Bears, berries and baby deer

Betty Fountain-Magnus knows firsthand that Idaho's wildlife isn't shy.

She was recently awarded an honorable mention for her story, "Bears and Berries," which describes her encounter with a cinnamon brown bear in the early 1950s. She was a young teenager, and the 73-year-old longtime Hayden resident remembers it well.

"When the bear saw us, it stood up on its hind legs," she said. "We thought it was taller than our stepfather."

Fountain-Magnus was out picking berries with her brother and stepdad, Papa Lou, along hundreds of acres of timber land off Rimrock Road near their ranch when they came between the mother bear and her cubs. The aggravated bear came within 10 feet of the family.

Papa Lou shot the bear with a 25-35 Savage rifle while the cubs remained in a tree. Fountain-Magnus said they called the Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials, who tranquilized the cubs and released them on a wildlife reserve.

"I'm still afraid of bears," she said, adding that she can handle snakes and spiders, just not the large caniforms.

"Bears and Berries" was published in "Coal Oil Lamps and Cattle in the Crops: Tales from the Good Old Days in Northern and Mountain West Idaho," a compilation of true stories chronicling Idaho life in the 20th century. Fountain-Magnus, a retired Lakeland School District English and language arts teacher, has many more Idaho and Montana stories, most of them involving wildlife.

"We had no running water, we had no electricity," she said. "We would see cougar and bear and deer coming from the water trough, the same water trough that we drew water from."

Fountain-Magnus has kept journals most of her life. Reading them helps remind her of the past, like when she raised a baby whitetail deer.

"We called it 'The Goat' because we weren't supposed to have wild animals," she said. "And then we had it for about six months."

After that, she said, her stepfather loaded the deer in a horse trailer, took it to the fairgrounds where other wild deer were being kept and they were all taken to a reserve in the area of Farragut State Park.

She can also recall incidents that occurred while working as a camp cook in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of western Montana, including escaping horses and dyeing a Siamese cat pink with her friend's red hair dye.

The former school teacher enjoys creative, biographical and historical writing, a passion she shares with her family. Her mother also kept journals and her granddaughter is her editor. Fountain-Magnus intends to publish her wild Idaho and Montana stories in a few different books, as well as complete some poetry.

"My students never asked me to write a story," she said. "If I expect my students to write a story, shouldn't I be able to write a decent story too?"

Things may have changed through the years, but Fountain-Magnus said she is happy to be living in the Gem State.

"I still believe that Idaho is a place where you can have wild encounters," she said.

Info: www.hometownmemoriesonline.com.