Smokey Bear, now 80, to headline National Cherry Festival as icon's message brings controversy
One of America’s best-known — and most beloved — bears, after teddy, that is, is set to appear at the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City this week as the marshal of the Cherry Royale Parade on Saturday, and before that, in the sky, as a huge, hot air balloon.
The balloon, something that the state’s Department of Natural Resources is sponsoring, travels around the United States. It is aimed at promoting fire safety, which, is top of mind now, and just about everyone knows, is what Smokey is all about.
Smokey, who turned 80 this year, has long been a symbol of fire prevention, especially in forests. His famous line — "Only you can prevent wildfires" — seems appropriate for an Independence Day festival, given the number of blazes that fireworks start.
In addition, Michigan, which has something like 20 million acres of woodlands, historically has had its share of terrible forest fires, including one in 1881, which swept across Michigan’s Thumb, burned for days and killed an estimated 125 to several times that many.
"Smokey is a fire prevention icon," Paul Rogers, a DNR fire prevention specialist, said, adding the department also will have a fire prevention booth during the event. "The balloon brings attention to Smokey’s very important cause."
For Smokey to be a parade marshal also is somewhat rare, state natural resource officials said. He is, after all, a bear. Many kids these days often don’t recognize him, the said. But their parents and grandparents, who grew up with Smokey, sure do.
Smokey fills them with nostalgic feelings of camping and their own childhoods.
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What’s more, Traverse City is within 30 miles of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which American Indian legend has it, was formed when giant bears tried to swim across Lake Michigan to escape — what else? — an inferno.
'Smokey Bear effect'
Smokey was created to prevent fires, and yet, in a twist, the bear and his campaign has increasingly come under scrutiny with his critics charging the message that many received, that fires are bad, may have resulted even worse blazes.
One forest ecosystem professor has even called the phenomenon the "Smokey Bear effect."
Thomas Swetnam, the University of Arizona professor who is often credited with the term, has suggested that setting aside large, wooded areas and stomping out fires altogether has caused fires that do start to burn bigger and hotter because forests are now overgrown.
The forest service also has tried to give Smokey a new look and voice, or voices to be more precise, to appeal to younger audiences, and also may help explain why Smokey is set to be the festival’s parade marshal.
For his 75th birthday, the burly, shirtless, and upright Smokey in a ranger hat got a digital makeover. He became an animated emoji that celebrities, including, Steven Colbert, Jeff Foxworthy and Al Roker, voiced. This version, as you might expect from the comedians, is more dad-jokey.
The new ad campaign came just as the public wrestled with raging West Coast wildfires, and the question of how to address the consequences of climate change and how to conserve public land, which, some, like Swetnam, had suggested needed and upgrade.
An advertising campaign
Initially, Smokey was an artist's drawing and a spokesbear, if you will, for fire safety in the 1940s.
Bears, in general, already were beloved animals in America, and a symbol to children of comfort and protection because in the early 1900s, toymaker Morris Michtom made a stuffed one, soon known as the teddy bear, after President Theodore Roosevelt.
The connection: Roosevelt, a fierce big game hunter and conservationist, was depicted in a famous political cartoon that became popular, or, you might say now, "went viral." In the cartoon, Roosevelt is refusing to shoot a cute, cuddly black bear cub.
And by the late 1940s, Smokey Bear’s personal responsibility message that "only you" can do something to protect the nation's natural resources was something that resonated with Americans, and especially Michiganders, who have long sought to be good environmental stewards.
In the 1950s through the mid-70s, in addition to the fictional Smokey, there was also a real bear, named Smokey, that lived at the National Zoo. A cub was rescued from a New Mexico fire. It's little paws were scorched.
The bear got so much mail from fans — mostly children — that the post office gave it its own ZIP code.
In the 70s and 80s, Smokey got a fictional friend, Woodsy Owl, a character with rhyming catchphrases of his own. He urged kids — and adults too — to: "Lend a hand. Care for the land!" And there was this phrase that many Gen Xer’s still remember: "Give a hoot, don’t pollute!"
But in the last 20 years, Smokey’s celebrity — and credibility — has taken a hit with some scientists suggesting the bear’s anti-forest fire message has caused ecological change and, perhaps, is even to blame for the some of the intense forest fires now.
Last year, Michiganders saw — and smelled — the dangerous smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of miles away in Canada. The ash was so dense it triggered warnings to stay indoors. In other places, like New York, it turned the sky orange.
Friends of Smokey
Smokey's critics have even included a couple of U.S. Forest Service researchers who published a paper, "Be careful what you wish for: The legacy of Smokey Bear," in 2007. They concluded "a century of wildfire suppression" has led to "increased fuel loading and large-scale ecological change" in forests.
And while some state forest officials have acknowledged that Smokey doesn’t seem have the same appeal to younger generations, perhaps because they live in a TikTok age, there are still a lot of reasons, they said, to keep Smokey, whose image is federally protected, around.
One reason is public sentiment; another, is Americans still should be careful with fire.
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Every year, on average, human-caused wildfires account for approximately half of all wildfires in the United States, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho. The percentage is even higher — 80% — for wildland fires on Bureau of Land Management public lands.
So, leading up to the Cherry Festival parade and after — from Wednesday to Saturday — a 97-foot tall and 72-foot diameter ripstop nylon balloon — Smokey’s head and ranger hat — is set to be inflated in the late afternoon at the Village at Grand Travers Commons.
The balloon — which is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where one of the largest hot air balloon festivals in the world is held each year — goes to festivals around the country. Volunteers, "Friends of Smokey Bear," operate the balloon. In 2021, it was at the Upper Peninsula State Fair in Escanaba.
But a highlight of the Cherry Festival: Smokey will be honored in the festival’s 11:15 a.m. parade.
A state forest fire fighter will put on the bear suit and become Smokey, a responsibility that the DNR's Traverse City fire fighter supervisor Josh Gray said whoever is going to do it — he would not identify the firefighter, because, like Santa, he'll have to be completely in character — will take very seriously.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Smokey Bear set as marshal of Cherry Royale Parade in Traverse City
