Bear hunt
As spring blooms throughout the province of British Columbia, the flowers blossom, the grass turns green, the rivers swell, and the bears emerge from their dens. There are over 120,000 black bears in BC’s wilderness; their habitats range from mountain tops to coastlines, and forests to ranch lands. They are the province's most widely distributed mammal. In the spring, black bears prey on young deer, elk, moose and caribou, but they also feed on the grasses that sprout alongside logging roads and in cut blocks (an area recently logged).
Bears mostly live where human populations are low. Where we we’re hunting, in the vast and mountainous watershed outside of Williams lake, there are more animals than people.
Bear meat makes fantastic sausages and burger. The tenderloin is delicious and the hearts, livers and bone marrow are all also useful for those living off wild game. They are the only animal allowed to be hunted in the spring. If fall stores of other wild game are running low post winter, it can be a crucial time to put food on the table and into storage to last through the summer.
That said, having had a fear of bears my whole life, hunting a black bear proved a strange experience. All my life I’d done everything I could to not run into a black bear, and here was Ryan pushing me do just the opposite. This wasn’t vengeance, nor was it an aim to overcome a fear; but, silently strolling a cut block provided much time to contemplate just how absurd the situation was. Did I actually want to run into one? If I did, could I react in time to successfully hunt or, heaven forbid, protect myself?
Of course, as most fears do, mine lived as a fiction I’d conjured up based on headlines of fatal bear attacks I’d heard or seen in the news. In reality, black bears want nothing to do with you. Which makes the whole “hunting” part more challenging.
After a long, cold, wet and snowy winter, the spring sun was out in full force during our bear hunt. The bugs, thankfully, were not. We had shacked up at a nice cabin on a lake, and took a four-wheel drive to and from cut blocks to Poplar Groves looking for bear signs. This meant we didn’t need to haul loads of gear around and, once at a fixed location, it was almost like taking a leisurely stroll through the woods. Except with the intention of stumbling across a big ol’ black bear!
At times, the dead quiet was eerie and, more than once, we stumbled upon moose, mule deer and a skunk. The bears were out as well. All in all, we saw 7 bears, as well as the fresh scat of a grizzly bear sow and her cubs.
Although Ryan was his usual calm and composed self, my nerves played games with me throughout the hunt. Every burnt log was a bear. Every bend in the road was filled with trepidation.
After a long day without any success, we found ourselves lost atop a mountain that had been scarred by a forest fire the previous year. And, in the last light of day, when bears are their most active, that’s when the action rose from zero to an 100. With Ryan at my side, the moment of truth presented itself.