Don, a fire spotter for the U.S. Forest service was hiking down a little used trail in an area seldom visited by man in one of those vast wilderness areas of Montana.  As he came around a bend in the trail he spotted a young black bear moving in his direction on the same trail.
The [...]

Soft fluffy snow mantled the ground like a comforter ‘prized of innumerable downy feathers to a depth of two inches.  Thick, dark clouds scudded across the sky, at times obscuring the moon and dipping the woodscape into an inkwell of abysmal darkness.
 
My father had not told me where we were going but I follow this [...]

Years pass, memories fade, old news clippings turn yellow and hair either turns white or falls out, such is life.
It has been many years ago but it is permanently etched into my memory.
I was preparing to transport an African spotted leopard to another location when quite suddenly I found myself flat on my back with [...]

Once while paddling a canoe on the Wekiva River in central Florida I drifted around a bend and surprised a daydreaming bear as he sat drowsily on the riverbank with his eyes closed.
The bear was totally oblivious of my presence and there we were, no more than ten or fifteen feet apart when he opened [...]

I am drawn back to that rocky shore on Rosseau lake in Canada. I sat there, relaxed yearning for something, perhaps to hear the voice of God?
God, how much I wanted to hear your voice, to feel your presence, but… there was nothing, only silence.
Oh yes, there was the sun on my face, and shimmering, [...]

A little acorn fell to the ground one day and lay there. Oh how it bemoaned its fate. It could go no lower. It had reached the very depths of despair.
A squirrel, scavenging for food, found the little acorn and picked it up and the acorn thought to itself, “WHOOPEE, I am saved; no longer [...]

“Listen, did you hear that? I am sure I heard a bell. Yes, a tinkling bell!”
And so a search might began, a frenzied search to discover the source of that lonely sound.
Many years ago In a bygone era before the embalming process was practiced it was the customary to dig up the remains of the [...]