I’m thinking of all those bears, sleeping in the hills. People here say the bears sleep till May. They say that a man and woman went skiing in the hills once and came across a big hole in the earth. The man stuck his ski pole down the hole to see what was there and out came a bear. It mauled the couple to death. They were tourists from the States–newlyweds. They had wanted an arctic honeymoon: total December darkness, aurora borealis, a sled ride at Christmas.
They say that the wolves used to be the bigger problem here, until the hunters killed them all off. Now there are none left, except for maybe a lone wolf passing through the area on its way back to Russia. Nothing to be afraid of. Not like waking up a sleeping bear. Not like being alone in May without a gun.
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