“We think this is the bear that did the attack,” Churchill said.
I can just imagine: “Number 3 step forward, open your jaws, and breathe heavily.” If the victim was able to help identify the perp, I’m really impressed–he is one cool customer. (I am a disaster in an emergency–when calling 911 to report an accident or a house fire, I have given incorrect information because I’m so rattled.)
The Queen’s Guardsmen in their bear fur hats.
I’m overseas now, working hard in the Royal Archives in Windsor Castle. They have a strict social media policy (and permit no photography indoors whatsoever), so I need to find out what and if I can blog about what I’m finding there and my experiences as a researcher and a tourist. I hope to get this figured out and resume more regular blogging about what I’m up to. (The Royal Archives are in the Round Tower, which is cheek-by-jowl with the State Apartments and is considered part of the royal residence.)
In the meantime, I strongly encourage those of you who have any interest in British and/or British Imperial history in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to apply for a fellowship from the Georgian Papers Programme at King’s College, London, and its American partner, the Omohundro Institute. These are the institutions that have helped me get here, and I’m sure they’ll be interested in hearing from and working with many of you as well!
Until I know I can say more, here’s a pretty photo of my walk back into the village after work this afternoon.
Cheers!
Historiann 
Attacked like that in a campground, tho? That’s f-ing scary. Sorry the bear was killed, …but also, as a backpacker, it always makes me nervous when they relocate “bad” (habituated: not their fault) bears to the backcountry. I don’t want to run into any big fellas out there, especially not the “Bad Hombres.” I love that the kid thinks it’s the same bear, though. Dude, your head was in its mouth. At night. LOL. Safe travels and productive research.
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Thanks!
Upon reflection, I sound a little flippant in my post about the experience of a bear attacking (unprovoked) a sleeping camper, and a young one at that. I probably shouldn’t have–and never would have written it up so lightly if the teenager had been more badly hurt or disfigured. My sarcasm was more directed at the reportage than on the attack, but I should clarify. I’m really glad the young man will take away little more than a few scars and a really great story for the rest of his life!
We are campers too, but as far as I’m concerned I don’t need to see any bears up close, anywhere. I want them in the wild, in their dens & territories unmolested by the likes of us, and vice-versa.
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When I went to Girl Scout camp the counselors would collect all our candy and keep it in their cabin for “safe keeping.” They told us that if we ate candy at night, the squirrels would smell it on our breath, come into our platform tents, and chew our lips off. It was only years later that I realized we was robbed! Now I’m thinking, thank goodness I went to camp in Rhode Island and not Colorado! That’s one lucky kid.
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BWAH-HAhahaha!!! You totally got robbed.
This gambit worked for a solid decade or so with Halloween candy, where putting it in a high kitchen cabinet meant that it got ignored & forgotten (by anyone who couldn’t reach it.) But the tweens caught on after that point–maybe because they got tall enough to see it?
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We’ll be glad to hear about anything you can report on, Historiann, whether in or outside of the walls.
I was in an “Identification Parade” (i.e., a “lineup”) once, only on the bear’s side of the transaction, as a potential perp. And this a homicide case. Long story, but a couple of rookie street cops needing to fill a call asked if I could “assist” Her Majesty’s Metropolitan Police in an investigation. Next thing I knew I was in the basement weight room of a police station off of Lamb’s Conduit, sitting on a metal chair with some grizzled regulars, waiting for the witness to make it over from Wembley. Realizing that I had an undeveloped photo of the crime scene in my backpack added to the drama. But when the Guv’nor (head cop) heard that they had snagged an American passport holder in this dragoon, he came down and stood with me through the episode. We all got 6 pounds sterling for our efforts. But this is not a post about lineups. I do have documentation of this, however.
That tower just looks delicious…
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HAha! We stayed around the corner from Lamb’s Conduit last week. I highly recommend the neighborhood for any London visitors–you can walk pretty much anywhere you’d want to go see or do something. We walked the whole town, from Bloomsbury to St. Pauls/Southwark/the Globe, to Westminster, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Sq., St. James Park, Regent’s Park, Camden Town, etc., and home again from there. (Not all on the same day, but you could do that too!)
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Hi Ann,
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I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog Historiann has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 50 American History Blogs on the web.
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Anuj
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Earthling…
Q: You gonna live forever?
A: Yes, depending on where.
Q: How long do our lifetimes last?
A: 1-outta-1 bites-the-dust, child.
When our eternal soul leaves our body
and we riseabove to meet our Maker,
only four, last things remain:
death, judgement, Heaven or Hell
according to the deeds WEE mortals
have done in our finite existence.
So… find-out what RCIA is and join!
PS° Im a re-boot NDE:
if you’re RIGHT,
you’ll see the LIGHT.
Follow that to the Elysian Fields;
let’s be tethered2forever Upstairs.
Google+: kold_kadavr_ flatliner
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