Bears...oh my! As explained in my more historical posts of our explorations of New Bern, bears have a long history in this town. The bear symbol was inherited from its parent city of Bern, Switzerland and from their shared flag. With the celebration of its 300th anniversary in 2010, the Bear Town Bears, a nonprofit organization, recruited local artists to create hand-painted designs on life-sized bears to be placed all around town. We really enjoyed trying to find as many of these bears as we could. There are supposed to be 50 of these bears. Here is what we found:
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| Flag Bearer - One of our favorites placed outside of Town Hall wearing the flags of the United States, North Carolina, and New Bern. |
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| Not technically a Bear Town Bear, but I loved this little carved bear statue in front of the Bern Bear Gifts shop. |
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| Bearon DeGraffenried stands guard over Union Point Park dressed as the founder of New Bern. |
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| This bear was placed in front of the hotel where Daddy's conference was, but must be too new to have been on the poster listing all the bears. I think it is pretty as it depicts a lot of the prettiest parts of the town. |
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| This is more of an historical bear than a Bear Town Bear. These bears protrude from the entrance to Town Hall. These bear heads are actually made of cast iron. |
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| Travelin' Bernie |
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| Beary E. Essential |
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| Captain Black Bear'd |
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| Bear-ly Legal Bear |
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| Another unlisted one that looks fun for kids. |
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| Piedmont Natural Gas bear is a new one. |
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| Another unlisted one, but since it is outside a law firm, I assume it is an English Barrister. |
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| Wise Bear |
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| We discovered Colonial Bearman was located inside a local restaurant in downtown when we went to dinner one night. |
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| This giant carved bear is located in a little square in the center of town. |
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| Bearer of Rights - This one is holding the Bill of Rights sent to North Carolina by George Washington for ratification. The original document was recently procured and brought back to North Carolina after some big legal battles. It was found through the television show "Antiques Roadshow." It was stolen from North Carolina's Capitol during General Sherman's march in 1865. |
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| He is also draped with the American flag and holds the scales of justice. |
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| The boys pose with Bearer of Rights bear. |
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| Wal-mart Bear. No explanation necessary. |
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| Bearon de Broker aka Super Agent - the boys loved this one which we found by accident when we stopped at a local branch of our bank. |
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| Coldwell Banker Bear |
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| Sailor Bear was Evan's favorite. |
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| Dr. Bender Bear |
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| Home Town Bernie |
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| I loved the "sticker's" all over this suitcase bear which depicted the special sites of New Bern. |
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| Spirit the taxi bear - I think he was supposed to promote not drinking and driving and calling a taxi if you have been drinking. |
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| Evan pretending to drive the taxi. Ha! |
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| Kare Bear |
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| We care! |
How much fun! Tulsa has penguins in the same fashion as the bears. The kids always love seeing them when we go. (I really don't know how penguins were picked for Tulsa, but we'll roll with it. ha!)
ReplyDeleteRaleigh has wolves, but I guess theirs makes sense since NC State University is there and their mascot is the wolf. Not sure about penguins in Oklahoma. Haha!
DeleteI love this! I would have enjoyed finding as many bears as I could. I think Toronto has moose but we've never gone on a moose hunt. Maybe we should...!
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome! I'd love for us to have something like this in Arizona. I can't think of anything that's even close. It's like the hidden Mickey's at Disneyland, only bears, and huge. Ha ha!
ReplyDeleteI really like the patriotic ones that have some sort of depiction of the American flag. They are all pretty, but those are the prettiest I think.