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1 month ago | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
Apologies for my long silence. I'd like to say that after my four-part magnum opus on bears in Romania in December I had said all there was to say about bears, at least for a while. But the truth is more prosaic. There has simply been so much going on in the world that I have been struggling to keep up with my Back to the Front newsletter covering Ukraine, Russia, Europe and, increasingly and by necessity, Donald Trump.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
In the 18 years since Wild Bear Lodge began offering bear-viewing tours in the wilderness we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of wonderful guests. But, especially in the early years - when a room for the night cost about the same as an expensive round of drinks in a pub and we were called Grizzly Bear Ranch, we had our fair share of tricky customers. When weighing up the memorably abrasive, difficult or just plane odd, it’s not easy to decide between gold, silver and bronze.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
I never know what to expect when I return to the lodge after a winter in Europe. Last year a grizzly bear had dug up the pipes around the septic tank with predictably scatalogical results. Another time a ruffed grouse had offed himself against a cabin, shattering the large front window. And just once, many years ago, a neighbour’s kids had ransacked the place, smashing the front door, rifling through drawers and cupboards, and making off with choice booty that included a flat-screen television.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
With thanks to Pat Steffes, one of our most loyal guests, for the video clip. I’m not usually one for prize fights. The spectacle of two jacked-up blokes beating the hell out of each other is just not something I ever really got into. But as I sat with my guests in a ringside seat last month I couldn’t take my eyes off the two heavyweight contestants as they slowly approached each other.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
It just didn’t look that difficult. True, the log I was staring at had the girth of a small horse, and the water that was pushing up against it leaped several inches into the air in glistening rivulets. And, yes, it had blocked the entire river, more than sixty foot across, and lay partly submerged. But I already had several wilderness years under my belt and, I knew - didn’t I? - how to use a chainsaw. Cut from the side without pressure, keep both feet on solid land, have a get-out plan.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
Western Canada is burning again. For the third summer in seven I am waking up each morning and heading straight for the internet to check the latest reports from the British Columbia Wildfire Service. An updated map shows fires that are new, fires that are under control, and, by far the most numerous, fires that are out of control. If you use the zoom feature the images becomes more granular. A thin red line appears which shows the perimeter of each fire (and some are huge).
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
It is the 20th anniversary of when I met Kristin in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, and the story of Wild Bear Lodge began. We fell in love and, later that year, she moved to Moscow to be with me, a serious leap of faith for a genetically Russophobic Estonian. The following spring we left the Old World behind. That summer we put down a deposit on a wilderness ranch deep in the British Columbia mountains. Kristin died in early 2020 – taken by a fierce cancer that seemed to come from nowhere.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
It was one of those classic Millennial-Gen X moments. Sage, one of our long-time guides who is nevertheless still in her twenties, was leading a walk down a stretch of riverbank with four of our guests. They had stopped to watch a grizzly bear fishing on the far bank. Meanwhile I was guiding a raft with our other four guests just to the north on a section of river that ends with a tricky double dogleg. The small walkie-talkie that was clipped to my lifejacket came to life.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
[Continuing from last week: An Unpromising Date. Click here to read.]It is 20 years ago since I met Kristin in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, and the story of Wild Bear Lodge began. I had been asked by my newspaper to write a story about British ‘lager louts’ who were travelling to the Baltics to hold stag parties, get drunk and try and pick up local girls. In my early days as a correspondent for what still counted as a heavyweight newspaper, I had striven to cover meaningful issues.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
grizzlybeardiaries.substack.com | Julius Strauss
It is 20 years ago since I met Kristin in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, and the story of Wild Bear Lodge began. [Continued from last week: Tottie Tours. Click here to read. Or click here to read the first of this mini-series of blogposts about the origins of Wild Bear Lodge.]That first evening in Tallinn, notwithstanding my inauspicious audition the previous year, was a success. Ms. Marmei - Kristin by now - agreed to let me take her to dinner at a restaurant she chose.