Quill skipped coming last night during the blowing snow. The snow would have been, and is, hard to walk in. The wind did to the snow what Native Athabaskans did to create quinzhee houses. 
Pine marten eating date mashThey piled it up. Something about moving fallen snow, or stirring or blowing it, makes it knit together and become hard. I suspect that that is what creates the solid snow blocks that Eskimos cut for their igloos. Athabaskans piled up snow, let it set for a few hours, and then hollowed it out as in the picture. Sometimes we do that around Ely. Quill would have had slow walking. I don’t know how far he comes from.
We’re waiting to see what he does tonight.
Athabaskan quinzhee houseI should say that Peggy Stubbs, the assistant bookkeeper, will be waiting. She is another Lily Fan who loves bears. She was the first one to see him—she says October 13th. When she heard about the Quill House, she gathered up bags of leaves to put into it. She helped put it in place along with the McCray’s. She shells peanuts to make it easier for Quill. She stays up half the night to get weights on him. She makes sure food is always out there, retrieves memory cards from the trail cams, and today brought in his half-frozen bowl of formula (18°F) and put it in warm water to make it easy to lap up. While I am at my computer, she is spotting Quill so I can snap a picture. She held the flashlight for the two nice pictures a couple days ago. She was the last one to see him as he left two nights ago. Mike Johnson and Lorie Kennedy, who you’ll meet in the Black Bear Field Courses, bought food. Lily Fans bought food. It’s been a team effort. We’ll see if he comes back tonight. We’re ready.
Quill house with blowing snow 11/18/16If he is done now, with the snow, what will he do next? I suspect he’ll be turning his attention to a den if he hasn’t already. I’m always surprised by how much cubs know about their surroundings. When Hope became separated from Lily, she knew her way back nearly two miles to the area where she had spent most of her time with Lily. Quill spent the summer learning locations of dens. Bears check dens all summer. We saw June make the den on July 19, 2004 where she would give birth to Pete and George in January 2005. I’m sure Quill has explored a few dens. I don’t know how far he was from here when he got separated from his mother for whatever reason, but the hungry little cub found his way back here after being gone for over 3 weeks. I suspect his mother had led the family back to her usual area. I don’t think she was shot by a hunter because she was still coming here after the hunters had pulled out. In mid-September, the guides stop baiting and most hunters turn to grouse hunting. It was a special case with DNR involvement that led to June being shot on September 27 in 2013.
Quill houseThe wildlife excitement so far today (before Quill comes, if he does) was seeing the female pine marten come out of the empty garbage can we thought she might be living in on the third floor deck. We don’t know if she has other living quarters. The marten was in the feeder out the living room window when she saw Peggy coming back from Quill’s House with the card from the trail cam. She went up to the 2nd floor deck, ate some more, and then ran up the stairs to the 3rd floor deck. I went up there to take a picture out the sliding glass door and was in time to see her exiting from the garbage can that is lying down with the open end against the side of the cabin. We don’t know if she lives in there or uses it for storage. I was too slow for that picture, but the picture here shows her biting a piece of frozen date mash.
ChickadeeBlue sky returned for part of the day, and the chickadee looks happy.
We are now plowed out. I had to use Peggy’s 4-wheel drive Jeep to get home last night.
A Lily Fan posted an astute comment about GiveMN. “Did the NABC get any golden tickets from Give MN? If not, I think in the future I will just donate directly rather than pay service fees and deal with the aggravation of the website being down year after year. I'd prefer that the Bear Center get every penny that I send!” We did win a couple golden tickets in the beginning but none the last couple years, I believe. We’re thinking of alternatives. Meanwhile, we are thankful for all that Lily Fans gave to help teach the truth about bears to young people. Thank you again.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center