Bear No. 56 ferries her cub across a one-mile stretch of Navajo Lake this summer. It was the first time she had been sighted since she caused a commotion nine years ago in a neighborhood south of Tijeras, more than 200 miles away.

A big black mama bear.

And that’s the time to think about that bear.

Because if you want to learn something about tenacity and the will to keep on keeping on in spite of everything, you need to hear the story of Bear No. 56.

In reality, she is more brown than black in color, probably 14 years old. She’s called Bear No. 56 because that’s the number on the ear tag she’s worn since 2002 when the state Game and Fish Department relocated her for the second of five times from an East Mountain neighborhood.

Which just happens to be my neighborhood.

Bear No. 56 (who was Bear No. 770 until that tag from her first relocation came off along with a chunk of ear) has become something of a legend since her photo appeared in the Durango Herald last summer.

Bear photos are fairly common in high-country publications, but not like this one, taken by Mark Meier, a retiree from Arboles, Colo., during a fishing trip on Navajo Lake, a massive reservoir spanning 35 miles across the border between Colorado and New Mexico.

He was boating in Uells Canyon on the New Mexico side of the lake when he saw something brown and furry churning in the glassy green water.

“I couldn’t believe what I saw,” he said. “I thought maybe it was a large bird, a deer.”

He motored closer until he could make out a mama bear ferrying her cub on her back as she swam across the mile-wide expanse of water.

Meier grabbed his camera.

The bear and her cub made it safely to shore. But that is only part of the story. How it got there is the rest of the story. It was a problem bear that was relocated more than once from the area east of the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque. The final relocation is usually the fatal one: Euthanasia by a vet. In this case it was to the Zuni Mountains near Gallup. How she traveled across state highways, I-40, and the vast high desert of the Navajo Reservation to Navajo Lake east of Farmington is a mystery. And why she was crossing the lake is also a mystery. Definitely a survivor and "smarter than the average bear."

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Bear No. 56 ferries her cub across a one-mile stretch of Navajo Lake

I couldn't see the image. I hope this one works. Pretty cool, thanks for posting.