As children we were brought into the Hundred Acre Wood to go on adventures with Winnie-the-Pooh, Rabbit, Piglet, and the other cast of characters that A.A. Milne had created for his son Christopher Robin. But before that, Winnie-the-Pooh was a part of someone else’s story.
As World War I was getting underway, Captain Harry Colebourn, from Winnipeg Canada, was on his way to training camp, and happened to see a bear cub on a train platform with a trapper. By the time the train pulled away from the station, Captain Colebourn was the new owner of a female cub, whom he affectionately named Winnie, after his home town. In short, the cub became the mascot for the brigade and made the trip overseas to England where the soliders continued to train for deployment to the front lines. Before they left for France, Winnie was safely left at The London Zoo, where author A.A. Milne begins his tales.
Now Winnie's origin story has been put to paper in the form of a children’s book by Captain Colebourn’s great-grand daughter Lindsay Mattick, entitled Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear.
