Uncharted territory

Today is day 20 of the Ultimate Blogging Challenge and of Inktober. The prompt for today is uncharted.

When the bears had a clear view of the mountains. where they were to meet up with the bears from all of the bear communities, they were surprised to see a river with some large green islands. Until that point, they believed that they knew everything on the path to the mountains, but this river and the islands were a surprise. They were never mentioned in the stories of previous treks to the mountain. They had never been celebrated in the songs passed down from one bear generation to another. They were completely uncharted and unknown.

The bears began building small kayaks and canoes with driftwood. Most of the bears traveled across the river in their tiny boats in groups of two. Baby Bear collected enough driftwood to build a larger canoe. He hopped in the boat to test it.

“Don’t leave us behind,” said one of the bears who had yet to build a boat.

“No worries,” said Baby Bear. “I’m just testing the boat. I don’t think it’s going to sink. Want to get on board?”

Baby Bear began ferrying bears across the river in the boat that he just built. He kept ferrying bears until everyone reached the other side of the river.

The bears resumed walking and before darkness fell, they had reached the base of the mountains. They looked up and felt that the mountains were large and majestic. They felt that the mountains themselves had stories to tell and songs to sing.

The Bears sang songs of past journeys until they fell asleep.