I
really enjoyed the images of all the bears in the TC newspaper recently, particularly the
photographer on his knees filming a Kermode just a few feet from it. As I spend
as much as 50 days a year in the wilds of Van Isle, I have had hundreds of bear
experiences over the years.
On
one occasion a big black bear and I looked up to observe the other wandering
along when we were several hundred yards apart. We both went back to looking at
the gravel in front of our feet and shambling along – bears really do shamble –
and came to a gravel ridge the winter river had left. As my head came above the
gravel, the bear’s head did too, so close we could have touched one another. We
both had heart attacks, let out screams and raced backward into the forest on
our side of the river.
Last
fall, I was standing calf deep in a river fly fishing, when I looked behind me
and had a heart attack. There was a bear only 10 feet from me. The only reason
it hadn’t come right up to me and filched my apple and banana out of my vest’s
back pouch with its claws was that it was dipping one toe in the water,
checking whether the water was too cold to bother. I rapidly searched my
pockets and found only a scuzzy, old protein bar covered in chocolate, and
tossed it at the bear.
The
bear slowly figured out how to separate the chocolate protein from its bag,
and, chops drooling, reluctantly began to eat it. Its nostrils and lips were
shrinking back with every chew, and though it did eat the offering, it looked
at me with the look of, ‘I really would have preferred your banana and apple’
as I slowly inched backward into much deeper water. It remembered toeing the
water and, licking chocolate from its teeth, put its hands on its hips,
unfulfilled then disappeared back into the woods.
For
several falls there was a female bear who never had cubs with her. She was
identifiable by her limp, having broken a back leg some years previously, and
by how thin she was. On this morning, I had put my packsack on the gravel bar
and wandered around in the water, casting to a large school of 30-pound
springs, and 15-pound coho. When I turned to see her limp her way to my lunch,
I busied myself casting, and was able to hook a big coho, before she got into
my pack. Once the fish was in hand wet and slippery, I hit it between the eyes
with my fist, and launched it back over my head in a long arc, falling past my
packsack. Sensing something good, as in real food, not people food, she limped
over to it and discovered it was the best lunch she’d had in years. She didn’t
thank me, but disappeared into the willows, and I could hear ripping flesh
shortly thereafter, until every molecule was in her tummy.
I
had another bear lunch experience, while almost chest deep casting a chartreuse
Nitnook fly to fall chinook milling about on the far side of the river, a place
where all fish are, as we anglers know only too well. Someone started to laugh,
and I turned to see a boar with his head completely inside my packsack, which
was sitting on the shore. I yelled, ‘Hey,’ and started trying to run out of the
water, much to everyone’s amusement as I was so deep I couldn’t muster much
speed. The bear had by now taken out my single-use plastic bag full of my own
special chocolate chip cookies and other good stuff, including a can of Coke I
was looking forward to guzzling. Realizing he had all the time in the world, he
put the bag on the ground, and, to get a better grip on it, picked the bag up
neatly by its handles with his long front teeth – he actually did this – and
ambled into the woods, me in hot pursuit.
I
ran into the woods and almost fell face first over the bear because it had
decided to sit down on its bumb and savour my Coke first. What I mean is that
the bear knew what Coke was and how to separate its nice sweetness from its
can, presumably having done this many times before. It sat there paws out in
front, with its head tipped back, mouth the highest part of him, and crunched
the can and drank my Coke. At that point, looking at all the teeth holes in my
tin of pop, I started scrambling backwards, crab-like on my hands and feet. I
didn’t want to end up like the can.
When
he finished the Coke, the bear put the can down neatly, picked up the rest of
my bag of lunch, by the handles, and ambled deeper into the woods to eat his
‘catch’ in peace. I picked up the can, full of holes, and as I broke from the
forest with only an empty can in my hand, every other fly fisher at the school
had a good laugh.
On
another occasion, I was walking an old logging road, and spotted an alder that
had been thrashed from fifteen feet to about two feet, then covered with bright
red scent by a large cougar. The cougar had, before marking the stalk, taken
hold of it and ripped it pretty much clear of the ground, an immense amount of
strength. I past 25 alders similarly thrashed, pulled from the ground and
marked with bright red urine. Eerie it was, as I was all alone.
I
left the track, went down through the jungle that is west coast bush and
started walking along a dry gulch of gravel in second growth forest. I noticed
a 500-pound boar down the wash before he saw me. I cleared my throat so it
would hear me. The huge bear looked me in the eye and began running directly
for me. I didn’t give a half second’s thought but started running full speed
toward it. As we rocketed together, it veered off slightly into the forest,
leaving me catching my breath and thinking how lucky I had been, still here to
tell the tale. Later that day, stumbling a summer low Eve River a couple of
clicks higher, I came upon a rock of 6 to 8 feet across that looked exactly
like a cougar’s head.
I
have had many other bear experiences but have found that they aren’t that
interested in people, and so we just acknowledge one another and go on with our
days. A few weeks ago, another bear, within 10 feet of me in the jungle, while
I was in the water, didn’t realize I was there. I cleared my throat, the bear
had a heart attack, and thrashed the rainforest jungle to escape. Bears on this
Island are timid, I think because the bold ones get shot, and it’s safer to run
away. Even so, having watched a small bear thrash, any bear could kill you
easily.
Here
is a crop of the Coke can that now graces my mantel above the fireplace, with
other fishing memorabilia, like a chartreuse Clouser smashed to smithereens
having caught 15 black bass in 15 casts at Langara Island in Haida Gwaii. You
can find an image of the cougar head rock here: https://poetrydcreid.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-does-warm-animal-come-to-her-death.html.
It is the bottom image below the poem. The image there of the elk carcass
looked like it had been killed by a cougar, but the lack of bones, and how the
jaw cracked big ones in half, suggested that a bear scared the cougar off. In
my experience, bears don’t kill deer, but are brutish enough to steal a carcass
from a cougar.
