We came around a bend in the road and suddenly we were confronted by a mother bear, standing in front of at least two cubs. In about five seconds, she was charging at us at full speed. She was about 30 metres from us when first sighted then suddenly, she was only 10 metres away.

She huffed loudly, with her tongue hanging out and teeth bared.

Frances’ reaction was to talk loudly and mine was to stand with my hands held high and yell "Hey" at the bear. Frances and I were about five metres apart and our different noises may have caused the bear to wonder who to focus on. My thought was to look for a stick as I thought I might shortly be trying to fend off a mad bear.

But the bear chose instead to stop and retreat, at the same time as Frances and I backed away from the confrontation zone.

Quickly we backed out of sight of the bear and brought out our bear spray. Mine was in the back of my cruising vest (dumb) but Frances had hers in the holster on her waist (a better idea). With spray in hand, we backed out of the area, speaking loudly so the bear could hear us retreating.

We reached the truck and quickly drove away.

On reflection, it is clear that, in this type of encounter, there is absolutely no time to be scrambling for a firearm or pepper spray. It is important to practice pulling out protective devices as fast as possible. Frances felt that she didn’t even have enough time to arm herself with the spray, even though it was in the holster at her waist. It also seems that looking large, making loud noises and quickly retreating from the bear’s view was what helped make this encounter less serious than it might have been.

We are so pleased that the bear chose not to take us out—this time.