The Mass Bay Bears are the newest Bear group in the region. Our founders hail from the New England Bears, Rhode Island Grizzlies, Quebears, Boston Bears, Green Mountain Growlers, Northeast Ursamen, Bears Ocean State, and Provincetown Bears.

Other clubs include the Central Mass. Bears (Monty Bears), Bay State Bears, Bare Bears of Maine, Ourse Montreal Bears, Gen-X Bears Boston & Montreal, Mainely Bears, Bears of Albany, and more. Some of those clubs are with us, others don’t exist any more.

However they’ve all made a contribution to our community and we think it is important this be documented and that they, and their members, recognized for building what we enjoy today.

Remember 20 years ago when Bear Magazine was a little black and white magazine out of San Francisco? The Bear Mailing List was THE online resource? Guys would travel hours to a bar because it had one of them “Bear Nights” where fellas who looked like us, or liked the look of us, would get together? When “Woof!” confused folks and nobody ‘got’ what a Bear was, there weren’t Bear references on The Simpsons and articles in The New Yorker?

Here we’re looking to compile a history of the numerous Bear Clubs of New England, and neighbors. Below we invite fellas to post their recollections, names of founders & friends, and together lets see if we can’t put together a timeline of what we’ve accomplished.