The time we came face to face with a bear

This time last year I had never seen a wild bear in my life! After a full spring and summer living in Canada, we’ve had a fair few encounters. But this particular one will live on in our minds as one of the most outrageous moments of our lives!!

Before that day…

By mid July 2021, when this encounter took place, we had seen a few bears from a distance and had lots of experience with being ‘bear aware’ while hiking and camping. You may remember some of the bear precautions I explained in the story about our first time camping in bear country.

It was on our way back from that trip that I saw my first black bear, a large male, grazing nonchalantly on the road side.

After this, the sightings came thick and fast.

One of my favourite sightings was a mother and a cub that were crossing a large field. A safe distance away from them, we pulled over, sat on a fence and watched them slowly making their way through the open field and into a dense forest, bears preferred habitat.

It was wonderful to watch the way they stuck their noses in the air like dogs, probably taking an interest in the smell of us that was carried on the breeze to them.

After that peaceful encounter, it was amazing to see a bear sprint when one ran out in front of our car not far from Prince George. Seeing such a large animal move so quickly and with such agility was startling. It was also a helpful reminder why it is pointless to try and outrun a bear.

Which brings me to our story. Which took place during a quick lunch time walk in mid-July, 2021. In a forest called Moore’s Meadow, which is very near where we live, in fact, you may remember it from my stories about about snowshoeing last winter.

That time we came face to face with a bear…

It’s face popped up above the bush. The bush that lined the path that we were walking along. I was just the other side of the bush and Jacob was next to me.

Looking back it feels like we stared at each other for minutes. My processing went into a simplistic state and I remember every single thought I had in that nano second that we stood looking at each other:

Face? Animal. Bear? Yes, that is a bear. This is real. Nose colour? Tan. Black bear. A real black bear.

At this point Jacob, who was standing the other side of me, realised I had stopped, paused, turned to me, saw that I was face to face with a bear on its hind legs poking its head over a bush, and said in a calm, quiet voice: “Oh it’s a bear”.

Black bear. For real. Danger.

Its head was double the width of mine and it was the only part of it that was visible above the bush. Its ears were pricked up. I remember registering how small they were, how they were quite comical in comparison to the size of its head. It was stock still, just staring, as our brains switched from ‘this is real’ to ‘what do we do’ and our instincts kicked in.

Black Bear. Take cap off bear spray. Back up slowly. Speak in a low, calm voice. Don’t turn around. Don’t run.

Staying calm was surprisingly easy because it was not moving. It just stood there staring. So we spoke to it in a low, steady voice, bear spray pointing right at it and backed away calmly.

Large bear. Maybe female. May have a cub. Don’t turn around. No, do turn. Turn to check the cub is not behind us.

Turning around is firmly on the list of things not to do when you encounter a bear; but so is coming between a mother and her cub. Mothers will do literally anything to protect their cubs. So I reassured myself that we were not in more danger than we realised by turning quickly to check that there was no cub behind us.

As we continued to back up calmly, talking to it, the bear disappeared behind the bush, causing my chest to tighten in panic. Now we were dealing with a bear we could not see.

Stay calm. Keeping talking to it. Stay calm. Keep backing up. Be ready to use the spray if it runs at us. Stay calm.

But her intensions became clear when a much smaller bear, as yet unseen by us, began climbing a tall tree next to where she was. We had stumbled upon a female bear and her cub, and now she was sending it up the tree to safety.

By now we had walked backwards as far as we could. We could no longer see the mother, but we knew she was there because she would not leave her cub who was still climbing the tree.

In comparison to its still, silent mother who we knew was watching us, the cub was noisily scrambling higher up the tree; breaking off smaller branches as it went. It’s carefree, loud climbing was a strange contrast to the tension below.

With bear spray in-hand and hearts still racing, we had to bushwhacked our way out of the forest to safety!

Caught red handed! A bear in the apple tree in our garden – captured by our friend/landlord who lives downstairs!

A bear in a tree – captured by our arborist friend who was called to the scene!

You may have to zoom in to spot this curious young bear!

The mother and cub we watched crossing a field

Since that day…

Needless to say, we have not (and hopefully will not) come any closer to a bear than we did that day.

But we did have our first Grizzly Bear encounter not longer after. We were with friends, making our way to a spot to pick wild blueberries when we spotted a Grizzly mum and her cub. They were a long way down the path from us, but you don’t mess about when you see a Grizz!

We must have looked like six meerkats as we crouched among the low blueberry bushes, spontaneously popping our heads up to check for them and call out to let the bears know that we were there.

Bears are particularly active in the autumn/fall as they attempt to eat as much as they can before going into hibernation. The colder it gets the more overturned garbage bins we have seen! The apple tree in our garden was raided every night for a week, leading to a damaged fence and a fair bit of bear scat for Bally to sniff!

We also had another bear encounter just five minutes walk from our house, when a curious yearling came out of the bushes we were walking by. We did the usual: speaking in a low, calm voice etc but as we moved away the cheeky young thing ran towards us and only backed off when Jacob shouted at it.

Winter is not here yet, there is plenty more fattening up for the bears to do before they hibernate! In fact, just this morning we went outside to find a big pile of bear scat in our front yard and so I expect we might not have seen our last bear of this season just yet!