Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 21/99) - Any Northerner can tell you there is an rich supply of wildlife in the North.

Wherever the presence of people is sparse or non-existent, animal life of all sorts is bound to flourish and, in some cases, even where people are likely to be around.

In many situations, whether it be in some remote wilderness area or in our own backyard, it seems like we are more the intruder than any creature we might encounter in our day-to-day activities.

For today's edition of Northern Lights, we thought it might be interesting to share some experiences with our readers of Northerners and their encounters with some critters one normally wouldn't find while walking along in some urban area down south.

Of course, one creature most of us wouldn't want to encounter while alone is a bear. Baba Pedersen, of Kugluktuk, believes one should always be prepared while in the wilderness.

"I use to be a Boy Scout," Pedersen said. "I spend a lot of time on the land and I see a lot of grizzly bears, so I make sure that I'm always prepared.

"I've got a bear dog, so most of the time the bears don't get too close. One time one got within 20 yards, but I took a couple shots six inches from his feet and that changed his mind."

Jeff Coates of Yellowknife didn't have a peacemaker of any kind when he came face to face with a wolverine while on a fishing trip last month, so he thought that the notoriously foul-tempered creature might at least enjoy a song.

"I practically walked right into a wolverine while on a trail in the woods," Coates said. "He looked at me and I looked at him. I couldn't think of anything else to do but start singing.

"I don't think he liked it though because he raised his butt up at me and waddled off. I was a little frightened, but not that scared."

When Kim Crook of Fort Providence came across a bothersome mouse in her cabin near the Horn River that kept her family up all night long as they tried to sleep, she figured that it was time for the mouse to walk the plank, so to speak.

"I threw the mouse into the river and it kept swimming back, so my brother and I took it into the canoe to get farther out on to the river," Crook said. "The mouse kept trying to swing up and bite me, so I figured that I would smarten it up and I held the mouse out over the edge of the boat.

"Suddenly, my brother yelled out 'Let go of the mouse!' I looked over at my hand where I was holding the mouse by the tail, but it was already gone. All I saw was a belly of a four-foot-long pike splashing in the water."

For a truly bizarre tale of man's encounters with nature, check out John Jamieson's story from Sanikiluaq.

"I grew three tapeworms inside me from cysts I dissected from arctic char," Jamieson said. "I was doing research as part of the International Biology Program with the faculty of the University of Toronto in 1971. We were trying to identify tapeworms that the Inuit didn't have a name for.

"I took the tapeworms in gelatin capsules and ate them with a bit of char blood. Seven days later I took faecal samples and found their eggs. Three months later, I purged the worms with epsom salt and out came three eight-foot long tapeworms."

OK, must be a great way to go on a diet, but we're sure at least a few of us would rather run into a grizzly bear with nothing more than a song and a dance.