By Jim Hagarty
2008
A vivid imagination is a great thing to have if you’re a writer.
But it can be a real liability if you happen to be camping far out in bush up north in the backyard of the black bear.
Last week, my family and I spent a few days at a friend’s camp, a fairly large spread dotted with two cottages, a homemade hunting caboose and three trailers along with the all-important outhouse.
What I’ve discovered over the many summers we have been spending time in this leafy retreat is that there is no silence like the silence of the bush in the middle of the night. And when that silence is broken, it’s like someone attached car battery cables to your brain and released the charge.
I might feel more comfortable except for the fact that a bear was actually spotted behind the outhouse one day a few years back. That reality plus our ridiculous habit of recounting tales of attacks on humans by bears during the day when we’re brave as pirates has me more than a little nervous.
The logistics of the camp always see me exiled to a small trailer of my own while the other members of my family share a cabin across the yard. Not having anyone with me to fight off the advances of a bear makes me feel very vulnerable as does the fact that there is no lock on my trailer door. Not that a bear intent on entering a trailer might be put off much by a locked door, but it would be better than an unlocked one.
One afternoon, the talk turned to bear attacks once again and one of the northerners remarked that a woman was attacked because she had several of the things a bear wants including food. I thought this over as I lie in bed that night, hearing the odd pinprick of sound here and there just outside my trailer.
“At least I don’t have any food,” I thought.
Then I suddenly remembered the two bananas I had taken to bed with me in case of a hunger attack in the middle of the night. I immediately realized that a banana-loving bear was probably on its way to my unlocked door at that very moment, so I made a rash decision. I jumped up, grabbed the bananas, and threw them out of the trailer by way of the unlocked door.
Back in bed, I tried to relax, but then it occurred to me the bananas were only six feet from the front door and after consuming them, the bear would want more and would check out the nearby trailer – only six feet away – to see if there were any more where those two came from.
So, I made another rash decision, the most dangerous of my life. Running outside, I grabbed the bananas and threw them down a bank of rocks and grass towards the lake. Even the smartest bear, I thought, would not be able to connect the fruit with my trailer after that.
I survived the night and to my surprise, so did the bananas, which I put back with the others in the cottage.
That night, I wisely took no bananas to the trailer with me. But in my suitcase was a bag of caramel candies and one full of chocolate pieces which I had bought in town that day and stuffed away without thinking.
But, I reasoned, a bear would not be able to smell through a plastic bag to the goodies within. And so, I didn’t fling them out the door.
Apparently I was wrong.
On the way home, my son read us a story from a magazine about a bear that broke a window in a woman’s car to get at the candies that were contained in a resealable plastic bag on the floor of her back seat.
They say that what we fear, we attract. If that is so, I fully expect, despite my survival record so far, to one day come face to face with a banana- and candy-loving bear. If I don’t write about the encounter, that might be a clue as to the outcome!
