Issue 4 represents the new, la moderne, the never-before. To commemorate, I am sending us back to the olden days: a few weeks ago. But I only head back so I can then go forward again: bringing everyone up to speed with our latest doings. And today it’s rather “Knife” out there.

Being centered in California, Wholphin is good friends with several grizzly bears. Brent Hoff, our fearless leader, is actually three eighths grizzly bear (one of his grandfathers and one of his grandmothers’ mother, for you unauthorized biographers and Wikipedia contributors).

Before California was a united state, it was an independent nation for all of twenty-five days. Our president was was William B. Ide, a pioneer and carpenter. Caleb Greenwood, a fur trader, had directed him to California. Ironic, since Ide would later befriend many grizzly bears during his struggle for power. Greenwood was a true mountain man who completed the very first wagon journey to California. Yes, the SAME California about which he told William Ide. Coincidence or chance? Some of the less popular members of the California Historical Society still argue about it to this day.

Fur trading was a volatile industry in those days, before all the glitz and glamour. The French had a monopoly of the Canadian fur trade, but they only wanted action to happen colony-side. Two Frenchmen learned from the Cree that the best fur country was northwest of Lake Superior, the area near what is now called Hudson’s Bay. They found financing in a group of investors from Boston and got incorporated by King Charles II, becoming “The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay,” an abbreviation of the longer, less memorable and altogether more unsightly name, “Hudson’s Bay Company”.

In June 1870, Hudson’s Bay Company transferred ownership of the Northwest Territories over to the Canadian Government. Later, in 2006, in Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, the world’s first documented grizzly-polar bear hybrid was discovered (and promptly shot, of course!). Grizzly-polars were then promoted from cryptids to fully-fledged hybrid animals, much like our very own Wholphin! Encyclopedia Pictura lists cryptozoology as an interest in the liner notes to their film, a music video for the song “Knife” by… wait for it… Grizzly Bear. Verily, fate has whistled its song and the stars have aligned to bring you, dear viewer, this film.