The True-to-Life Tale of Winnie the Pooh and the Soldier Who Saved Him

Lieutenant Harry Colebourn, a young veterinary officer on his way to train as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Valcartier during World War I, couldn't have predicted that a stopover on Aug. 24, 1914 at White River, Ontario, would make him the owner of a seven-month-old bear cub.

The 27-year-old Colebourn was surprised by the sight of a black bear cub on a leash held by a trapper who was looking for a buyer. The trapper had killed the cub's mother but couldn't stomach killing the now-orphaned bear. Colebourn had loved animals ever since his childhood and had studied veterinary surgery in Canada at the age of 18 before settling in Winnipeg, a prairie boomtown. As a tribute, Colebourn named his new companion "Winnipeg."

"Winnie," the bear cub climbed tent poles, slept under Colebourn's cot, and sniffed after him like a puppy. Extremely fond of apples and condensed milk with corn syrup, Winnie was easily trained and amiably posed for photographs as the mascot of Colebourn's regiment on Salisbury Plain.

But Winnie couldn't travel with him to the trenches of France in the Western Front. London Zoo had just created a new bear habitat that looked like a mountain landscape, and Colebourn decided that Winnie could call this home for a few months. His original plan was to bring Winnie back to Canada at the end of World War I.

Each leave from military duty was spent visiting Winnie in the London Zoo. Even if she was no longer a small cub, Winnie was still the same gentle-natured bear Colebourn had left. Children were allowed to ride on Winnie's back and feed her by hand. Ernest Sceales, a zookeeper in the London Zoo, told a newspaper in 1933 that Winnie was "quite the tamest and best-behaved bear we have ever had at the zoo."

Colebourn barely lived through the war as he performed the very crucial service of healing horses from bullet and shrapnel wounds. But when he went back to the London Zoo for Winnie, he found she had become a dear member of the London community. He couldn't bear to take her away from a place where she was dearly loved. He bid Winnie farewell and returned to Winnipeg to work for the Department of Agriculture while operating a small animal hospital behind his house.

Author A.A. Milne was inspired to write about London Zoo's gentle bear that had delighted his young son, Christopher Robin. Like Colebourn, Christopher Robin fed condensed milk to the friendly black bear, happily hugging Winnie. He even changed his teddy bear's name from "Edward" to "Winnie the Pooh." The rest is literary history.

London Zoo and Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo both unveiled statues of Colebourn holding the hands of Winnie as she stands on her hind legs. These statues commemorate a Canadian soldier and his black bear cub and the children's classic their bond had inspired.