The Spirit Bear

Yesterday was doom day, the day I went for my root canal. It went well and I'm in less discomfort than what I thought I'd be. I have another appointment to return in 30 days. Seems the dentist thinks he may of missed a concealed root and to find it, he did a bit of gum surgery. He pushed a apparatus through the abscessed pocket (something like a wire) and took another x-ray. Oay vey.
How do you cheer yourself up with things like that? Well, I came home and went to bed, Madame had dance and Babe had driver's ed, my only interruption was the phone which I promptly ignored. My weakness in moods like this is Teddy Bears, nothing is hugable and snugable or just plain squeezable than a sweet teddy with the innocent quality of a 5 year old. Soooo, knowing I just purchased a piece of short napped white wool fur I searched the Internet for a good polar bear pattern. I have a cute pattern with a short hump and long nose, I would have to enlarge it in order to make a grabable bear and I may do that.
In my search though.....I found a bear called "The Spirit Bear", what a wonderful name! The true identity of this marvelous creature is "Kermode", they are brown bears with a white coat, not albino though, a member of the regular bear club found on islands off upper Canada, 1 in 10 are white. The main diet is salmon which causes a yellowish overcoat.
The spirit bear is rarer than the panda bear and if the brown bears were to be introduced to the several islands that the Kermode bear occupies, the spirit bear would reach an ultimate demise. Two Kermode bear parents will produce offspring's as white, one to four in a litter, usual as the brown bear and they remain with the parents for the first two years of life just as the brown bears do. A mother brown bear could have a white bear providing she carries the recessive gene, the above photo is a mother with her cub. Aww. It is said that the legend of the spirit bear, or ghost bear is due to a reminder of the glaciers and coldness that once laid on our land. I only know they are very beautiful creatures and very different from the polar bear.

Click on the spirit bear to see a video.

I managed to find a wonderful site that is devoted to the teddy bear, it has everything and is a magazine/club called the Teddy Bear International. Click on free teddy bear for at least 60 free bear patterns. There are so many cute patterns it would be hard for me to decide which one to make first.

Off to la-la land. C&G Design