I hope you are always that lucky. I went for years doing the same thing. Then one trip we saw a bear near our campsite. When it got 150 yards down wind of a trout one of us was cleaning, it got up on two legs to sniff the air, saw us and kept moving. We didn't think too much about it until after it got dark and someone mentioned it again. We became worried enough to make an inept attempt to hang the packs for the first time, in the dark. We ended up with packs 6 feet off the ground and a broken egg mess. We were lucky the bear was not (yet) enlightened and did not return. We realized we needed to learn how to protect our food and the bears.

After our trip the previous year we learned from Roger Thew that the sow and two cubs we saw at the parking lot on the way in had been destroyed by the time we got out, Simply because they had become unafraid people. Sad thing.

If I still haven't talked you into considering a more effective deterrent than luck, keep reading. Most would agree the risk is indeed minimal but in this case the consequences made for an unwelcome, albeit interesting story. A while back I promised to share this story. Your post made it imperative I make time for at least this condensed version because what you do with your food affects more than your single trip.

The last bear I got to talk to had just lost a fight with a cow protecting her calf. It followed 30 seconds behind them into my camp. I was a lot more afraid of the moose than the bear. At one point she was 10 feet away and walking pretty fast, calf in tow, right at me, with a wild look in her eyes. The bear at least stopped when it saw me. Instead of making noise right away I started taking pictures because I thought it would keep following the moose, but I guess it thought maybe it would have better luck with a puny camper like me, so it decided to forget the calf and see what I had to eat.

Here is where the story would have ended, had it been an uneducated bear.

I soon became uncomfortable with it poking around and began politely asking it to leave - no effect - escalated to banging pans and yelling - still no effect. A rock finally got it moving and following it helped keep it moving. As I walked it out out of my campsite it took a trail that went past my fishing gear and paddles. It paused there because it smelled something good. (so now I'm running to protect my rods) It didn't have enough time to find exactly what smelled so good and in hurried frustration it grabbed my paddle and ran with it into the woods with me yelling after it. It wasn't funny at the time.

By the time my tackle box was hanging with the food, the bear was back looking for something more tasty than wood. Again I scared (more like annoyed) it away by chasing and throwing things at it. The problem was it kept reappearing. I was solo on a smaller island and decided it was time for me to leave. I figured I had given the moose enough of a head start anyway.

The bear hung around and watched me pack up. I needed to chase it away from my stuff each time I took a load to the canoe only 30 feet away. Once in it's confusion, it ran off with my bottle of gas. It didn't like the taste of gas at all (I warned it) but still, it hung around. The food pack stayed hanging unnoticed until everything else was in the canoe. It watched me take it down and paddle away.

I paddled the few hundred yards to the mainland where I planned to use some fuel from my now very leaky fuel bottle by having a nice breakfast while I repacked. When I got out of the canoe I looked back at the island and there was my black furry buddy, swimming directly for a point that was (by now our customary) 20 feet away from me.

Someone helped that bear make the connection between campsites, people and easy meals. I know I don't want to be responsible for another bear making that same connection. It’s a logical extension of a “leave no trace” ethic. If you think hanging is too much work, buy a barrel. Consider please, what unintended effects your actions might cause.

Posted by db on July 28, 2000 at 11:23