Ottawa may be the only national capital to be frequently visited -- downtown -- by bears. Across the river is Gatineau Park, which has a burgeoning bear population; in the spring, when the teenage bears have to leave home and find new territory, a few will swim across the river. In 1983, when I worked at the National Archives of Canada (just up Wellington Street from Parliament Hill), one of the senior archivists in the Manuscript Division was arriving for work at about 0730 when he met a bear on the steps from the parking lot (on the river bank) to the back door of the Archives. This bear was eventually run down and shot in the Parliamentary Precinct by the RCMP. I guess that gig isn't all red serge and tourists.