intrepid_camper wrote on May 20^th, 2013 at 2:24pm:

My son recently suggested I take a road flare or two along in my gear.  He thinks it would go a long way to discourage a nuisance bear.  It would also make a good fire starter and could be used as an emergency signal flare. I suggested it would be somewhat problematical to get it started while a bear is dragging you from the tent.  But still sounds like it could be a good deterrent.

I had an emergency flare gun that fit in my shirt pocket (like a fat pen) that I used to scare away an aggressive bear in camp in broad daylight on BWCA Spring trip on Shell Lake.  I shot it in the air and the sound scared the bear away and we decided to move to a different camp site.  By the time we were pushing off (15 minutes) the bear was back in camp.

starwatcher