Life with the bear who became Pooh

Burnaby’s Pauline Mori always knew the old photo she had was special. But it was a phone call 14 years ago that showed her just how remarkable it was.

The photo, a postcard really, was in an album full of images that Mori, now 69, had inherited from her late uncle.

It shows a bear cub on a leash, sitting atop a vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycle while soldiers, some in uniform, some not, stand around watching in amusement.

The bear had been purchased by veterinarian Lieut. Harry Colebourn from a hunter when their troop train stopped in White River, Ont. in 1914. It accompanied him and his fellow Canadian soldiers as they made their way overseas to serve in the First World War.

The bear, named Winnie after Colebourn’s hometown of Winnipeg, eventually became immortalized as Winnie the Pooh.

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Mori’s uncle, John “Jack” Hewat, was a 17-year-old sharpshooter with the 2nd Canadian Rifles who had lied about his age to enlist. He travelled on the same train and boat as Winnie.

Hewat never saw the bear much as it was kept hidden most of the time. “But they [the troops] all knew about it even though some of their superiors didn’t,” Mori said, adding they’d often steal food for her.

She chuckles at the “Pooh” part of the name. In England, the term was synonymous with “what a nuisance.” Among Canadians, let’s just say her uncle “used to joke that the boys had to shovel a lot and that’s how she got the name.”

The troop train took them to Valcartier, Que. before a ship sailed them to England where the bear settled in as a pet to Colebourn at a military camp in Salisbury Plain.

But soon he had to move on to the battlefields of France so Winnie was taken to London Zoo where she became a popular attraction. On his return, Colebourn officially donated the bear to the zoo. That’s where A.A. Milne’s son, Christopher, became a fan and added the “Pooh” part of the name and the series of children’s books was born. When Winnie died in 1934, it even merited an obituary in a London newspaper.

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When Mori was growing up in B.C., Hewat would visit from his home in Ontario every few years and bring his photo albums, sharing stories about his time in the war.

“When I was a kid, that’s what people did was sit around and listen to the old people tell stories,” she said.

He regaled them with tales such as how he got wounded in the war, and of course, travelling with Winnie the Pooh.

When Mori inherited his photo albums, she took a special interest in the bear-on-motorcycle postcard and even had enlarged copies made which she sold.

That caught the interest of a local newspaper columnist who did a piece on it in 1995.

Shortly afterwards, Mori received a phone call from Bernice Makepeace, an official with the White River Historical Society, which runs an annual Winnie’s Hometown Festival.

Makepeace just happened to be in the Lower Mainland for a wedding and heard about Mori’s photo and asked if they could meet.

Turns out, the original photo the postcard came from was taken by military photographers. But while a description of the image still remained in the national archives, the photos and negatives had been destroyed in a fire that swept through the Parliament Buildings in 1916.

Makepeace had known about the photo for years but had never actually seen it until she met Mori. Her picture even shows the original archival number.

To this day, “nobody has come up with another copy of this,” Mori said.

She and her husband, Bob, donated a copy of the picture to the White River Historical Society and its museum and even attended the 1996 Pooh festival where it was unveiled.

Today, Mori is proud of her part in helping to teach countless generations about this piece of Canadian history.

“I feel we are really missing the concept, the crux if you like, of Canada if we don’t know anything about its history.”

wchow@burnabynewsleader.com

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