Hundred Acre Wood

The Hundred Acre Wood is a Pooh-bear-infested forest in a parallel universe. Its counterpart in our universe is Five Hundred Acre Wood near Ashdown Forest in the United Kingdom.

Understand

The Hundred Acre Wood is a bear and tiger-infested menagerie of dangerous animals. Enter at your own risk and watch your step, as bears are notorious for going to Pooh in the woods.

History

Winnie the bear is an orphaned cub from White River (Ontario) who arrived in England in 1914 as the unofficial mascot of the Fort Garry Horse, a cavalry regiment from Winnipeg. When the soldiers and their horses galloped off to fight the Great War, Winnie was left behind in London — ultimately establishing a literary home in the Hundred Acre Wood as imagined by Christopher Robin's dad, A. A. Milne.

Landscape

The Hundred Acre Wood is a forested area beside open fields. A wizened Owl lives in a tree which was once Piglet's residence.

Flora and fauna

Although nominally a temperate woodland, the Hundred Acre Wood has anthropomorphised creatures from what would otherwise be considered sub-tropical or tropical regions, such as a rather enthusiastic tiger or motherly Kangaroo.

Climate

"Windsday" can be A Rather Blustery Day in the hundred acre wood.

Narrator: As a matter of fact, it was raining all over the Hundred Acre Wood. There was a thunderstorm on page 71.

[we hear a clap of thunder]

Narrator: And on page 73, there was a bit of a cloudburst. It rained, and it rained, and it rained...

See

• Three statues of Winnie the Pooh, the Hundred Acre Wood's most famous citizen: a bronze statue at the London Zoo, a statue in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg and a colourful 25-foot-tall statue in the White River Visitor Park.
• Christopher Robin's original collection of toy animals is in the main branch of the New York City public library.

Do

Poohsticks Bridge

• Poohsticks is a sport first mentioned in The House at Pooh Corner; each player drops a stick on the upstream side of a bridge and the one whose stick first appears on the downstream side wins.

Buy

• Christopher Robin's entire childhood will be commercialised, monetised, sold, resold and ultimately disnified. Poor Christopher Robin. The ridiculous clothes in which he appears on the book covers will be cast off and sold cheaply in used, as-is condition once Christopher runs away and starts his own bookstore after growing up with ridicule for his role in Winnie the Pooh. Such are the costs of using and abusing a real person's identity for this sort of foolishness.

Eat

• Apparently the honey is quite good, but don't get caught with sticky fingers.

Sleep

Hartfield village in Ashdown Forest is the closest to the Hundred Acre Wood. A few other options exist for various animals; a wizened Owl typically lives in a tree, while a bear might feel more at home in the den watching the telly.

Stay safe

• Watch for heffalump traps. A heffalump is a creature not unlike a white elephant; they're ruinously expensive and no one is quite sure what they'd do with one if they owned one, but the clever traps Pooh and Piglet set for this rare creature routinely pose a hazard to themselves and others.

• Bees are another concern, although they are unlikely to be a major risk unless you disturb them, or they are the 'wrong sort'.

• Although biting insects are not mentioned in documented accounts of the Hundred Acre Wood, the woodland/heathland nature of the environment would suggest that a small quantity of traditional insect repellent (such as citronella) would be advised.

Go next

• While travel from Ashdown Forest back to London is possible by rail, the train from Winnipeg no longer passes through White River (Ontario). While the Five Hundred Acre Wood is very much real, rail travel in Canada is sadly a joke.
• Interdimensional travel offers many other universes of possibilities; it can even reach long-forgotten ghost towns like St. John's and Calgary where the cross-country train no longer stops.