One of our favorite true stories was about a massive bear that was breaking into the back porch and kitchen of the hotel.
My Grampa Charlie had a man helping him open up the hotel by the name of Enos Good. This bear would come at night and raid the back porch looking for whatever food he could find. Some of the supplies arrived and were stored. We used to buy the eggs by the gross in a large box. Grandpa always woke first and would start breakfast frying bacon with eggs and brew a large pot of egg coffee. When he went out to the back porch all of the eggs had been eaten. The bear barely broke a shell sucking the eggs out of the shell. He even poked holes in the shell and got the egg whites and yolks out without breaking the egg.
Grandpa was not happy. In the porch was a propane Servel refrigerator right next to the kitchen door. The next morning grandpa came down to the kitchen and went to the back porch and found the refrigerator door ripped out and most of the food eaten. This was unbelievable because the bear did not open the door with the handle. It got its claws between the door and the frame and forced the door off from the hinge side. Grandpa had enough and decided something had to be done about the bear. He was obviously very strong and fearless.
Garndpa Charlie and Enos decided some one had to sit up at night in the dark kitchen with the door open, a loaded 30-30 Winchester rifle and a flashlight. Some one had to shoot the bear. Enos got the first shift. Grandpa was sleeping in room number five right at the top of the stairs. Grandpa heard a shot, not sure what time it was but hopped out of bed and went down the stairs, ran through the kitchen looking for Enos. He could hear a racket in the back porch but not Enos. Grandpa could hear something on the floor, it was totally dark, he whispered "Enos where are you?" "I am under the table I lost the damn light and it rolled somewhere under the table". They could still hear the noise in the back porch which was the bear expiring. He was one large black bear probably over 500 lbs. I remember going to see that bear and had never seen any bear even close to that size and we had lots of bears on the island at Kettle Falls.
