Disney Pooh-Poohs Bear Statue Plans

A Canadian town that claims to be the birthplace of Winnie the Pooh wants to erect a giant statue of the famous bear, but Walt Disney studios will not permit it.

“Winnie the Pooh is a Canadian,” said Tom Bagdon, president of the Chamber of Commerce in White River, Ontario, about 50 miles north of Lake Superior.

“We don’t understand why Disney gave us such an abrupt answer. We feel they have a movie and a half here in the true story of Winnie.”

Born Near White River

Bagdon explained in a telephone interview that the bear on whom British writer A. A. Milne based his children’s stories and whose copyright Walt Disney Co. now holds was born near White River in 1914.

Harry Colebourn, a veterinarian with the Second Canadian Infantry Brigade, bought young Pooh from a trapper for $17 when he was passing through White River on a troop train.

Colebourn, an Englishman who had settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba, named the 1-foot-tall cub after his adopted city, and the troops nicknamed her Winnie. The young American black bear sailed with the soldiers to England and became the mascot of the brigade.

“She was a great morale booster for the troops,” said Colebourn’s son Fred, 64, in a telephone interview from Winnipeg.

He said his father left the tame bear at the London Zoo only after a commanding officer decided that Winnie could not go to the front lines in France.

At the zoo, Milne and his son, Christopher Robin, spotted the bear who now figures so prominently in children’s literature.

“You could pat her like a dog. The kids rode on her back,” Colebourn said. “They never had a bear like her and I don’t think they have since.”

Monumental Plans

He added that Pooh’s origins are fully documented in his father’s detailed diaries and in official papers in the London Zoo archives.

When residents of White River learned there was proof that the well-known bear hailed from their town, they made plans to build a 25-foot-high monument to Pooh pictured in Milne’s books.

“They want to cash in on the bear because they’re in a depressed time. They’re looking for anything to give the economy a boost,” said Colebourn. “That’s why they were so happy to hear about Winnie the Pooh and their connection.”

But Disney, based in Burbank, would not go along with the plan. In a letter to a lawyer representing White River, the company said such a move would not be in line with its “contractual commitments and present and future plans for this character.”

Instead, Disney suggested that White River put up a statue of a regular black bear and a plaque explaining the connection to Winnie the Pooh.

Colebourn is hoping to erect a sculpture of his father’s bear and a plaque commemorating both Winnie and his father in Winnipeg.

Bagdon said an ordinary bear statue would not draw tourists to White River and town residents will continue to push for Disney’s bear.

A statue of Pooh like the one in the books would be “one of the greatest attractions across the Trans-Canada highway,” he said.