When my husband suggested we take a road trip to the Canadian Rockies, I was hesitant. I have a particular fear, even though it is somewhat ridiculous. I know people who are insanely afraid of sharks, or spiders, or bats even. Mine?
Grizzly bears.
This is weird for many reasons, but the most compelling one to me is that as a kid I thought they were great.
“Grizzly Adams” was my favourite T.V. show. This hunky, hippy dude lived on the side of a mountain with a grizzly for a pet. It basically followed the same model as Lassie. He’d say, “What’s the matter Ben? There’s a forest fire, you say? Ok Ben, its time for us to save all the animals!” and off they’d go and save the animals and all would be well. Not once did the Grizzly Bear turn to him, give him the ol’ stink eye, and then grab his head in his mouth and bite down, just because he could.Black bears I am okay with. They could hurt me just as badly, and I should have more fear of them, as we’ve seen two in our backyard. But I feel somehow they can be…. reasonable. They mostly just want food or garbage, right? But Grizzlies? Did you see the story about the hiker who got a really terrific photographic shot of a grizzly, but the last shot was the Grizzly bear turning towards the camera with a menacing look on his face? I think they found parts of him later on. Oh wait, here’s the link, in case you want to terrify yourself.
I made the mistake of telling a friend this as we were planning our trip. He promptly looked up all sorts of bear encounter videos for me to watch. Thanks G. One was a runner with a geo-cam on his head, blazing along a trail in B.C., when out of the corner of his eye/camera we see a grizzly lumbering down the hill. You aren’t supposed to run from a grizzly, it might think you are prey…but he was already running, so what the hell do you do then?
He said, “Oh sShit” and then promptly ran twice as fast as he was running before, occasionally turning to look behind him. The really terrifying part was he had passed all sorts of people: out walking dogs, an old dude taking his constitutional, etc. All I could think about was, THEREWEREPEOPLEEVERYWHERE and the grizzly was close! Really close! Anywhere really!
My husband tried to make me feel better.
“Nobody ever sees a grizzly. They all think they’re going to but they don’t.”
“I saw a grizzly,” said our friend.
And then I listed at least three people I personally knew who had seen them in the Rockies. So we compromised. No camping. If I was in a cabin, there could be no head munching/mauling. They’d have to open the door first, which so far they can’t do.
Off we went in the car, in search of the beauty of northern B.C. We’d say to the kids, “Look! Its says watch out for Elk!” or “Look, Mountain goats for the next five miles!” “Look kids, it says Caribou ahead!” (It reminded me of Jurassic Park…where nothing seemed to actually live in the pens). Somewhere around the Shushwap River, a bear poked it’s head out of the woods and looked like it might run into the road. A brown bear. Not big, but big enough to make my stomach drop out from under me. “Bear!” We shouted from the front, and everyone got to see it as we passed. I took another breath about two minutes later. We discussed the bear at length, and decided it must have been a black bear, because black bears can be brown and weren’t it’s ears bigger? Etc. Okay, sure, it was a black bear. I’ll take it. After that the kids were more receptive to keeping their eyes peeled.
Later, while we visited Lake Louise, I asked a waitress if there were any grizzlies lurking about, as we had failed to see one from the gondola. I was hoping to have a viewing from there: seeing them from hundreds of feet up I am totally okay with.
“Oh yeah, we have a female around here, Bear 327. She has a collar. She’ll bluff charge, but she won’t hurt you, and she’s pretty young.” Strangely this made me feel better, that they knew her. If I came upon her, she’d only pretend she wanted to eat me, not actually do so!
On our way home from the restaurant we noticed several cars pulled to the side of the road, not 200 meters from where we were staying. Sure enough, a collared grizzly. I had the zoom camera on me and was happy to take a shot from inside the car. I have to say, I forgot about being scared, watching it dig for bugs. It was thrilling and awe-inspiring, and all the things nature shows say about grizzlies. As it lumbered off, we got a video of its giant bear butt wandering away. For one brief moment, my fear was eradicated. One.
“It’s going towards the campsite,” I mentioned to my husband, who just laughed.