Scare bears spook horses, vehicle hit: Three bears, a mother and her two cubs happened upon a team of Belgian horses pulling a wagon that was going down Thorne Lake Road on the way to the children’s picnic at Thorne Lake July 31.

“I was going to the Thorne Lake kid’s picnic,” says teamster Louis Hodgins, who lives on Thorne Lake Road. “I saw bears on the road, two cubs and the mother behind, and they spooked the horses. The wagon flipped and threw me off.”

The 63-year-old man escaped serious injury but says his leg “is sore yet.”

At the same time, Gord Lagarde of Thorne Lake was driving his station wagon on Thorne Lake Road when as he was driving up Jeffrey’s Hill, he met the team of runaway horses.

“All of a sudden I met a team of horses on the wrong side of the road. There was no driver,” Lagarde recalls. “I drove out of the way into the ditch but the wagon side swiped my car.”

Lagarde escaped injury, though his station wagon suffered about $2,000 in damages.

Hodgins says when he returned home, the runaway team was waiting for him.

Twenty-five years of shoes in Norway Bay: The annual Norway Bay Graham Street Horseshoe

Tournament celebrated its silver anniversary Aug. 1 at the pits of Arnold and Beverley Ireland.

This marked the 25th consecutive year that friends and family of the party street, as it has been called; met for a day of fun, fellowship and friendly competition.

This year’s champions were Rachel Charette and Gerry Cater who narrowly averted a four-year win streak by Brad Kinnaird and his partner Liz O’Rourke with a come-from-behind victory in the championship game.

Since 1975, the civic holiday weekend has been replete with the reverberating clang of steel, the hearty laughter and cheers of fans and participants and the silvery tinkle of ice cubes.