The sign says “Bear in area. Do not approach or interfere with bear.” I wonder what “interfering with the bear” would look like? Starting a conversation? Discussing the weather? Or the quantity of berries available for fall gorging?
Flippancy aside, bears are highly prevalent in our area. We are exhorted to keep our garbage and compost bins indoors, and to not leave fruit on trees. There’s a Facebook group devoted to local bear (and cougar) sightings, and some of them aren’t that far from our house. When we go to Cobble Hill Mountain, the sign about bear sightings is a warning to be careful on the trails, though the other day we passed a woman taking a selfie in front of it. I’m not sure she realized its importance.
Consider the story of Icel Dobell, who was walking her dogs off-leash in a local park. Her dogs scared a bear and cub who were eating a carcass, and the mother bear charged one of the dogs. Dobell fought the bear off her dog, then turned around and walked back to the trailhead, not realizing how badly she was injured. Luckily, she got swift medical care and is almost healed. However, it’s a good reminder to keep your dogs on leash in bear country, as dogs off leash are more likely to lead a bear back to their owner.
I’ve encountered bears in our area twice, but how many have I not seen because I wasn’t paying attention and a bear was watching me from the bush.
In one of the encounters, I was wandering on the Shawnigan Lake School trails and came around a corner to find a black bear standing on its hind legs in the grass, presumably to better view something in the distance. We were both surprised—I could swear I saw its eyebrows go up. I slowly backed away, then ran once I got around the corner. That was the end of that day’s walk.
The second bear I saw was on the rail trail that crosses the historic Kinsol Trestle. I was training to walk a half-marathon and had set out south on the trail, with the intent of walking four kilometres out and back to the parking lot, then four kilometres to the north and back. As I walked down the trail, I noticed a wasp nest ripped apart in the grass. Then I saw the bear—a big black one that I was sure was responsible for the wasp destruction, as bears like the amount of protein they can get from them.
As with the first bear, I slowly backed away, but there wasn’t a convenient corner I could turn around to run away. So, I kept backing up, until I felt it was safe to turn my back to the bear and speedwalk back to the parking lot. I decided to do all my training that day on the north end of the trail, completely avoiding the south end.
When I did do the half-marathon, we walked a section of trail that had a plethora of bear sign: piles of scat, ripped up hornet nests, etc. I stayed close to the group in front of me; they were loud and raucous and could easily scare a bear away. I don’t think they even noticed the bear sign.
Bears and cougars are one of the reasons I don’t wear earbuds on my walks and hikes. I could catch up on a favourite podcast, listen to an audiobook, or even just listen to music, but I prefer to hear what’s going on around me. Even people coming up behind me, running or cycling, is something I want to be able to hear. This leaves me woefully under-educated about podcasts and audiobooks.
When we lived in Prince George, my husband saw a bear while out walking the dogs in the woods near our home. Thankfully he saw it before the dogs did and was able to quietly creep away with them on his heels—probably one of the only times they listened to him calling them (in a whisper).
That same year, we carefully picked all the fruit in our back yard, only to have a mother black bear and her two cubs climb the crabapple tree in our front yard. We’d completely forgotten that it had apples on it, too (albeit very small ones). We were lucky that our dogs couldn’t see the bears, as they would have had a frenzied barking fit.
On a recent trip to the Rockies, we stopped in Revelstoke, a mountain town on the Trans-Canada Highway, near Mount Revelstoke National Park. On our walk downtown, we passed what looked like a huge, berry-filled bear scat in the middle of the sidewalk. I wouldn’t be surprised if bears come into town—in the small mountain community of Kimberley, north of Cranbrook in the southeast corner of BC, people carry bear spray when they go out for a walk, as bears wander freely through the town at all times.
On that same Rockies trip, several campsites in the mountain parks were temporarily designated “hard sided camping only.” There was bear activity in the area, and tents were prohibited. Imagine getting to the park for your once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Rockies and then not being able to camp because all you have is a tent? Well, beats being eaten by a bear, I guess. The campsites in the Icefields region were exempt from this ban, so I imagine there wasn’t a lot of bear activity there. Still, we made noise on our hikes to and from glaciers in the area.
My mom likes to share these bear stories with one of my aunts in the Netherlands, who is always taken aback by the “wilderness” we live in. There are no black bears in the Netherlands. No apex predators, period. Perhaps she imagines that we are surrounded by dark forests teeming with wildlife and danger. Our forests may be dark, but if you’re smart, they’re not as dangerous as you may think. Just don’t “interfere” with the bears.
