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Sasha, a Kodiak bear, was the Hamm’s beer bear. In this picture trainer Earl Hammond is leading Sasha. File photo
At an early age of the mid nineteen sixties, I was simply fascinated with the towering white pines, the cascading rivers, and the sky blue waters that are especially unique to the Minnesota Arrowhead. The vastness of the wilderness instilled a haunting curiosity in the adventurous spirit of this bright eyed boy, as well as to those tens of thousands of others that came to hear her call.
It was amidst this untamed paradise, that the Hamm’s brewing company of St. Paul, Minnesota filmed their commercials through an unprecedented marketing strategy that minted their product as born “From the Land of Sky Blue Waters”. Their television commercials showcased a live backdrop of the Gunflint trail lakes with the world famous Hamm’s bear traversing this beautiful wilderness landscape. The company’s intent must have been to parallel the consumers love for the lake country wilderness with that of a love for their product “a cool, refreshing, Hamm’s beer”.
Now what red-blooded Midwestern beer drinker wouldn’t buy into this concept, least of all, to turn the TV channel when a Hamm’s Bear beer commercial was being broadcast?
With the great success of these commercials, the marketing staff at the Hamm’s brewery had to have taken things very seriously in the creation and timing of these TV spots. They seemed to be cranking them out as fast as the viewing public anticipated them.
Now on one such filming schedule, the (live) Hamm’s bear was said to be trucked in route to Grand Marais, Minnesota for an early morning filming of a new beer commercial to be shot on some Lake, way up the Gunflint trail.
Much to the impatience of the awaiting film crew, the Hamm’s bear cargo hauler was reported hours behind the planned arrival time, and was diverted to the Duluth International Airport for the bear to be flown by charter plane at the last minute to Devils Track airport, north of Grand Marais. This diversion could shave hours off the valuable travel time, and presumably be less traumatic to the growingly anxious six hundred pound, brown bear, the star of the screen.
The charter flight company, confronted with this sudden, yet lucrative contract, made frantic calls to all of their off duty flight staff, only getting through to one Norwegian barber, turned pilot, willing to take on this unusual payload.
In short order, the pilot arrived to the hanger during the day’s waning minutes of light to learn that the shipping cage for the Hamm’s bear wouldn’t fit into the cargo hold of the aircraft. The normally subdued bear, temporarily leashed to the delivery truck, was getting less than happy under the bright task lighting not listed on his itinerary, as the ground crew tried to remove the passenger seating in a desperate attempt to achieve more cargo room.
Even with the seating removed, it became apparent that it would be impossible for the bear cage to fit into the plane, and a decision of last resort was made to muzzle the Hamm’s bear’s massive jaws, and to tie his/ her leash to an anchoring point in the rear of the plane away from the pilot and the controls.
The task of coaxing this more than average friendly flier into his less than first class accommodations was apparently beyond a challenge, and it is at the request of the pilot of this story that I say no more excepting that a piece of pickled herring dangling from a stick on a string has been found not to be the most favorable way to seduce a muzzled bear onto an airplane.
With the anticipated terms of employment for this flight slightly modified, the Hamm’s bear and the growingly apprehensive pilot finally taxied their way toward take off into the darkness over the Northland.
A routine flight of a half hour from Duluth to the Devil’s Track air port was about the only thing that could justify a complete refusal to pilot this trip. What could possibly go wrong in such a short time? It has been said that over a hundred scenarios of disaster went through the mind of this crazy aviator, just in the first five minutes after take off alone, but the lights of Devils Track were now straight ahead at last, and our pilot remembers thinking that, “It looks like we made it”.
With each foot of decent, relief evaporated from his very soul, and then he heard an unwelcome noise from the back. The big Hamm’s bear had snapped his leash, and had gently rested his giant head on the right shoulder of the pilot. “What could I do at that point?” he recalled. “The bear was there, and I had to land the plane”. We just watched the lights of the landing strip together as we finally came to rest on the ground.
The handler was there to retrieve the Hamm’s bear, and he gently walked away as the film crew thanked our pilot for his help in keeping their schedule.
My friend, the pilot of this story, has said that upon returning the plane to the hanger in Duluth, he proceeded to enjoy a much-required “cold, refreshing”. …“DOUBLE MARTINI” a pilot chapter from my future publication: “Face, Fiction, and Unbelievable Stories of Cook County”
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