Winnipeg Bear

A few days ago I watched a wonderful movie based on a true story : “A bear named Winni”. I was moved by the story, and when the movie ended up there were just tears , although it is not a sad ending somehow , but still , it is a story that touches the heart.

I recommend this movie to any one who cares about animals , hope , friendship .
But it was more interesting to think that even though Winni has gone since 1934 , some how it’s still living in a millions children’s heart…

Winni is a bear that brought hope and love in the 1st world war , and got into the history and the heart of millions of children around the world to live forever in their heart as a famous cartoon character …

To see how it happened , read this :

A Bear Named Winni

Captain Harry Colebourn was born in 1887 in Birmingham, England and moved to Canada in 1905. He trained at the Ontario Veterinary College in Toronto, graduating with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science in 1911. • After graduation Colebourn took a job with the Manitoba Department of Agriculture in Winnipeg. He trained with the militia in his spare time and became a provisional lieutenant in the Veterinary Corps.

winnie_colebourn_horse

With the start of the First World War in August 1914, Colebourn became a member of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps.

The Corps' duty was to care for the thousands of horses the army used to transport artillery, supplies, and the bodies of the dead and wounded.

• On August 23, 1914, Colebourn boarded a troop train that would take him from Winnipeg to a military staging area in Valcartier, Quebec. From there, Canadian servicemen would be sent overseas.
• The following day Colebourn's train stopped in White River, Ontario, a small town between Port Arthur (later Thunder Bay) and Sault Ste. Marie.

• At the train station he met a hunter with an orphaned female bear cub. The hunter had shot and killed the cub's mother, without whom the cub was almost certain to die.

• Colebourn offered the hunter $20 (about $350 in 2004 dollars) for the cub. The hunter gladly made the trade.

Winnie in London Zoo

• Colebourn commemorated his adopted home town by naming the cub "Winnipeg Bear." Her name quickly became "Winnie" for short.

• Winnie accompanied Colebourn on the train and stayed with him in the encampment at Valcartier. She was on Colebourn's troopship when it set sail for England on Oct. 3, 1914.

• In England, the Canadians lived in an encampment and training ground on the Salisbury Plain. The soldiers played with Winnie in their off hours.
in spite of all common sense warnings from his fellow soldiers, takes her with him to the camp in Valcartier, Quebec where the Canadian expeditionary force is gathering. Winnie is a breath of fresh air for the young soldiers faced with the prospect of war, and she travels with them all the way to Salisbury Plain in England.

• In December 1914 Colebourn's unit, the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade, got word they were about to leave for the war zone in France..
When Harry’s regiment is sent to fight in France, the young vet knows Winnie cannot go. He finds a home for her at the London Zoo, promising to return as soon as the war is over and take her back to Canada.
While Harry and his friends fight in France, Winnie becomes the star attraction at the zoo.

For the children of London, living in the shadow of a frightening war, she becomes a symbol of friendship and hope.

• The zoo, located in the city's Regent Park, was the home of the Royal Zoological Society of London. It had a habitat for bears called the Mappin Terraces.

• Harry Colebourn's donation to the zoo was intended to be temporary. He visited Winnie every time he was on leave in London.
• By the end of the war in 1918, Winnie had many admirers and was one of the zoo's most popular animals. Colebourn decided to leave her in the zoo's care and, in a ceremony on December 1, 1919, he officially handed her over to the zoo.

• Winnie was so tame that parents would place their children on her back for a ride.

• Another favorite activity for children was to feed Winnie a mixture of condensed milk and corn syrup.

WINNI THE POOH

Milne his son Christopher Robin Milne

It was a most auspicious start for "a bear of very little brain." On Christmas Eve, 1925, the London Evening News published a short story by writer A.A. Milne. Among its characters was a bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. But it wasn't until the 1980s that the story behind the inspiration for the bear came to light. Winnipegger Fred Colebourn explains Winnie's background to CBC's Midday
The "silly old bear" was not pure invention; he was inspired by a real-life bear in the London Zoo. The bear, named "Winnie" (short for Winnipeg), was a donation from Fred Colebourn's father, Harry, a Canadian Army veterinarian in the First World War. Before becoming a star attraction at the zoo, Winnie was the mascot of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade

• Two of Winnie's frequent visitors in the 1920s were a young boy named Christopher Robin and his father, writer A.A. Milne.

• Christopher Robin had a teddy bear, originally called Edward, that he renamed Winnie-the-Pooh. "Winnie" came from the bear in the zoo, and "Pooh" was apparently drawn from a pet swan of the Milnes' acquaintance. • A.A. Milne wrote for the humour magazine Punch. He also wrote a detective novel and many plays, essays and short stories.

Christopher Robin Milne with Pooh.

• In 1926 Milne published a book called Winnie-the-Pooh. It was illustrated by a friend and fellow Punch contributor, Ernest H. Shepard.

• Milne's The House at Pooh Corner followed in 1928. He also produced two classics of children's verse: When We Were Very Young in 1924 and Now We Are Six in 1927.

Christopher Robin Milne and Winni



Receipt from London Zoo, recording the arrival there of Winnie on December 9th, 1914 and her death on 12th May, 1934

• Winnie lived at the zoo until 1934. In the last two years of her life she had cataracts and arthritis and suffered a stroke that partly paralyzed her. She was euthanized on May 12, 1934.

Winnipeg continues to celebrate its unique relationship with the exuberant Winnie-the-Pooh. In the city's Assiniboine Park you will find two special Winnie tributes: a bronze statue of Captain Colebourn and Winnie, and an original oil portrait of Winnie-the-Pooh by the illustrator Ernest H. Shepard - forever linking Winnie-the-Pooh to the city which gave him its name.

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The movie ...

A BEAR NAMED WINNIE

Based on a true story...
The story of the bear that inspired a timeless classic.

Tells the true story of Lt. Harry Colebourne, who rescued an orphaned black bear cub and donated her to the London Zoo, where she eventually became the inspiration for Milne’s books.In 1914 Lt. Colebourne, played by Michael Fassbinder (/Band of Brothers/), is on his way to WWI battlegrounds when he and other soldiers of the 34th Fort Garry Horse Division stop at a train station in White River, Ontario. When a startled horse starts trampling the market outside the train station, we get the first clue that Colebourne is extraordinarily good with animals as he calms the half-ton animal.
The next creature he finds is a crying bear cub, not nearly as big butclearly in distress. The cub has been orphaned by a hunter, and Colbourne, a trained veterinarian, knows she is too young to survive on her own. So, he buys the cub for $20.Back on the train, the small bear meets with disapproval from the conductor and Colonel John Barret, played by Gil Bellows (/The Shawshank Redemption/ and/ The Practice/). That sets up the conflict for greater part of the movie. Colebourne and the men want to keep the cub. Despite the official rules they name her after their hometown Winnepeg and claim her as their mascot.Once they reach their staging area in eastern Quebec, Col. Barret insists that the bear be removed from camp and returned to the wild, but Gen. Hallholland, played by David Suchet (best known as Hercule Poirot), thinks a mascot is good for moral.
During her tour of duty Winnie makes a mess of the mess tent kitchen and is suspected of more serious crimes at the camp. All the while, Colebourne and the other men cuddle and play with their cub in Canada and then in Great Britain, but finally they cannot take her to the front. She is too tame to live in the wild, so Colebourne takes her to the zoo.A BEAR NAMED WINNIE manages to suggest the heart-rending sadness of war without ever graphically presenting battle scenes, so it’s very appropriate for children. After the war, there’s an emotional reunion when grown Winnie puts her arms around Lt. Colebourne and rests her head on his, clearly comforting him. Her love and affection heal the broken soldier and I don’t believe there was a dry eye in the house.( yes , personally when I sow that I cried a lot it was very touchy really)
The film, made for Canadian television, looks fantastic on the big screen and the score adds just the right touch of humor and whimsy. When the war becomes more present the music reflects the less joyful mood without becoming heavy. The period costumes and sets lend authenticity and the actors bring an innocent sensibility to their portrayals which feels right for 1914.
The only technical flaw is the repeated use of slow-motion in the close shots of the bear cub. These were almost certainly used to compensate for the difficulty of keeping even a trained bear cub relatively still--in the camera frame and in focus--long enough for a decent shot. It’s a minor point and is easily overlooked. The film is skillfully directed by John Kent Harrison. His previous credits include numerous TV movies, including /A Wrinkle in Time /and/ Helen of Troy/.A BEAR NAMED WINNIE is a Crystal Heart Award winner from the 2005 Heartland Film Festival and will be available on DVD in November, 2005.

Michael Fassbender

as Lt. Harry Colebourn

“Every day I got to roll around with little black bears, that’s one of the real privileges of this job - I get to do crazy things.”

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Gil Bellows

as Col. John Barret

"I got up close and personal with Bonkers, the 600 pound adult bear who played the grown-up Winnie, on my first day. He sniffed both sides of me and apparently I passed his test."

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David Suchet

as Gen. Hallholland

“[My character is] a nutter --- a great eccentric English nutter. He believes in the old way of doing things and thinks his way is the best. He’s wonderful, off the wall, very in-the-moment and you don’t really know what he’s going to do next.”

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Stephen Fry

Protheroe the Zookeeper

“As I child I had a big collection of bears, and still have some of them. I eagerly read this script when it arrived because it had the word “bear” in the title and I thought it was absolutely delightful.”
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