FOLK TALES

It was near the middle of the night. As we came up over the top of the hill, Bear Lake was spread out below us in a long stretch of royal blue, black and silver. The full moon struck it like rich cream poured from an over full ladle; it streamed thick through the air and splashed in a star shape against the dark water. The car swung around the sharp switch back, turning my window toward the lake; “Oh!” I moaned, “LOOK at that!” I rolled the window all the way down and learned precariously out, all the way up to my hips, opening my arms toward the moonlight. The midnight wind whipped my hair into dancing dervishes that caught the light and whirled it like sparks all around my head.

“Good Lord!” said Nick irritably, “would you get her back in here before she falls out and kills herself? Why is she always trying to kill herself on my watch?” Jack laughed, reaching up, taking hold of the back of my jeans where they gapped at the waist.
“There! Now she won’t fall out. That doesn’t mean she isn’t going to turn into a bat or fly right out the window, she’s fey; there’s no living with her when the moon is full.”
I slid back into the car completely out of breath with my hair in elf knots all over my face, laughing weakly.

From up on the hill, I could see that there were fires all along North Beach. That probably wasn’t legal, but it looked like the local protectors of the peace were not out in force harassing people.
“You know,” I said, “There are about a million people on North Beach, it looks like a fine Saturday afternoon down there, I don’t see how you think you’re going to go skinny dipping with half the state of Idaho sitting up there.”
“It would probably be good for them,” said Nick, “but we’re not going to North Beach.”
“Where are you going then, somewhere over here?”
“Nope,” said Mark, “we’re going around to the east side.”
“Oh, come on guys,” I said, “reality check! I know we are all macho men here, but you can’t go skinny dipping off the east side of Bear Lake, not even in August. Its way too cold.”
“Of course you can,” said Nick, “we do it all the time.”
“It’s not really as bad as it sounds,” said Mark, “we’ve found a most impressive, most clandestine cove that is sheltered and has sand instead of rocks.”
“Impressive, indeed, but that doesn’t answer the temperature of the water.”
“You don’t have to go in,” said Nick.
“And you don’t have to come out . . . alive!” I said menacingly, “you KNOW what’s out there don’t you Nick? Just when your paddling along feeling happy and free in the freezing water you’ll feel it . . . a little grab at your toe, then a bigger jerk and then next thing you know it’s grabbed your . . . . leg, then it’s all of you! THE BEAR LAKE MONSTER!”

I decided it wasn’t a good idea to mess with the driver so I attacked Hal
instead, sneaking my hand over the back of the seat and around the side of his neck. He nearly went through the roof. It was a very satisfactory attack and made every one very happy, even Hal, after a moment.
“Jeeze Fred! You just about scared me to death.”
“I don’t know what your talking about Hal,” I said innocently from where I was leaning back on the back seat. “I haven’t moved.”
“Yup,” said Mark, “It was the Bear Lake Monster Hal.”
“You know,” I said, “there really is a bear lake monster.”
“Rave on Fred,” said Nick.
“There is,” I said, “Lots of people have seen it.”
“Lots of drunk cowboys from Pickleville.”
“Nick, you rotten snob! Now what makes you think you’re better than a drunk cowboy from Pickleville?”
“I’m not a cowboy and I’m not from Pickleville.”
“Your not drunk either,” commented Hal inanely, which made the rest of us laugh.

“Damn!” I said suddenly, “Marshmallows! I should have brought Marshmallows!”
“Fred dear,” said Nick, “we don’t roast marshmallows anymore, nor do we eat them, nor do we make s’mores. We won’t sing around the camp fire either, so don’t get any ideas. And, you don’t get to tell any more Bear Lake Monster stories either.”
“Jeeze Nick, you are one big spoil sport. What do you guys DO up here if you don’t roast marshmallows or make s’mores or sing or tell Bear Lake Monster stories?” I raised my eye brows.
“Fred, you just have a terribly dirty mind.”
“No really, what do you do while you’re waiting for dawn?”
“We quote Shakespeare.”
“Oh, good. I can do that.”
“Yes, I thought so.”
“Nick . . .”
“What?”
“Can I tell the story of Old Ephraim?”
He laughed through his nose. “Only if you do it in iambic pentameter.”

~

Between the arms of the Wasatch range of the Rocky Mountains, lies a fertile, green vale, known as “Cache Valley.” Over a century ago, trappers roamed through the surrounding mountains and valleys hunting and trapping beaver and other fur-bearing animals. They "cached" their pelts in secretive locations then "cashed" in their bootie at the yearly Mountain Man Rendezvous. Cache Valley was so named because its canyons offered so many good places to hide, or “cache”, the salted, rolled skins which were the Mountain Man’s “cash,.” or stock in trade. The wide verdant valley below the canyons was often a spot for Rendezvous.

I was raised in Cache Valley; raised in its pristine mountain beauty; raised on its stories and legends.

If you come to Cache Valley, we’ll go “up the canyon” into the mountains where we will sit around a camp fire on a clear start crusted night, and I will tell you the story of Old Ephraim. I probably won’t do it in iambic pentameter. The next day we can hike to Old Ephraim's grave. Old Ephraim was not a Mountain Man, explorer, nor pioneer settler, but an infamous grizzly bear that had an appetite for sheep, cattle, and big game. Weighing in at 1,100-pounds, Ephraim was the last grizzly known in Utah. His grave is marked by a gigantic 11-foot stone monument.

Old Ephraim roamed the Cache National Forest from about 1911 to his death on August 22, 1923. In the early 1900s, bears were a big problem for sheepherders. One grizzly bear had developed quite a name for himself. Sheepherders called him "Old Three Toes," for a deformity on one foot. This grizzly's distinctive tracks made his footsteps easy to identify. The sheepherders could also tell, from the size and the depth of these tracks, that this bear was huge. The bear wandered from Soda Springs, Idaho, as far south as Ogden and finally settled in Logan Canyon.

Frank Clark was partowner of the Ward Clark Sheep Company. His constant companion was his little sheep dog, Jennie. He kept a string of horses and was a crack shot with his trusty .25-35 caliber rifle. Clark said that during the summer of 1911, he counted over 150 dead sheep in the Cache National Forest, all, he assumed, killed by bear. Clark became an anti-bear crusader. He killed over fifty bears in his campaign against them. Old Ephraim, however, was the smartest, fastest, strongest of them all; and Old Eph, never got caught.

By 1914, Clark was obsessed and determined to get Old Ephraim at any cost. He set trap after trap in the grizzly's favorite wallows, but each time the trap was either removed, unsprung, or flung many yards away. He tried all the tricks he knew, but could never get "Old Eph" in his trap, nor did he ever get a good look at him. The was, of course, ample evidence he was there - the distinctive track marks and plenty of dead sheep. Old Ephraim just kept getting smarter as well as bolder and bolder as the years passed.

On August 21, 1923, Frank Clark visited his trap and found that Old Eph had built himself a new wallow nearby. He carefully moved his trap to the grizzlies newly built bath. It was a fine, beautiful starlit night and Clark was fast asleep in his tent, a mile down the canyon, when he was awakened by a roar and a groan. He had dogs in the camp with him, but none of them made even a sound. He tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t, so he got up and put on his shoes. He did, however, neglect to put on his trousers. He took his gun and walked up the trail. Clark thought that the sound he was hearing was a horse that was down. By the time he had walked a little bit further up the trail, he knew in no uncertain terms that it was NOT a horse. "Eph" was in the creek bottom, in some willows, and he was making enough noise to raise the dead. Clark didn’t know what to do. He was completely alone and Old Ephraim was now between him and his camp.

As he listened, he could hear the chain of the trap rattle. His teeth rattled as well. He decided the only thing to do was to get up on the hillside and wait. Clark never knew how many hours he spent there on the hillside, listening to Old Ephraim’s groans and bellows, but daylight did finally come.

"Eph" was hidden in the willows of the creek bottom, so Clark threw sticks in to scare him out. The massive bear stumbled out of the willows headed straight for Clark’s tent, crawling into some more low hanging willows right behind it. Clark got close enough to see a small patch of hide and he fired at it. He grazed “Eph’s” shoulder. In the next few seconds he nearly passed out, for Old Ephraim raised up on his hind legs, standing 9 feet, 11 inches tall. He had a 14 foot long, log chain wound around his right arm and a 23-pound bear trap on his foot. In Frank Clark’s own words: “ I saw the most magnificent sight that any man could ever see. I was paralyzed with fear and could not raise my gun.”

The enormous grizzly was coming right at him, still on his hind legs, swinging the trap above his head. Frank Clark was rooted to the earth and let him come within six feet, before he somehow stuck the gun out and pulled the trigger. The gigantic bear fell back, but came again and Clark fired five of the remaining six bullets. Eph had now reached the trail, still on his hind legs. Clark only had one cartridge left in the gun and still Old Ephraim did not go down.

At this point in time, for some odd reason, Frank Clark decided to head for Logan, 20 miles downhill. Who knows? I can’t blame him. I’m not the one who was facing a raging ten foot bear with only one cartridge in my gun. He had gone only about 20 yards when he heard barking and turned, "Eph" was still coming, still standing up, but Frank’s dog, Jennie, was snapping at his heels, and he had turned on the dog. Without thinking, Clark turned back, and as he got close, the grizzly turned again on him, still standing on his hind legs. Clark could see that he was badly hurt, as at each breath the blood would spurt from his nostrils, but he was still coming directly at him, so Frank Clark shot his last bullet directly into the brain of the mighty bear. “I think,” said Clark, “ I felt sorry I had to do it.”

The horses had all been scared away and Clark was completely alone. All he wanted on earth, at that moment, was to hear another human voice. He finally found a horse down in a wash and rode three miles to the camp of another herder. There he rested before the two of them returned to Old Ephraim.

“We buried "Eph" after skinning him.” Frank Clark’s memoirs say. “Boy Scout Troop No. 43 dug him up and sent his head to the Smithsonian Institute. I have a part of the hide, but souvenier hunters got everything else.”

It is true that a bear like Old Ephraim could do serious damage to a heard of sheep, but this has always been a tragic story to me because it marked the end of a species in a wide geographical area; a species that would go on to become nearly extinct.

During the actual confrontation, Clark probably didn't have time to consider how he felt about killing Old Ephraim, because the bear would have killed him. But according to Clark's niece, Thelma Daniels, her uncle later spoke of regrets, because the grizzly was such a magnificent animal.

"If I had it to do over again," he once said, "I wouldn't do it." Clark remained a bachelor all of his life and died in 1960.

The skull of Old Ephraim now resides in Special Collections at Utah State University. It is on display in the Tanner Reading Room, where we used to go to gaze at it and scare ourselves when we were in Elementary School. It is huge. It is enormous. It is heroic. He was a mighty beast. The mascot of Logan High School is the Grizzly, the fiercest and most dangerous of bears. Everyone in Cache Valley knows the story of Old Ephraim, the last of his noble race to walk the canyons of Utah. If they don’t know the story . . . I’d be glad to tell it to them, as soon as the moon is full and it is warm enough for a campfire. It is a story I tell well.

With one little hitch . . . I never did find out just exactly when Frank Clark finally put his trousers back on.

©Edwina Peterson Cross