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August 30th, 2005 10th of 16 days - in Quebec

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Honey...it's a bear!

He's there...right in front of us, ohhh! He's coming this way!

We had other priorities than looking for the #!£¤*?* camera.

He was standing up (those pictures courtesy of Google)

Hey Marc..wake up!
Hummm, what? It's 6 o'clock...
Listen...can't you hear? Something is scratching and I want to know what it is.
ZZZZip...France walks out of the tent...

ohhh...Honey....it's a bear!

Seeing a bear so close, when I was expecting to see cute little racoons, practically leaves me speechless. I can't believe that despite us talking and me making noise coming out of the tent, he's still there, about 30 feet from the tent. Human presence doesn't seen to bother him.
Winnie the poh! has its front legs on the front rack of our brand new Quad (maybe he's never seen that model before...) He's quite impressive (the bear...not the quad...), about 6 foot tall, standing.
He turns his head and looks at me as if to say ''Daahh? I'm looking for something to eat!''. Kind of like a child that gets caught searching through the cupboard.
Marc quickly gets out of tent to have a look at it.
Finding us more interesting than the quad, our guest falls back on 4 legs and walks...in our direction! (I thought bear were afraid of humans...)
Yo...Suddenly, it's gets more serious. He's looking at us and slowly walks right towards us.
20 feet...
15 feet...and we're on the deck that sit over the river, so there's no escaping that way.

Teddy's still getting closer & closer...what are we supposed to do ????
Air horn in hand I'm ready to sound it but Marc would rather use the bear spray to get a more dissuassive result. But, in his hurry to get out of the tent, he did'nt take it with him.
Marc plunges back in the tent and comes back out of it in a second, bear spray in handl
That's when Yogi decides to turn around and head back in the woods (bear spray is so effective that just looking at the can scared him off !!!)
We slowly get off the deck and have a look around...he's gone, ouf!
It's 6:02AM

We just woke up. Or did we? Was that just a nightmare?
Nope! It was very real. We saw it!

We begin to cook a big bacon and eggs breakfast (adrenaline works an appetite), when we think: "What if it comes back???"

We eat and move out.

We learned a lot from that experience. Our watchfulness should be constant. We should never loosen up security measures. In other words:

-In bear country, act as if bears were present.

-Believing we were safe on that campsite, we relaxed our safety routine leaving the quads and even cooking meals near the tent.

-When coming out of the tent, we must be ready for anything. France was really expecting to see racoons scratching on our food boxes. She was in for a big surprise!

- Why would Yogi be interested in the quad that had no food on it? We later learned that the smell of the engine coolant (sweet) might attract him.

-The bear was curious but never seemed aggressive.

After talking about our close encounter with some of the park staff, we learned that it's the first time they ever heard of someone seeing a bear in the area.

Guess we were lucky...

Yeah ! Day full of surprises!

	Close encounter with a bear with a happy ending+ sleeping in a Tee Pee.
Bof...	The camera...
	When you get a chance to make the most memorable pictures, you totally forget about it!

After exploring some of the many trails, sometimes in the rain, we were thinking that it would be nice to find a safe and dry place for the night.

Surprise! A Tee Pee! It's a "relay" for snomobilers. A heck of a structure! Tip of the helmet tho volunteers that build it!

Besides the Tee Pee, there's also a 15 feet covered deck.

Inside, there's a giant fire pit and plenty of wood to run the fire all night.

All right, this will be our sleeping quarters for the night. Marc will sleep on the pic-nic table near the door, and France will use the park bench behind the fire pit. Despite the nights being coolish and although there's a large opening, the temperature inside is nice and warm.

Note the snomobilers club's name:"Les ours blancs" (the white bears...)
Come on bears, we'll have an eye on ya!

Everyday seems to bring a new and interesting place or situation, but this is by far, the most exiting day we've had in a long while.

Looking at the picture,we wish we could still be there.

Spaghettis on the upper deck. Superb view of the river from up there.

Here's a list of recommandations as found in a pamphlet from the
" Société de la faune et des parcs du Québec" (Dept. of parks and wildlife)

In case of a close encounter with a bear:

Stay calm and evaluate the situation.
Do not yell or make sudden moves.
Leave it an escape path. Do not corner it.
Don't run away. Running might trigger in him the reaction to run after you, seeing you as a prey.
Don't look at it in the eyes. This can be perceived as a threat.
Do not act dead. Stay aware of the situation and be ready to face it should it decide to attack.
In case of an attack, fight back with whatever's on hand. Yell, scream and make it think that you're bigger and badder than him.
Of course, every encounter is different.

The preceding advices are given to you as informations and for entertaining puposes only. Please refer to professionnals for further infos.