Friday Fun – A Bear + An Animal-Loving Canuck Vet = Literary History

Who among us can’t recall fond memories of our parents reading stories to us as children of the adventures of that honey-loving bear, Winnie-the-Pooh and his many friends – or reading them on our own as we grew older?  But how many of us know that Winnie was inspired by the adventures of an actual orphaned bear from the forests of Canada who made it all the way to the London Zoo?

We have Lt. Harry Colebourn, a veterinarian who emigrated from London to settle in Winnipeg, Manitoba to thank for rescuing the protagonist of our childhood literary remembrances.  At the outbreak of World War I Lt. Colebourn volunteered to serve in the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps (CAVC) and was en route to a training facility at Valcartier when his train stopped at White River, Ontario.

A trapper was on the train station's platform leading a young cub on a string, whose mother he most likely had killed in the spring of 1914, in hopes of selling the orphaned bear cub to someone.  And that someone turned out to be our animal-lover, Harry Colebourn.  Colebourn paid the princely sum of $20 for the cub which he named “Winnie” – short for his beloved adopted home of Winnipeg.

(I have no idea what the going rate for a bear cub back in 1914 was, but according to the Canadian Bank Inflation Calculator $20 back then would be worth $423.67 in 2016.  That converts to ~$333.00 USD – which seems a bit pricey to me.)

Below is Colebourn's diary entry from August 24^th, 1914 describing the transaction – I’ll transcribe it since it’s a bit hard to make out:

 “Left Port Arthur, 7am, On train, bought bear, $20”

Winnie’s playfulness and gentle demeanor led her (yeah, unlike in the storybook the real-life Winnie was a female) to rapidly become the mascot for Colebourn’s Canadian cavalry regiment.  She was so beloved by all that those in charge permitted her to accompany Colebourn’s regiment when they shipped out to England.

 

 

 

Colebourn had every intention of bringing Winnie home with him at the end of the war to settle her in the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg, but when his regiment received orders to deploy to the front line in France, he realized the front would not be a good place for the bear, so he arranged with the London Zoo to board her for the duration of WWI.

It was there that Winnie gained fame among her many visitors as an utterly genteel ursine – so much so that the zookeeper Ernest Scales wrote that Winnie was “the only bear they ever trusted entirely” to the point he would allow children into the cage to pet the bear and ride on her back!  Can you imagine that happening today?

Although now Major Colebourn frequently visited Winnie at the London Zoo while on leave, when the war ended after three years on the front line, Colebourn sadly realized that not only had the visitors made Winnie the zoo’s major attraction, but Winnie was thriving on the love and attention she was receiving from her admirers.  It was clear that his original intent of bringing her home to Canada would not be in Winnie’s best interest. 

Below is the Receipt Colebourn received for his “gift” of Winnie, allowing her to remain at the London Zoo until her death on May 12, 1934.

And that picture above of the boy petting Winnie is none other than the real-life Christopher Robin Milne.  Christopher Robin and his father, author A. A. Milne, were frequent visitors to the London Zoo.  And Christopher Robin became so fond of Winnie that he rechristened his teddy bear, bought at Harrods Department Store, from Edward Bear to Winnie-the-Pooh.

Author A. A. Milne was so inspired by the adventures, both imaginary and real, his son shared with his plush toy, Winnie-the-Pooh, that he used them to publish his first story about a boy named Christopher Robin and his stuffed bear Winnie-the-Pooh in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve in 1925.  It was shortly thereafter followed by his first book in October 1926.

How the toy teddy bear got the “Pooh” name is not entirely clear.  Some sources say it came from a swan named Pooh that the family encountered on a vacation.  But the author’s great-granddaughter, Lindsay Mattick, contends it was the sound Christopher Robin would make when he blew feathers of his pet swan (his own pet swan, name unknown but NOT the one they visited) off his clothes.

That seems to have some credence because in the first chapter Milne wrote about the bear’s name:

"But his arms were so stiff … they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think – but I am not sure – that that is why he is always called Pooh."

Not only did a real little boy and his beloved plush toy bear become Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin, but most of the story locations are also inspired by real places.  The Hundred Acre Wood, Roo’s Sandpit, Poohsticks Bridget are fictionalized names of real places in the Ashdown Forrest in Sussex, England where Milne bought a country home in 1925.  For instance, the Hundred Acre Wood is really the Five Hundred Acre Wood and Galleon’s Leap is really Gill’s Lap.

And you can also see almost all of the real plush toys that Christopher Robin played with that inspired the actual characters in the books at the New York Public Library.  All except for Roo, Christopher Robin lost his Roo plush in the thirties.

You would think that Christopher Robin Milne would be grateful for all the good fortune that came from having such a famous and beloved author-father – but you would be wrong.  As an adult he wrote:

"It seemed to me almost that my father had got where he was by climbing on my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and left me nothing but empty fame".

Unlike Christopher Robin, we have long celebrated his father’s literary skills.  His books have been translated into over fifty languages, including Latin.  In fact the Latin translation – “WINNIE ILLE PU” – is believed to be the only foreign language book (but certainly the only book written in Latin) to have ever earned a spot on The New York Times bestseller list.

When Disney purchased the movie rights in 1961, Winnie-the-Pooh lost her hyphens and morphed into what many of us may be most familiar with as “Winnie the Pooh”. 

But however you remember him (or her) – as the original Winnie-the-Pooh or today’s Winnie the Pooh – we can thank Harry Colebourn, an animal-loving veterinarian from Winnipeg who was willing to share his adopted gentle giant with the London Zoo where she won the affection of a little boy and his re-christened teddy bear, and then inspiring stories that still entertain millions.

So I leave you with some of Pooh’s wisest and best loved words:

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.”

 

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like ‘What about lunch?’”

 

“People say nothing is impossible … but I do nothing every day.”

 

“I'm not lost for I know where I am.  But, however, where I am may be lost.”

 

“Some people talk to animals.  Not many listen though.  That's the problem.”

 

 

 

RESOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_(bear)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Colebourn

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/11/04/true-story-of-pooh

http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2015/nov/24/winnie-the-pooh-inspired-by-a-real-bear

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2582557/100-year-old-photographs-Winnipeg-original-Winnie-Pooh.html

http://mentalfloss.com/article/22987/quick-10-winnie-pooh-particulars

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/18/books/winnie-ille-pu-nearly-xxv-years-later.html