The Bear Who Drank the Molasses: A Lumber Camp Disaster
A hungry black bear broke into a West Branch Lumber Company supply shed in Washington's Cascade Mountains, getting hopelessly stuck in a keg of molasses and becoming a spectacle for the workers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In the Cascade Mountains, where the lumber camps of the West Branch Lumber Company are located, the bears are having a 'line time' this winter. One particularly hungry bear broke into the company's general supplies shed last Wednesday night. The bear managed to break open a keg of molasses and drank until it was covered from tip to toe in the sticky substance.
The bear then rolled around in a second keg of sugar, becoming even more encased. The sight was described as 'ghastly and ludicrous.' The poor brute had no way out and was left stuck in the shed, a spectacle for the lumberjacks who found it.
This 1909 account of wildlife conflict in Washington's logging camps highlights the encroachment of industry into wild spaces. While today we focus on salmon runs and bear-habitat conservation, early 20th-century loggers viewed bears primarily as pests or curiosities, often dealing with them through direct confrontation or spectacle rather than coexistence.
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