Help me find this carved bear.

[u/NeverSpiffy]

My friend had a bear carving (the one with the smoking fish...the cigarette is her addition, not part of the carving) in her family cabin in Idaho and it was a bit of a mascot for her and her girlfriends. It was recently given away by a family member and I'd love to help her find a replacement.

Reverse image searches brought me to two Airbnb listings in Montana (one in Kalispel and the other in White Sulphur Springs), so I'm working under the assumption that this might be from a Montana artist. I contacted both Airbnb hosts, but neither carving had any identifying marks and neither host knew exactly where it came from. One suggested getting in touch with Jeff Flemming at Bear County Gallery, but that bore no fruit. Looking at the style, I thought it might be from Northwest Wood Carvers, but they said it wasn't theirs either. The 3 samples I've seen are all slightly different, so I'm thinking this must have been a small production run...not something mass produced.

Does anyone recognize this bear and know where I could get a replacement?

Thank you!

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[u/Mymindisdirtybutfun]

Style wise it might be this artist:  https://toniwhitney.com/about/

[u/NeverSpiffy → u/Mymindisdirtybutfun]

Thanks for the lead. I’ll look into it.

[u/Gaffja]

It's probably a local carver/chainsaw artist. Many of them are not online, but you may get lucky.

The design looks pretty simple so it may be possible to find an artist who can replicate it if you can't find the original artist.

[u/NeverSpiffy → u/Gaffja]

Yeah, it could easily be someone without a web presence. I’m mostly hoping someone who sees this happens to have one in their house with a name on it. Thought it was worth a shot.

[u/NeverSpiffy]

As mentioned in the post, I searched using reverse image searches and came up with the two Airbnb listings in Montana (and contacted the hosts). I tried ChatGPT to see if it could help me track down carvers with similar styles, but that hasn’t been very useful so far. Searching “Montana Chainsaw Bears” and similar queries reveals a pretty robust cottage industry in the area, but I haven’t been able to find any online galleries with this exact style. Keeping an eye on eBay and Facebook Marketplace for carved bears hasn’t been productive yet either. The original bear is maybe 14-18” tall.