Theft.......

They are home!!  So here is the story.  We got home from work and as we were getting ready for dinner I asked Richard what he had done with the two bears.  He said nothing.  It took a minute to figure out because maybe we had just moved things.  But no, we had done nothing.  Then we realized that when we got home there had been snow on the floor and the front window was wide open. We figure that someone came in through the window because there was such a big snow drift.  We also think that our arrival home startled him (or them) and he took off.  He may even have left as Richard came into the house.  So once we realized they were gone we looked to see if anything else was gone.  It doesn't look like anything else had been touched.  We started calling everybody we could think of to let them know what had happened after we called the RCMP.  We gave them a description of the two bears as quite likely they would be resold tonight.  Hopefully we had cut off some selling routes.  In the mean time we were trying to feed Lily dinner and a carver came to the door.  It was someone I quite like and so told him what had happened so he could be looking too.  After our makeshift dinner Richard went outside to get rid of the ramp to our window and I went to put Lily to bed.  While he was outside another carver came by.  It was another carver we like who we have bought from before so Richard told him the story.  This time however...a lead.  This carver had seen our bears in a truck belonging one of the specialists who is working on the broken pipeline.  Richard gave him a call but only managed to talk to his co-worker.  This man confirmed that they probably did have our carvings.  After a bit of a wait Richard called back and talked to the man who had bought the carvings.  He was more than willing to have Richard come down and take a look.  So off went Richard with money ready to buy our carvings back.  This was about 9pm.

Just before 10pm Richard came back in and told me this story…

He went down to the hotel and met with the man.  He did indeed have our bears.  He was very sorry for what had happened.  He had paid $100 for them and Richard offered to buy them back.  He said not to worry about it! Amazing!  There are still kind, decent, generous people in the world!!!  The bear’s feet have been sanded and new names carved in.  However you can still see Richard’s name on his bear and part of the original name on the other.  Richard then went over to the police station to let them know.  And there in a cell was the thief.  Apparently he had walked into the station to sell some inukshuks and when the police asked him, he confessed.  So Richard just added to the case.  They say he will have a court date soon.

The little jerk will be released tonight but will hopefully (and had better) steer clear of us.  It is just so frustrating because we know this kid.  He is only about 15 years old.  Everyone knows him as ‘the thief’.  Before we knew who he was he had been to our house selling carvings and when he told us he was starving we gave him food.  I don’t even have words yet for how we are feeling!

But there you have it.  Situation resolved!  And thank you to all those who were willing to help us, and all those who truly did help.

Good night all and close your windows!!

Margot

Richard's Art defaced!  On the foot that is bottom left in this picture you can still make out most of Richard's original name carving.  Its hard to see in the picture but at the very left you may be able to see the R. On the bottom right foot you can see the kid's alteration to the carving.