The Bear Facts

After much deliberation, humming and hawing, fretting over the prices, and debating whether we can indeed live on cheese on toast for the next 6 months, we’ve finally booked our trip to Canada!

We fly into Vancouver mid June and will be travelling the following route to reach Calgary by month end:

One of the highlights of the trip for me is going to be the possibility of seeing black and grizzly bear in their natural habitat....contrary to a surprisingly popular held belief, there are NO bears (or tigers for that matter) in Africa, and while lions and cheetahs may be found in abundance in game reserves, they do NOT roam the streets of southern African cities. The only bear of my childhood was an old, bedraggled cloth teddy called "Freddy".

There's likely more wildlife to be found on the streets of a typical UK city, where urban foxes abound in the twilight hours...mangy, scrawny scavengers that emit annoyingly loud yowling sounds, definitely not conducive to a good night's sleep. I was completely freaked out the first time I came across one of these creatures, boldy scratching though our rubbish bag. He halted momentarily in his business and stared at me as if to say "Who you lookin' at? Can't you see I iz busy here grocery shopping 'n sh*t?"  Foxes reminded me of the African jackal, and seemed out of place in a concrete jungle. I've since encountered their rural cousins...shyer, better fed animals, more akin to the fabulous, bushy-tailed fox of Roald Dahl's tale of 'Fantastic Mr Fox', some nostalgia from my early reading days. I've yet to see a live badger, but I've heard they can be pretty bad tempered...hedgehogs may be a little prickly too, but they're ever so cute, when they rustle through your garden at night, crunching on snails.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the bears....apparently, in the past century, around 100 people died in North America due to bear attacks. I do not want to become part of that "grizzly" statistic. We'll be hiking as part of a small group, escorted by a tour leader, who will hopefully not lead us into situations where a mauling from a pissed off bear is likely....nonetheless, a bit of background survival info may make an unexpected encounter a bit more bearable. Do a google search on "Surving A Bear Attack" and you'll find there are loads of dubious informative websites offering wacky handy hints. You can read some of them over at The Art of Manliness (did you know that Manliness is a lost Art in much need of revival?).

The key to survival appears to be knowing the difference between a grizzly and a black bear, as you have to play dead with the first and fight for your life with the second. I really wouldn't want to get those two options mixed up, and I'm also not too confident I'll be able to apply my Aikido moves to a 600 pound sow who thinks I'm in the market for a rug made from the finest cub fur (possibly even Tattoo Man, famous for his monkey grappling techniques, would be hard pressed to wriggle his way out of such a bad situation). I'm hoping that any Canadian readers will jump in here now to impart their wealth of knowledge about bear-related matters...after all, you guys must be fending grizzlies off on a daily basis (you know, like all southern Africans know how to wrestle with lions!)

Grizzly (Ursus Arctos Horribilis) photo found HERE

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In other Very Exciting News, I am the winner of Rebecca@DiaryofaVirginNovelist's giveaway! You really should visit her blog found HERE.