Fans of the children's literature classic, Winnie the Pooh, may not know that Winnie is based on a real bear. In 1914, Canadian Harry Colebourn purchased a bear cub in White River, Ontario, en route to serve as a military veterinarian for the British army in World War I. He purchased the bear cub - named after his native Winnipeg - as a mascot for his army regiment. Colebourn eventually donated Winnie to the London Zoo, where the bear soon gained many British fans. One fan was a boy named Christopher Robin Milne, who liked Winnie enough to name his own teddy bear after the Canadian cub, which, in turn, inspired his father to pen the Winnie the Pooh series. In 2014, a group of scholars at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario, compiled an exhibit in honor of the 100th anniversary of Colebourn's - and Winnie's - sojourn to London. On this website, visitors can examine a number of items featured in the exhibit and read accompanying essays. These items include Colebourn's diaries, photographs, and detailed three-dimensional images of Colebourn's veterinary tools.
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