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It was an awkward moment. The predawn chill of a late-summer morning in cottage country enveloped me. I was standing, clad in my underwear, in our cabin’s kitchenette, staring through the small window of the door that leads outside. The object of my attention – a large, disgruntled black bear – loomed above me, staring back.
Our impromptu get-together had been foreshadowed by events two days earlier, in the late afternoon of a sunny Friday on Georgian Bay.
My wife Linda, our golden retriever Sydney and I had spent the day hiking, kayaking, swimming and lounging on the beach in front of the cabin and were ready for dinner. I stood on the deck, cold beer in hand, grilling pork chops. The aroma of the chops, enhanced by a maple-based rub, swirled about in the warm breeze.
I studied the pleasure boats cruising by, savoured the bay’s rugged beauty – and sensed that I was being watched. I turned toward the door of the cabin and the stairs leading from the deck to the ground. At the bottom of the stairs, with one front paw planted on the first tread and a look of intense interest on his face, stood an adult black bear. We remained motionless for several seconds, sizing one another up.
Then I recalled that the recommended course of action in these situations was to make a loud noise. I could handle that.
“Bugger off!” I shrieked. I may also have waved the barbecue tongs with a menacing flourish in his direction. The bear about-faced and fled.
Linda was in the cabin and she reached the door in time to see the bruin’s backside disappearing into the woods. Brimming with confidence, I assured her I had the situation under control and later, over dinner, christened myself the Bear Whisperer in honour of my newfound ability to bend the monarch of the Northern forests to my will. However, after dinner, I took the precaution of erecting a makeshift barricade at the bottom of the stairs.
Saturday passed with no bear sightings and that happy state continued until early Sunday, when Linda’s elbow smacked into my spine. “Something’s trying to get in,” she said. Indeed, a robust thumping noise from the cabin door suggested something was trying to bash it down.
Sydney paced the room, growling and scenting the air. In ill humour, I kicked off the bedclothes and staggered barefoot to the bedroom door where the dog pranced with anticipation. Fearing that her presence would antagonize our unwelcome guest, I muttered an apology and shut her in the bedroom.
I padded across the short distance to the door. (It was still quite dark, but the thought of turning on a light – which might have been sufficient to scare off the invader – never occurred to me.) The thumping persisted. I pressed against the door and peered out of its little window.
The bear was directly beneath me, his snout buried in the fishing net I had used Saturday to land a couple of bass. Apparently, his keen sense of smell had convinced him the fish were still in the net, and as he moved his head around attempting to find them his body swayed, causing his ample rump to slam into the door.
Though relieved he wasn’t trying to break in, I didn’t want him to destroy my net – or anything else. This was a job for the Bear Whisperer. “Bugger off!” I yelled, with feeling. For an instant, the bear froze. Then he reared up, facing the door and glaring through the window at me. The predawn gloom hid his expression, but he seemed to bristle with irritation.
As I stared up – way up – at him, I confronted two unpleasant realities: First, the bear was much larger than I’d thought; second, all that stood between us were a decrepit wood-frame screen door that wouldn’t withstand the rush of a maddened chipmunk, and the aforementioned wooden door that was only marginally stronger.
Fighting back a mounting desire to panic, I considered my options. I came up with one: I needed to create a much louder noise. I thought of crashing two pots together. I wrenched open the door of the cupboard holding the pots, grabbed the first handle I saw, pulled on it, lost my balance and yanked the entire contents of the cupboard out onto the floor. The ensuing din sounded like a cavalry charge across a steel bridge. I picked myself up and peeked outside to see the bear, already 20 yards down the shoreline, heading away from our cabin and moving well.
Mission accomplished. I returned to the bedroom to give the “all clear.” Linda, satisfied to know the bear had left us, pulled the covers over her head when I launched into a play-by-play of the experience. Sydney shot me a reproachful look and went back to sleep.
Too wired to return to bed, I got dressed, made coffee and ventured onto the deck – to find my barricade intact. To reach the fishing net, the bear had pulled his considerable bulk up and over the deck’s railing, a good eight feet above the ground, without being detected.
I considered the power and agility required to execute that manoeuvre and shuddered. Then, suitably humbled by the thought of what might have been, I solemnly renounced the title of the Bear Whisperer.
Peter Stone lives in Burlington, Ont.