sachem bear

We live in a quaint, quiet little neighborhood - a graduate student village for Dartmouth college. Things are quiet here. People are friendly. And for the most part, life is pretty predictable.

But this spring, Sachem {pronounced "say-chum"} Village got a little visitor.

Well, one big visitor and three little ones, to be more clear. 

At first, I just heard rumors. Then the pictures started to surface. But I live on the inner circle. My house doesn't back up to the woods like many of the units do, and the bears only came to the homes near the woods so we were safe. 

That's when I heard Ryan say the bear was right outside out house. He grabbed the camera and disappeared. 

Don't worry. He didn't disappear for good. He's not that stupid. But he did snap some great pics from a good distance. Including this gem of Sachem Bear herself chomping on some trash in the foliage 20 feet from our house {and NO, it was not our garbage}. 

He {and plenty of others} then followed her down the corridor and across the street until she eventually disappeared back into the woods. I opted to stay inside, thankyouverymuch. According to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, the last time someone in New Hampshire was killed by a black bear was clear back in 1784, but I wasn't about to be the one to change that statistic. 

We got a friendly email reminding residents to take their trash immediately to the gated dumpster and not leave it on their porch or outside of their units. And also that it was important to clean BBQ grills of any food/residue and to take down any bird or other animal feeders. If we would do these things, the bears would have no reason to come back. 

But not everyone did these things, and so the bears kept coming back.

It wasn't long before the Sachem Bear became the most popular kid on the block. Literally, on our block. She even got a Facebook page. And posted helpful pictures of herself showing tenants exactly how to dispose of their garbage. 

Her tutorials must have worked because a few days later, no one saw the bears - that was Memorial Day weekend. They were gone, and so far, they haven't returned.

Although I'm not sad to see them go, I will say it was kind of an adventure. Just one more thing I didn't have on my list of things that would happen while here. I'm constantly being surprised.