I'm ALIVE!!

Mamma black bear (Ursus americanus) with three cubs

I'm alive!!!

On the 29th of May the thing happened that I have dreaded since my first visit to Canada in 2003, but looked forward to at the same time: a bear encounter during a hike! Until yesterday, all 18 bears I had seen were safely spotted from a car.

But that changed yesterday when I hiked over the Muleshoe Trail in Banff National Park. The forest there had undergone a prescribed burn in 1993, so I was concentrating on the stark shapes of burnt trunks, some still standing and some fallen down. Until... suddenly I saw this mother black bear less than 50 meters away. While my heart skipped a beat, the three football-sized cubs appeared behind her. The small family was coming straight towards me, so I had to let them know where I was. If I wouldn't, she would eventually bump into me and that might well have ended in several detached pieces of me. I hoped that they would veer off or at least allow me to retreat. When I started talking to her, she looked up and looked me straight in the eyes. I was backing away already on wobbly legs, talking with a surprisingly calm and steady voice (that's how it sounded to me anyway) about how beautiful she and her babies were, that I would leave them alone and I think I said something along the line that I loved them too. My slowly backing away and the talking must have worked, because she changed direction slightly and slowly led her babies away from me. That gave me the chance to squeeze off a number of images, but my somewhat shaky duopod (my legs, because the tripod was strapped to my backpack) did not help and my hands must have been at least as shaky. This is one of the better images where you can see the whole family. After they disappeared from view, I was left in a euphoric state, as if half in dream...

Now, for those used to living in bear country, an experience like this might not be that unusual. The fact that it all went so peacefully might make it seem like a walk in the park for the real die-hards. I still cannot imagine a bear (grizzly or black) doing a bluff charge, let alone a real attack, but a number of people I know have undergone at least a couple of bluff charges where a bear seems to attack but veers off just inches away from you. However, consider that for someone living in a part of the world where bears and wolves have been exterminated centuries ago and where the largest living terrestrial predator is a red fox (Vulpes vulpes), this was quite an adventure already.

Much, much stronger than while spotting a bear from a car, I felt completely at the mercy of a creature much stronger than I am. I experienced much deeper than before how it can feel to be part of nature and even a potential part of the foodweb! It is experiencing it from the inside, instead of just looking in from the outside. This is a little like life used to be, even long ago in the Netherlands. And maybe it's the way life ought to be, because I never thought the (mostly) modern Western perception that man stands above nature is very healthy. This experience put me right on my two (wobbly) feet and it puts everything in perspective. It was a very valuable experience that the bear obviously chose the peaceful way out, which is yet another bit of evidence that they are not at all the bloodthirsty monsters they are so often portrayed to be. If she would have wanted to, I would not have come out of that forest alive. Yet here I am!

I came out of that forest a changed man and have never felt so alive!

Image number: ASP0449AWMC