Harry Colebourn paid $20 for the bear cub later known as Winnie.
In 1914, Colebourn was travelling through Ontario toward military training and overseas service when he encountered a hunter in White River. The hunter had a female black bear cub for sale after killing the cub’s mother.
Colebourn bought the cub for $20 and named her Winnie after Winnipeg, the city he considered home. He brought her to England, where she became associated with the Fort Garry Horse and was kept at London Zoo during Colebourn’s wartime service.
The purchase price is a small but distinctive detail in the character’s origin story. The real Winnie was not a fictional invention or a bear owned by A. A. Milne. She was a Canadian bear whose presence at London Zoo introduced Christopher Robin Milne to the name that later became part of Winnie-the-Pooh.