It probably dates back to the American fur-trading industry, when a despicable group called bearskin jobbers used to sell bearskins in advance before actually shooting us.
A few days before the poll Gary Wade, the chief justice on the state's Supreme Court, sat in his office, a room enlivened by a bearskin rug on the floor, complete with paws and snarling mouth.
The term bear may derive from the proverb about "selling the bearskin before one has caught the bear" or perhaps from selling when one is "bare" of stock.
Berserker, Norwegian berserk, Old Norse berserkr ("bearskin"), in premedieval and medieval Norse and Germanic history and folklore, a member of unruly warrior gangs that worshipped Odin, the supreme Norse deity, and attached themselves to royal and noble courts as bodyguards and shock troops.
Perhaps most popular has been the bearskin rug.
He wore a bearskin cap and leather shoes stuffed with grass to keep his feet warm.
The newly unearthed autobiography reveals various prototypes for Ambrosia: one is an island community of boys and girls, which he rules wearing "a high hat with a bearskin"; another is a republic the size of Lancashire populated by young people and in which he is the president, the prime minister and, most tellingly, the editor of the newspaper.
Then there's an assortment of primitive art – "a good collection of bits and bobs from Borneo" – as well as a variety of animal skins, including a bearskin rug, a wild-boar skin and a wolfskin coat, which apparently starts dogs howling.
On Twitter today a flavour of the opposition Guardsman Bhullar faces could be seen in posts such as: "How absurd - Sikh soldier will be guarding Buckingham Palace without bearskin as he'll be wearing a turban," and "The Sikh soldier if he must should wear bearskin over his turban otherwise the red&blacks on parade would look disharmonious & ridiculous".
The first Sikh guardsman to be given permission to wear a turban instead of a bearskin while on duty outside Buckingham Palace is coming under pressure from colleagues not to break more than 100 years of tradition.
