wally wrote on Aug 16^th, 2010 at 10:58am:


Ahhh, now they are running in packs!  

I like to run the shore as often as not and I am convinced I see a lot more wildlife as a result. Just on one day going up the falls chain I seen 3 bears. 2 of the bears were a stones throw behind some guys fishing off a point. It was kinda comical. The wind was blowing so everything was moving about and it was loud near the falls. It was a mother and cub and they kept raising up and looking at these fellows and I imagine they were scenting. The guys fishing had no clue what was going on. I gave some thought to informing them but the danger alarm in my head wasn't going off so I slipped on by.

I don't doubt the majority of fatal bear attacks are by Grizzlies/Brown Bears, there shear size and ferociousness when attacking, make it extremely unlikely a unarmed human would be able to fend one off, if playing dead doesn't do the trick. Most people when in their territory are hyper alert, as their reputation probably exceeds the truth for the most part.

Black Bears are a little different. We've all see pictures of the clownish side of black bears. I've seen tourists get out of their cars and pose with black bears foraging on junk food people toss from their cars. 99% of the time it ends peacefully. This just puts the bear and humans in more danger. Humans lose respect for the bears power and wildness, and the bears lose their natural fear of humans.

Algonquin Park has at least 5 fatal black bear attacks, and more than a few near misses.  The most infamous was the 3 teens who were fishing in the park. While the fish they were carrying may have attracted the bear, they fact that it climbed 3 different trees too drag the teens one by one down to kill, proves the Rogue or Predatory bear is rare but not a myth. A couple was killed more recently after the bear attacked he woman and her husband came too her aid with a canoe paddle club.

Fellow paddlers saw the bear dragging one of the corpses around the campsite as the paddled past. When the ranger arrived, the bear still was there, and had fed on the bodies. After killing the bear, they found a pan of ground beef near the fire pit, untouched by the bear. I guess we taste better than beef

I carry Bear Spray, but also bring my version of a bear alarm/horn.
Being solo, I worried about leaving my food pack unattended on a 2x portage. I bought a personal alarm, like the runners use. It's the size of a deck of cards and uses a 9 volt battery. Alarm is piercing, like a household fire alarm.

On portages that are especially long, or I see signs of recent bear activity, I secure the lanyard cord to a tree limb, and leave the alarm in a zippered side pocket on my food pack. If a bear grabs pack, the safety pin will be pulled and even if the bear runs off, he/she will have 130+ decibels screaming in their ear

I can't imagine any wild animal tolerating that.  I also take it in tent at night. I would activate it, before using the bear spray as a 2nd to last resort, my camp survival knife being the him or me final option

I figure like most safety items we use, it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

The number #1 safety item you can have, is common sense. Unfortunately it doesn't come in a can, and  even if it did, some people wouldn't have sense enough to have a can opener

2 stories to share.
In the Rankin Inlet newspaper there was a story about a guy who was woken up by the sound of a polar bear snifing him. When he opened his eyes he saw it was standing on his rifle. So he punched him in the nose. It worked.
That lead to another story about a guy who fell asleep on bear watch only to be awakened by the sound of a snoring bear sleeping next to him.

If we're sharing bear tales, I'll give the full details on the ziplock story.

This was about 15 years ago, in Banff NP, near Lake Minnewanka. Our first campsite was only 5 km's or so from the trailhead, easily reachable after getting off work in Calgary on Friday afternoon, and a good headstart on a long weekend backpacking trip.

After arriving, we set up our tent, had dinner, and were enjoying a cup of tea. Two other groups were set up in their own corners of the site (so it's not like Q - in the Rockies NP's, there are fewer backcountry campsites, and you have to stay at those designated sites, so you often have to share.) My backpack was propped up against a tree, with the food pack sitting in the main pouch on top - still lots of time to hang it up.

The black bear mentioned in the previous post wanders into camp from our end, has a sniff around, and heads over to my pack. Pulls out the food pack, and fishes out the ziplock containing the Nanaimo bars, ignoring the granola, dried soup, pasta, etc. Takes the bag a few metres into the bushes and scarfs down the whole thing - three layers of ziplocks, one layer of Stretch 'n' Seal, and one of wax paper, plus of course the Nanaimo bars.

Still hungry, the bear heads back to camp for more food. Nothing else in my food pack of interest, so he heads over to the next group: boy scouts in the process of cooking stew over an open fire. Totally undeterred by the fire, he has a sniff of their cooking, but this is not what he wants.

Over to the last group. Well, the two guys there had a great idea before setting out. "We can take a couple of frozen steaks, wrap them in our foamies, and they'll still be frozen when we get to camp!"

By the time the bear arrived in camp, the two guys had already eaten the steaks, and at this point were standing with the rest of us off to the side watching the proceedings. The bear belly-flopped the tent to collapse it, took one swipe to open it up, and proceeded to eat the steak-flavoured foamies.

During all this, someone must have made it back to the highway, because shortly thereafter, a park ranger arrived, dispatched the bear, and hauled the carcass over to the other side of the lake, well away from the area's hiking trails.

I eat the skin, or at least most of it. Then I lay the foil in such a way, the fire burns up any remains. I make a point of not being down wind as I don't want my clothes saturated in anymore food odors than necessary.
Lk Trout being an oily fish "probably" contains more oily residue than so called drier fish. At least that's what I tell myself.

I leave the foil in fire pit until next morning and then roll into tight ball and put in zip-lock garbage bag, inside plastic liner of my food pack.
Since I hang my pack, I don't worry about odors from the fish foil anymore than I do from my packaged food, which is not vacuum packed, but stored in Zip-locks with the air squeezed out.