[KegRiver]

I have had a few too many very close encounters with bears.

It would take too much bandwidth to tell all the stories so I'll just summarize.

Many years ago I stepped on a sleeping bear. It was laying in the mouth of it's den under a big log, I came up from the opposite side and could not see it, until I stepped over that log. It was several minutes before my legs would respond to my intentions to move.

Living in a camper in my brothers yard. One calm evening the camper started to rock. I looked out every window and saw nothing, so I opened the door and looked out.
I see a large very black lump directly under the step, just inches from my feet. It rolled out from under the camper and ran. I stood there and vibrated.

Two weeks ago I was sitting at my work bench in the basement.
Movement outside the window two feet above my head catches my eye.
It's a black nose. Oh! the dog's outside, "I thought."
Then a black muzzle appears. My dog is white.

A second later I'm looking eye to eye at a bear two feet from my face with a thin sheet of glass separating us. That made me uneasy but not scared.
I and Remington asked it to leave and it complied.
I'm pretty sure the neighbors shot it a couple of days later.
I wonder if I should have aimed at it instead of at the clouds.

Visiting my sister in Prince George, I go out on the deck for a smoke about 10:00 pm.
As I'm sitting there I see movement next to the BILs boat, which is parked in the unlit back yard. A fenced yard, with a six foot high fence.
I couldn't make out what it was in the dark but I suspect it's some drunk looking for a place to sleep, so I stroll down to ask him to leave.

I mean we are in the middle of a good sized city surrounded by hundreds of homes. What else could it be.

Well I get to the boat and see nothing alive there. I am standing under a cherry tree that is right beside the boat. Something hisses right above my head and I look up into the rear of a small brown bear just inches above my head.
I don't remember moving, I don't remember being scared or anything. The next thing I remember I'm back on the deck and gasping for air.

The darn thing scaled that fence like a cat and ran several feet along the top of the fence before dropping down into the neighbors yard and out of sight. I think it felt about the same as I did about the encounter.

Those are just the encounters where I got within arms reach of a bear.
There have been as many or perhaps more where I've unintentionally gotten to within ten feet of a live bear.

Yet nothing I have experience could top what happened to a fellow guide one fall.
His hunter shot a large Black bear, that went down like a ton of bricks.
The hunter wanted a picture of the bear sitting up, the best my fr9iend could do was straddle it an lift it's head off the ground.
As he pulled the head up the Bear came too and stood up, with my friend on it's back.
The bear took off at a dead run and poor Wayne lost his grip and fell off.
The Bear made it into the trees before anyone could grab a gun.

They didn't go after it. Instead they took Wayne back to camp for a change of cloths.