Bears?! Don’t Be Afraid of Bears!

When I was around 8 years old, our family visited friends in Baltimore, Maryland. While we were there we went to the church my parents attended (Seventh Baptist Church), and being a good, rule-abiding child, I went to Sunday School (which gave me a reason to skip the sermon). The teacher introduced my brother and myself to the other kids and they asked where we were from. “New York,” I said and I was surprised at the look of fear and shock on the faces of the other kids. “Have you ever been shot at? Is it dangerous to cross the street? Are you carrying a gun right now?” Eight-year-old Jonathan did not know how to respond to such questions. My family was from Albany, New York, and more appropriately the suburbs of Albany. I had never held a gun and the idea of violence made me giggle in a silly and pathetic manner. And even though The Wire had not yet been produced, it was clear that downtown Baltimore was a very different context from the suburban paradise I called home. Yet the kids in the Sunday School class heard, “New York,” and went right to the very thing that they were told to be afraid of.

We do this. We hear about things that we are supposed to be afraid of, about the things that will kill us if we just give it a chance, and those fears become the fore of the reality that we paint of the people or place. See unconscious bias, media frenzy, McCarthyism and the Red Scare, and so many other ways in which we are taught to be afraid and those fears become a real part of our experience whether or not they are justified.

In my current experiences I see in others this fear around the presence and existence of bears in the wilderness. For some reason, when talking about my wilderness experiences, the animal that the most people ask me about are bears. No one wants to know about the killer grouse or the mosquitos and deer fly that are colluding to drain me of every drop of blood. Nor does anyone ask about the chipmunks, squirrels, or birds that I saw. The thing that people usually want to know about when looking to learn more about the backcountry is if I saw any bears. I suppose if I was a scuba diver or someone who worked in the water I would be asked about sharks. Sharks are just the bears of the water. In fact, the next time you are talking to someone who just got back from a water excursion if they saw any bears and ask the hiker if they saw any sharks.

The curiosity and wonder about bears, and sharks, and other creatures comes from a concocted imagination of what it is that we should be afraid of. Bears, we are told, are blood-thirsty killing machines that will murder you and your family without hesitation. Again, I don’t know why we don’t spend more time on mosquitos, deer flies, and black flies. Those are vicious, brutal killing machines. The fear that so many articulate is of bears (there is also a fear of people, but that is different and may merit a different post).

Yet I have had a number of encounters with bears. I should be clear that the bears that I have encountered and that are in the places where I do the majority of my hiking are black bears. Black bears are different from Grizzly Bears, Brown Bears, Polar Bears, Panda Bears, and the imposter Koala Bears. The majority of the encounters I have had with bears have been me seeing the bear’s posterior as it is running off into the forest. Black bears tend to be shy and skittish around people. There have been times when I saw a bear at night, including one time when it was sniffing around my feet looking for food, but ran off as soon as I woke up. And as exciting as somewhat terrifying as these encounters might be (I was afraid that I was going to lose my socks to the curious, sniffing bear), they were all fairly brief and completely harmless.

            Except for that one time. There was one time when I was afraid that I was going to be harmed.

I was finishing a solo hike that was full of rain and no views. As I was descending the mountain the skies started to open up, the sun was starting to peek through and it looked like there was going to be a good end to the day. I even said aloud, “it looks like things are picking up!” And then, while following the trail at a lakeshore, I saw something in the woods right next to me scurry up a tree. It was a bear. It was a smallish looking bear, most likely a cub but I didn’t have a chance to ask. The first thing I wanted to do was to find out if it was a cub and then to find its mother to make sure that I did not inadvertently wander between the mother and the cub. I got my trusty whistle and blew it as loudly as I could, alerting everything around me to my presence, including the mother bear and up swung her head from the tall grass. She was about thirty feet from me. Now I knew where the mother bear was. I knew where the cub was. And the only problem at this point was that the mother and cub were on the trail exactly where I wanted to go. Somehow, I needed to coax or convince the mother and cub that it would be best for them if they found a different place to sulk and forge and do the kind of things that bears do.

There is a rule for dealing with black bears. Make noise, make yourself big, and the bear will run off into the woods and everyone will be ok. With every other bear encounter that I have had (during the day), this is what I did and everything worked out. It is like there is a contract between humans and bears. I make noise, they run, and everyone is happy. Except for that one bear who is horribly out of shape and whose heart skips a beat with the loud, terrifying noise, and who runs away muttering, “I’m getting too old for this.”

I blew my whistle again, assuming that the second blast (slightly louder than the first) would be enough to scare away mother and cub. What could be more intimidating than a scrawny hiker emitting a high-pitched, wheezing noise? The mother acknowledged my noise and responded by stomping her foot and grunting. She did not run off into the woods. She and her cub were still on the trail. At this point, we were all off script and I was not sure what I was supposed to do. I even said aloud to the bear, “I did everything I am supposed to do. I made noise, I’m keeping my distance, and you are still standing right on the trail, exactly where I need to go to get back to my campsite.” I may have added some cuss words, but who can remember? The mother started to approach me. Slowly but deliberately, the mother bear started walking towards me and I started to freak out. I was in the woods, I had not seen anyone all day, and I had images rangers finding my festering carcass days later. Maybe the bear was trying to invite me to dinner, but I don’t think it was the kind of invitation that I wanted.

I blew the whistle one more time and the bear seemed undeterred from her task which was getting closer and closer to me. Maybe hikers had fed this bear in the past and she was hoping I would continue the free food practice. Maybe the bear had learned that hikers tend to have tasty treats in their backpack and was hoping that I would freak out, drop my pack, and run. Or maybe the bear was just curious having never heard something in the wild that makes so much noise or that kind of noise. I had a fairly overgrown beard at that point and perhaps the mother bear thought I was some kind of sickly bear looking for help or a merciful end to the sad life that I was living (sad if I was a bear).

Another rule for dealing with black bears is do not run. You are not supposed to turn your back on a black bear – that is when they get you. I did not want to run, I did not want to turn my back, but I did not want to stay where I was. I decided that perhaps the best thing would be for me to slowly walk backwards, keeping my eye on the bear, and getting away from the whole situation. The bear followed for a little longer and then stopped, watching me, as I got further away. I was no longer of interest to her. I decided that perhaps I would find a different way back to my campsite, walked through the woods for a distance, and made it to my tent unharmed. However, for the next two weeks I jumped at every stump, mud-pile, or anything else that looked even slightly like a bear.

This was not a normal bear encounter. I have seen and encountered black bears more than a dozen times and this is the only one when I actually worried about my safety (don’t figure out those odds). The reality is that if you do everything right, keep your food away from your tent, cook and eat a distance from where you are sleeping, make noise and stay respectful, then you will be fine. Bears are dangerous when provoked, when pushed, but are not creatures that should keep us from engaging the wilderness. The danger is real, but the fear is usually overblown.

This is what I have found with many people who are hesitant to go into the wilderness and to spend the night. There is a fear of what might happen, of what could happen, based on our imagination, on the potentials, but not often on reality. Whenever going into the wilderness, do your research, learn about the creatures who dwell in those areas and what to do to minimize contact or to keep the contact safe, and talk to people. Information is usually the best response to fear. Knowing the truth about the risks can be the best way to counter the imagined fears. We do not have to fear the bears, and kids from the suburbs of Albany, NY are not dangerous or a risk.

            If we are to be afraid of anything in the wilderness then we should fear rapid changes in weather, crazy hikers, and of course the bugs. They are out to get you.

For various reasons we all have things that we are afraid of. What is the source of those fears? Are they from past experiences? Are they from what you have heard from others? What are the fears that are getting in the way of you taking chances, doing new and different things, and living? What are the real possibilities that could occur if you go to a new place, if you try a new thing, and how can you prepare? This is a lesson that goes beyond just the wilderness experience but speaks to life itself. We have our fears, our biases, our script that we have been given through different ways, and it shapes and impacts how we live. Don’t be afraid but instead be bold and take a chance in the wilderness and with life.