Nice video. A few years ago the executive director of the Salato Wildlife Education Center in Kentucky was looking for a different place to paddle and I directed her to Quetico. She and her partner wound up going to Sarah Lake out of PP and came back with a tale of watching a big male black bear swimming across the northern end of North Bay. She said they actually had to coast their canoe to keep from running into it.

She also said they heard wolves all night long from their island campsite on North Bay.

-- kypaddler

Jimbo wrote on Oct 20^th, 2016 at 5:56pm:


I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination on black bears, but some time ago I accompanied some researchers on a trip to the mountains in Eastern Kentucky on a cold, cold day to change the radio collar on a sow and put chips beneath the fur of her cubs.

(For those not familiar, after being all but extinct from Kentucky for many years, a couple of decades ago wandering bear from West Virginia re-established a population in the southeastern part of the state, and it’s grown so much that Kentucky allows a limited bear hunt each year.)

Well, that research trip didn’t go as planned – her den was out in the open (a dead-fall of a tree) … she “woke up” (black bears technically don’t hibernate but are in a state called “torpor” … the drugged dart malfunctioned … and she took off, leaving her cubs exposed with wind chills in the single digits and snow swirling. And radio telemetry showed she crossed several ridges and kept going.

Long story short, the researchers grabbed the cubs, put them in a pack in the back seat of my truck with the heat running as they figured out what to do. I have a picture of one of the cubs  sticking his head out of the pack in my truck.

The point is: There were three cubs (all male).

I read some of the subsequent research, and it showed that the average litter size in Kentucky was 3.1, with documented litters of two to five cubs. But the study I read acknowledged that the 3.1 was “more than any nearby location.”

For what it’s worth … I just thought it was interesting.

-      kypaddler

"A bear grabbing a pack out of a canoe seems a bit unnerving."

and that daypack had all our paperwork, including our wallets -
was 2 tandems, so we take one boat and all packs across first, adn then go back for the second boat and gear - the pack was in the first boat, which we had put in at waters edge and reloaded - the bear must have heard us coming and took off just before we came into sight.  There was some mud on the food bag, which was in that canoe too, but nothing bur the daypack had been messed with - couldn't figure out what had happened until a bit later, paddling down the lake I reached for my water bottle - it was empty! - had 4 holes in it from the bears canine teeth.

At least four bear sightings over maybe 6 trips (all to Quetico).  All were while paddling, seeing bears in the water or on shore.  Never up-close.

I have had a few up-close encounters on adventures elsewhere.  While car camping, as we were loading the car to get underway in the morning, a bear strolled through our campsite completely ignoring us (food/kitchenware had already been stowed in the car). Another time what sounded like two bears wandered into our campsite (everything stored in bear-boxes) and we could hear them breathing from inside our tent.  My wife and son encountered one on a likeside trail on Glacier NP (while I and my other son were paddling down the lake).

thanks for the info.

it would be interesting to have answers from every QJ member and plot on a map where they've seen bears, and then of course factor in the month of the year.

Canadian park officials have probably done that, of course, but ...

- kypaddler