In the interest of learning and discussion I’m going to make this free for all readers.

I wasn’t sure whether to write this post.

Perhaps it’s because I feel slightly foolish having significantly underestimated the bravado and general orneriness of a solo black bear.

Or perhaps it’s because I really don’t want to give ammunition to those who say the only appropriate response to wild bears is to fear and avoid them.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m not quite sure what the whole episode tells us about bears and bear behaviour in general.

Regardless the truth is what it is - and it has a power of its own. And it all ended well. So here’s the story.

It was the last evening of my daughter’s visit to Canada. Emma, who grew up mostly with her mum and is now in her early thirties, has been visiting fairly regularly since she was in her teens.

But it had been a few years - seven to be exact - so I was thrilled when she agreed to take time out of her schedule as a documentary filmmaker and come over and spend a couple of weeks with me in Canada.

We had - at least to my mind - a good and varied holiday. We went flying in my small plane, hiked on the snow in a beautiful distant valley, and she drove my 4x4s up and down to the nearest town - a new experience for her.

We also had a lot of long chats - about life, about nature, about where the world is going, and about the state of the Ukraine-Russia war, a subject we share an interest in.

When it came to her last evening she asked if we could head out and do a little more bear-viewing. On an earlier foray we had managed to spot a mum with cubs and a single male.

And so we headed up a logging road, parked up and began to walk. I took Katya, the dog, with us. But on the way up the hill we saw nothing and so, eventually, turned around and started back.

And then, behind a piece of fallen timber right on the trail, was a bear. It was a medium-sized black bear and was walking slowly in our direction. We paused and watched for a while commenting on how relaxed it seemed.

Then, as the bear came within about 50 or so metres, we began to video him. Katya, my nine-year-old German Shepherd who has been trained not to be aggressive with bears, sat quietly next to me, ears forward.

The first part of the encounter with the bear.

For a while we watched as the bear came closer. Quietly I explained the behaviour the bear was exhibiting. There were some small mouth movements, the bear’s ears were pinned forward, and then a slight drop of the head.

“More assertive now,” I whispered to Emma.

And still the bear kept coming. Slowly. Deliberately. And I let it come. So confident was I, after many many hundreds of encounters with wild bears, that I even whispered silly sweet-nothings in an effort not to spook him.

When he gets to that rock in the road, I’ll stop him, I decided. A few steps later he was there. Emma stood silently alongside me. Katya was alert but remained soundless.

“Yup, yup,” I said, loudly to the bear. He stopped momentarily. And then I took a couple of steps forward, asserting my dominance. But, to my surprise, he held his ground.

He paused for a moment, yawned ostentatiously and then made a quick lunge in our direction at a slightly oblique angle. Not only was the bear refusing to back down, he was being aggressive.

The second part of the encounter with the bear. The third part is, unfortunately, not recorded.

I immediately changed my posture. I balled at the bear. My pepper spray came out and I stood up tall. The bear began to huff. Then he took a few more steps forward and his whole body began to heave.

“Just stay still,” I said to Emma quietly.

And so we stood. And the bear stood. By now he was panting and huffing like an old train and slightly off the trail to our right. We were about 10 metres apart.

I kept talking loudly and with authority - we had stopped videoing by this point and sadly can’t show you the last few minutes of the encounter - and I clapped a few times. And the bear kept huffing.

Just why was the bear so brassy and unyielding?

Basic bear lore divides the reason for an attack into two main categories. The first is a defensive attack - usually by a grizzly bear - who is defending something important.

It could be a female with cubs, a male on a fresh carcass, or just a bear that you have surprised in the bush. But what they all have in common is that the bear is not interested in you per se, it just wants you to get out of its world.

The second type of attack is a predatory attack. Simply put, the bear is interested, or is at least entertaining the idea, of eating you. Predatory attacks can be carried out by grizzly bears, but just as many come from black bears.

And so which one was this?

Everything about the bear’s behaviour said it wasn’t being defensive. The bear was not highly stressed, was not moving quickly, and didn’t appear to be defending anything.

But it wasn’t being predatory either. At a certain point - and admittedly under significant pressure - it did stop advancing. I would have used my bear spray otherwise. But it certainly didn’t back down.

What other factors were there? Well, for one we were just coming into mating season, a time when male bears are more fired up than normal. And then there was my too-casual messaging by letting the bear come close in the first place.

None of these factors on their own were enough to bring us into peril.

But there were other unknowns. What kind of day was the bear having? Had he just been beaten up by a rival? Was there a female around that he wanted to mate with?

Or, conversely, had he seen off several smaller bears with his badass attitude and better than average heft? There was no way of knowing.

The stand-off lasted several minutes.

By now the bear was off to the side of us, still close, still huffing. We did though have a clear path to increase the distance between us and still head the way we had been planning to.

I weighed my options. I could double down with sticks and stones and, if absolutely necessary, six-seconds of pepper spray.

But with the complication of a dog present - albeit a very well-behaved one - and my daughter, who was far from panicking but definitely nervous, I decided there were too many variables at play.

If it came to a fight we would have to fight (and we would almost certainly have prevailed.) But I decided to try something else. We began to very slowly move away from the bear and advance down the trail.

This way we were getting out of the bear’s way - which is perhaps what the bear wanted - and heading slowly back towards our vehicle - which is what we wanted.

But we kept our eyes fixed on the bear.

“If he comes towards us we’re going to have to push back hard,” I told Emma quietly.

But he didn’t. As we walked slowly down the dirt road he moved here and there but pretty much kept his distance.

Did I make the right decision? Difficult to say. Everything worked out fine. Could I have dealt with the situation better? Perhaps. I certainly could have been less reassuring at the beginning of the encounter.

So there you have it. A bear guide with two decades of experience in the bush, much of it looking for, watching or tracking bears, but I still get surprised. Which I suppose is what makes what we do exciting. And real.

NOTES

I welcome thoughts from other bear guides, behaviouralists, naturalists, or people who have a lot of experience with bears.

I’m especially keen for comments on the minutia of the bear’s behaviour, different risk mitigation strategies, and alternative ways of dealing with the encounter.

It’s the time of year to get out and explore the trails, work off the winter lethargy, and get the dog back into shape. But not every hike goes exactly to plan.

If anyone fancies a bit of autumn grizzly bear viewing I still have a few spots in mid October. Please drop me a line on julius@wildbearlodge.ca or check out wildbearlodge.ca.

It was an afternoon hike I used to make annually - but it had been the best part of a decade since I last attempted it.

Across the river on the old bailey bridge, north along the airstrip, and then an hour or so through old growth trees along a bench of land that runs along the bottom of the valley.

From there you pick your point, scramble about 1,000 vertical feet up some steep forested terrain hanging onto foliage to keep you from sliding, and complete the circle along an old logging track.

All in, assuming no mishap or drama, the loop should take about three hours. I was accompanied by a very happy German Shepherd, who is not in the first flush of youth, but still keen.

For the first hour the hike (more a walk really) was uneventful. I criss-crossed a fading path I had marked out a few years back amid ancient trees and around deadfall.

Then I picked up a wildlife trail used by bears, elk and deer.

At one point, close to the river, I found several fresh bear scats. A black bear, I fancied, was living in the area and feeding on the green spring vegetation.

And then, as I exited a small patch of devil’s club - a spiny plant covered in needles that can burrow into your skin - my foot caught on a meaty root and I went flat on my face.

Katya the dog looked at me pityingly.

I picked myself up. Even after 20 years in the wilderness such falls still happen with regularity and, providing you don’t spike yourself on something nasty, are pretty much without hazard.

One time I broke my watch, so now I tucked my new affair from Apple - I know, I know, hardly the stuff of Bear Grylls documentaries but it has so many useful functions - under the cuff of my hiking jacket.

And then five minutes later it happened again. And this time I fell harder. Again I picked myself up, wondering if I had spent too much time in the city on pavement and my feet had become lazy.

I glanced at the watch and it was in a proper fluster.

‘You’ve had a serious fall,’ it flashed, or words to that effect. ‘Preparing to send out an emergency alarm.’

It gave me three choices: contradict the device and tell it that it was wrong (tempting.)

Admit that I had had a fall but tell it that I was alright (the truth.)

Or sit back and wait for a helicopter to arrive. (And given that the gadget has an ability to talk to satellites I wouldn’t have been surprised if one eventually did.)

I reassured the watch that I was fine.

*

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