mkadventures: Clark's Bears and the White Mountains of New Hampshire

Darla riding a scooter in the showring, her payment for doing tricks is ice cream!

This summer brought us to Clark's Bears and the White Mountain Central Railroad, in Lincoln, New Hampshire. When we first read the advertisement for the job and it said that they have bear shows, we giggled and kept looking. Then we were curious and started checking into the park and the area. Yes, they do have trained black bears that do shows, and at first we had mixed feelings about that, but after watching the bears and their trainers all season, all we've seen is love and mutual affection. The bears are their pets and like family members. They are are trained with only positive reinforcement and rewards. The bears truly seem to enjoy performing. In the wild, black bears have lifespans of 5 to 7 years, but at Clark's they do much better. The oldest bear they had passed away at 38. When the bears choose not to perform anymore, they get to retire and live quietly on the family property. We have enjoyed watching and learning about these bears this summer. We have watched them have their afternoon snack of lettuce, grapes, watermelon, an apple and an orange (if you wondered, they don't eat the orange peels). We have watched the trainers interact with the bears when they are playing, and we have watched the bears perform on our afternoon breaks more times than we can count. We will miss the 3 bears that performed this summer. Darla is 20 months old and is fun to watch because she is the most unpredictable. Hilde is also 20 months, and she knows her show routine so well already, except when she decides to give the trainer, what looks like, a hug. Echo is 19 years old, and she is big and beautiful. All I know is that these bears are loved, well taken care of and it's been a privilege to watch them this summer.

Darla (brown, which is called cinnamon)
and Hilde (typical black fur) early in the season

Here are Darla and Hilde, later in the season,
you can see how much bigger they are!
They are with Murray Clark, one of their trainers.
Hilde is licking his arm, and he was covered in bear slobber.
Next Darla tried to untie his shoelaces!

Echo, posing for a photo

The reason that I love this picture is because as Echo was sunning herself one afternoon, I thought she was asleep, but when I started talking to her, she turned her head toward me.
Normally she ignores us lowly humans, except for her trainers and feeders.
Each morning I say good morning to her, and I visit her sometimes in the afternoon. Maybe her neck was stiff and she was just stretching, but I like to think that she was saying hi to me.

Clark's has been a family run business for almost 100 years. We have enjoyed working for and with them. Mark was the "fudge master", or that's what the 6 year old son of the Chinese acrobats called him. Many days he made over 100 pounds of fudge. One of his favorite flavors is peanut butter snickers, which was his creation. He also made glazed nuts. He kept very busy in the kitchen cooking most days. I worked at the t-shirt counter.

Making his "ying yang" fudge creation-
vanilla and chocolate swirled together

Some of the varieties of fudge that Mark made

The t-shirt counter at the Trading Post

1920 Climax steam locomotive,
this historic engine pulls or pushes the passenger cars at Clark's

After the train goes through the covered bridge, you are in Wolfman territory!!

The Wolfman doesn't like it when the train goes onto his land!
You have yell at him to "Scram you old goat!"

On our days off as we explored the White Mountains, we found all of our favorite things, including spring wildflowers from the most delicate painted trilliums to beautiful ladyslippers. We picked wild blueberries, and found so many varieties of cool looking mushrooms. We explored glacial caves, and climbed around boulders and rocks galore. We went zip lining and rode a cog railway, the Hobo railroad, and tramways. We visited an 'arts and crafts castle' built by Old World craftsmen. We enjoyed Santa's Village, Storyland and Whale's Tail parks. Clark's provided a local passbook that got us into many of these scenic areas, amusement parks, and gondola and train rides in the area all for free!

We hiked to over 45 different beautiful waterfalls and cascades, visited at least 15 scenic covered bridges, hiked up to see amazing views from mountians and visited secluded mountain lakes. We wandered through picturesque old New England towns and stores. We even ushered at a local playhouse and enjoyed the shows there! We traveled to Maine to visit Pam and Don, our kayaking friends from Florida. Then they came to visit us and join us for some great hiking and an afternoon of fun at Clark's Bears.

Had fun exploring cascades with Pam, Don and Pepito

Lupine, lakes and mountains!

We wandered through fields of lupine in Sugar Hill

We found wild pitcher plants that were blooming

Ladyslippers

Exploring glacial caves at Loon Mountain

We participated in the company talent show with some of the other workampers
That's me in the fancy dress and bear costume!

Dinner with the workampers

Sentinel Pine bridge built in 1939,
at the Flume Gorge

Had a great hike up to this unamed waterfall

Mark trying to soak his feet in the chilly water
at Diana's Baths

One day we took a tram up to the top of Cannon Mountain.
As we sat there looking across Franconia Notch,
Mark decided he wanted to get up top on the ridgeline that we were looking at!

He headed up the trail at about 6:30 am, on a cool. crisp perfect day.
He went up Falling Waters trail, with a 3050 feet altitude gain, then to 3 major peaks and
down Old Bridal Path trail to complete a loop. He arrived back down at the trailhead at 5:30 pm!
It was an epic 15 mile hike!