On a bright fall day, a week before Thanksgiving, we said good-bye to our beloved pup, Bear dog.

As he did every day, Bear woke up that morning, had has his usual morning Milk Bone, took his usual morning stroll around main Camp, and settled into his usual spot in front of the woodstove for a by now well-rehearsed daytime routine of napping by the fire.  Although everything seemed just as it should be–it really wasn’t, and had not been for him for a while.  Bear’s heart had been failing for several months, as had his kidneys, his liver, his lungs, and his joints. He died that afternoon.  Bear dog was 14.

Bear was born in August 2002 in southern Trinity County, arriving at the Bar 717 Ranch six weeks later, a chocolate-brown ball-of-a-birthday present.  He fit right in, making quick friends with Jersey, the Ranch hound at the time.  Bear grew up on the Ranch, where his intense interest in everything that was happening sometimes got him into trouble. He always required to be in the middle of the action.  In his youth, that meant he was no stranger to the local Vet.  But true to form, he showed us that even those annoying casts could be handily chewed off in less than a day, prescriptions for a month of limited activity completely impossible.

Bear was always his own dog, ignoring any canine instinct for familial loyalty to his pack.  He may have ‘belonged’ to our family, but he made it his job to make welcome everyone who came to camp. During the summers of his youth, Bear would disappear from our family life upon the arrival of the first campers, moving himself onto whichever platform he saw fit, finding a bed (occupied or not) and inviting himself on Sunday Hikes and overnights for the remainder of the session. By September, he would be skin and bones, preferring the companionship of campers to the always-available bowl of kibble on his home porch.

Until the end, Bear enjoyed nothing more than a good hike.  Anyone walking out of main camp must be going somewhere interesting, right?  To him, the need for four-legged companionship was obvious, and he was convinced we could all benefit from a seasoned guide.  He happily showed a generation of people the way down the Swim Hole trail.  Until the last few weeks of his life, he was determined to follow us on every excursion, especially if it was down the hill to the river, despite the protests of his exhausted heart.  Embarrassed as he was, in his last weeks he would begrudgingly take a seat between us on the quad when it came time to head back up the hill.

There was never a question that Bear’s favorite place was the river.  He liked nothing more in the world than plunging his head into the water, picking up submerged rocks, and barking incessantly at anyone having any fun in the water nearby. In his youth, his riverside antics inspired a surely-by-now collectable camp silk screen, ‘Jump Bear Jump’, complete with his likeness launching off the board.  Even when acute arthritis made walking difficult, the river forever held sway over his heart.  In more recent summers, Bear reconciled himself to accepting the occasional round-trip ride in the truck if it meant an afternoon spent in the water.

Bear leaves behind Gretchen and me, our three sad kids, his co-pup Xochi, and countless others of you in the camp community who came to know him over the past 14 years.  We’ll all miss him.  When the weather warms a bit next spring, and the river once again beckons, Bear’s ashes will be spread on all the trails and swim spots he loved the most. Afterwards, when we walk those trails and then swim in that water, we’ll think of him, and remember him, and be happy.