Wishing Bear

In the Alaska summer of 2009, I had just graduated college and was looking for more ways to help pay off my school debt. Raised in bush Alaska, 40 miles from the nearest road and completely off-grid, I had a wide variety of self-sustaining craft skills. I was currently living in Anchorage, the largest town of our state. The city often attracted more tourist than state residents. So, I decided to make unique gifts for travelers. Their little “piece of Alaska” to take home.

I knew a great many people who had old fur rugs and coats. In the U.S. animal fur has declined in popularity over the years, so many old heirlooms found themselves in thrift stores and languishing in closets. Laying the furs upside down I traced patterns on the hide and cut out strips and sections for fur sculptures and stuffed animals.

A variety of creations were born, from cotton-tale rabbits, to little beavers, to monkeys. Once I recreated a Bernese Mountain Dog, the size of a puppy, for a woman who had recently lost her canine companion. Inside each fur sculpture I placed a red marble heart. I would hold the heart in my hands, letting it warm for a few moments, before slipping it into the stuffing and sewing the last few stiches closed.

But by far my most popular creations were teddy bears! I made fur teddy bears in all shapes, sizes, and colors and out of every type of fur I could find. No two bears every came out the same, each with its own personality. After a tourist would buy one of my teddies it would not be unusual for the grandmother to later send me her old fur coat or hand muff. I would remake them into teddies for each of their grandchildren to carry on into the future.

After the summer tourism season was over I placed my teddies on-line, for winter sales. That is how the Family first found me. For their own privacy I will call them Family K. The parents of Family K were interested in the largest teddy bear I had made to date, crafted from black bear fur. Because of the long fur I had chosen to make the bear several feet tall and I had added brown glass eyes to shine out of the black fur. The mother mentioned it was for their young daughter and I cautioned that these teddies were not intended child play. That is when she told me about their daughter J.

J was born with a heart defect. Only a few days old J had been on her way to a children’s hospital, for heart surgery, when a drunk driver hit their ambulance. J survived, but was seriously and permanently injured. Ever since, she had difficulty seeing and moving, could not talk, and was very very small. Although she was not able to see well, J loved the feel of different textures. Her family loved providing her with things coarse, soft, furry, and bristly. She was able to differentiate between synthetic and organic materials and her parents hoped she would respond well to the real black bear fur.

It was an overwhelming success! Family K sent me videos of little J crawling across the floor reaching out in eagerness for her black teddy. Her little fingers curled into the fur and she pulled the bear down on top of her. Bear and girl were nearly the same size. Family K told me she was calmer and happiest with her bear and asked about the possibility of making more, with other textures. In emails we discussed different options for about a year.

Then I received a call from Make-A-Wish. They had given little J a wish and her family had asked for a large teddy bear, made from multiple fur types. Agreeing to the project I began laying my pieces. Cutting the belly from beaver fur, the head from fox, and the legs from coyote, and the paws from rabbit the end result was a very eccentric three-and-a-half-foot tall teddy bear. I though about J as I warmed the red marble heart and placed it inside.

Shortly after shipping it to Family K I received a picture of J grinning, both of her teddies laying next to her. Over the next few years I continued correspondence with Family K. I made them a smaller teddy of muskrat fur that J could carry with her in her car-seat, during rides. Later they bought one of my stuffed bunnies, made of arctic hare. After every new creation they sent me a picture of little J, smiling with her fur companions all around her.

Then, after a year of no contact, Family K called me. They wanted to commission another teddy bear, but this one had a very specific job. Little J had died, at the age of 15. Some of her ashes had been placed into a heart locket and they asked me for a teddy bear that would carry it and her.

Being from Alaska, I knew there is a group of black bears that are called Spirit Bears. This special tribe of black bears are white, but strangely not albino, as there is black pigment in their eyes and skin. Native Americans of the area consider the bears sacred, and they are part of long-standing oral traditions. It felt right that this was the guardian to carry J.

I lay out pieces of white arctic fox fur and cut the body. From thick black rabbit fur I cut out soft belly, snout, and paws. Two large black and brown glass eyes completed the face. But unlike all the other teddy bears I had made over the years ( well over 200) I did one thing different. I left out the red marble heart. Instead, I cut out a pocket from silk and inserted it into the seam running down the bear’s back. It was deep enough that when the locket, with ashes, was placed inside it would be positioned right where the heart would be, nestled among the soft stuffing. It took some time to find all the materials to make this last bear perfect, and by coincidence it was complete on J’s 16th birthday.

J never walked or spoke, I never meet her in person, but she has been in my heart for so many years. I don’t always know what will happen to a craft after I make it, where it will end up, and who will love it. But if something I make brings 1/10th of the smile J always had in her pictures all of my work is well worth it.