Big Lew

Bingo! Can't stress that enough! I've solo cycled all through northern and central BC as well as in the
Yukon, NWT, and Alaska without problems by following these rules.

jrbz

There is lots of excellent advice here, I'll try not to duplicate it. Just thought I'd relate some of my experience.

I live outside Smithers, BC in northwest British Columbia. I have had dozens of bear encounters over the years living and working in the bush. Bears come onto my property every summer and fall to eat wild berries and my crabapples. I don't mind as long as they don't get too bold and allow our dogs to chase them away during the day. I've never had one come onto the deck where we keep our garbage cans, thanks dogs.

The main thing about bears is they are excellent judges of who is more afraid, them or you. Body language, odour, who knows? They will immediately take charge of the situation if they realize you are afraid of them. One of my favourite stories is told by a French Canadian I worked with at a fly in camp line cutting. He hiked into his starting point, put down his pack and chainsaw to fuel up and a black bear appeared from behind a tree. He jumped onto a nearby tree and started climbing. When he stopped and looked around there was the bear up in the next tree over. The bear looked at him, shimmied down the tree, went over and ripped open his pack and ate his lunch, then casually shuffled off into the bush. He was pretty upset about having no lunch that day!

With that in mind I always stop as soon as I see a bear and start talking to it. I compliment it on its shiny coat, how fat it is looking, what beautiful cubs it has if there are cubs, how much I appreciate it sharing its home with me, etc. etc. I guess I'm a pretty boring conversationalist because they invariably get bored and shuffle off. Often, especially with males, they will give me one last look as if to say, "I'm not afraid of you or anything but I have better things to do than hang around listening to this drivel." This has worked even in a couple of situations where my dogs have harassed a sow with cubs. And yes the dogs do come running back to you, but once mama saw they were under control and I was in conversational mode she shooed the cubs off into the bush and left us to our business.

My most worrisome encounter was coming around a corner on a steep double track on my bike and spotting 3 sows and 5 cubs on the uphill side of the road. I was going too fast to stop and thought I'd be by them before they knew what was happening when a 6th cub jumped out of the bushes on the downhill side right in front of me. I hit the brakes thinking "holy *****, I'm going to hit this little guy right in front of mama and her friends and end up lying on the road like an entre." Luckily junior looked up, saw me and jumped out of the way. I'm not sure it was his pants or mine that I smelled after that.

I must confess I have had few encounters with grizzlies, three when I was on foot, luckily I only saw their rear ends. Twice when I was in moving vehicles, they chased both times as soon as the vehicle passed them and they are impressively fast over a short distance. My native friends tell me it is important to not look them in the eye and keep your hands turned palm down while talking to them. Either of those are challenges in their language.

One of the responders here mentioned being chased by a bear. No disrespect, but if you're being chased that means your running from them and I believe that is the ultimate mistake. Not easy to stand your ground, but that's the best policy.

I hope you have a great trip and as others have said, they have done it without mishap.

Cheers, J

edit: I will mention that I have carried bear spray when working in the bush. My only experience with it is stepping on the cannister with caulk (spiked) boots. I can certify that it smells and tastes like cajun barbecue sauce.

350htrr

Ooopps, I meant I was charged by a black bear, it stood up and looked at me, then charged at me for about 10 feet then stopped and just wandered off onto the bush, and I WAS facing it... Sorry, I agree, there IS A DIFFERENCE there... and, I went and bought some bear spray the next day...

jrbz

Glad you clarified that. I have been out hiking with people who turned and ran at the sight of a bear, shouting as they went by "there's a bear," even though we had had the "what to do if" conversation before heading out. Seems to only take one boring conversationalist to keep them at bay. See my edit above about bear spray.

BigAura

ACTUALLY: There have been some changes: burning anything other that locally-sourced-wood in a campfire is not considered appropriate back-country behavior. All man-made-material that's been carried-in should be stored properly before & after use. It should then be carried out!

BTW: As far as I'm concerned you shouldn't even do any backcountry-campfires. Keep that nostalgia for fire pits in developed campsites with fire-rings.

ADDTIONAL POINT: Burning a tuna can will probably permeate a more attractant odor for a much larger area, so it's probably counterproductive to the goal of not attracting bears.

jrbz

Not to be argumentative, just a few comments:
Metal items burned in a fire can and should be carried out. Just don't pick them up while they're still hot. I often carry canned kippered herring with me. Have you ever smelled that? It will attract me from great distances! When there are campfire bans on I will singe these in my stove just to remove the smell.

Oddly, bears and other wildlife are not attracted to wood smoke in the forest, except for maybe Smokey. In general I feel the same way. The sight of flames in the forest usually gets me moving in the opposite direction fairly quickly, unless I'm getting paid to be there.

djb

I don't know what to say, we always carried out anything we carried in, never said we didn't. And burning the heck out of a tuna can or whatever seems to me to be the smarter thing to do rather than not. I don't see why the smell of a cleaned out tin in a very hot fire is going to make any more food smell that the said meal being made.
I guess we will have to disagree on making a responsible small fire with bits of dead wood in a setting where lots of folks don't camp. In these sort of sites where there is a lot of traffic, using fire wood bought locally or even brought in by the camp staff by boat has been the norm, if not, I can see the reasoning because an area will become cleaned out.

bwilli88 

One guy in this thread stated that he put his food in 2 layers of odor free bags and then in his pannier and then put it in his tent.
I go by the maxim of "NO FOOD IN THE TENT", in an odor proof bag(s) or not, nothing in the tent.

BigAura

I'm glad to hear that you do clean out your fire-pits Sadly I've seen many fire-pits with can-fragments & broken glass bottles

I've no problem if you restore a wild-site back to its original state after a nightly use. I know first hand many do not.

To clarify: I am a proponent of dispersed-camping and minimal-impact.

Smokey Bear says: Never put anything but wood into the fire.

bwgride

Odor proof bags are not perfect; bears, and other animals, can sometimes smell bag contents. Placing food in odor proof bags, then inside one's tent is unsafe.

Experiments conducted with odor proof bags show that they do lessen the odor, but they don't prevent odor leakage. In addition, while handling food to place inside odor proof bags one is likely to unintentionally contaminate the bag exterior with some food odors.

Here's a discussion of one experiment testing odor proof bags:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/75773/

djb

Aura, since I was a kid in the 70s, in our family the "you carry it in, you carry it out" mantra has been the thing, is how I was brought up. But yes, broken glass, cans, you name it nearly are always in fire pits used by casual campers, thats been my observation camping in campgrounds in my life.

reppans

Too bad we can't read the OP's article w/o premium membership, but there are quite a few dissenters that have conducted their own experiments and found otherwise, myself included. Now I'm not saying that a bear or dog cannot smell through an Opsak, I'm just saying that it is FAR better than a Ziploc... and that's by my own nose (try to contain the stench of a dog poop bag in a hot car).

I also sleep with my food in an Opsak in my tent, but I'm just in black bear country. On numerous occasions I have considered hanging my food in a tree, and even the "bear-muda triangle" practice of eating/bear-bagging/sleeping in a 200ft triangle, but for me in the Northeast, the additional bushwhacking necessary to do so subjects me to an arguably greater risk of Lyme disease. Anyways, this gentleman (from that thread) sums up my thoughts on the matter:

One other good idea I read about was to keep an air horn with you should you hear something sniffing around outside your tent, where/when you can't really use bear spray.

northerntier

OP here.

Thanks for all the reassurance. This will actually be my fifth bike trip in Canada (Jasper to Missoula on-road last year, Banff to White fish via the Great Divide this year). We always hang food and trash, no food in tent. Alaska and the Yukon, however, are a bit further out than I've been before.

Has anyone been specifically to the Kusawa Lake or "the Windy Arm of Tagish Lake"? I'm trying to convince my buddies that it's worth straying from campgrounds to go to these places, which the ACA uses on their tour.

Thanks,
pete

Big Lew

One thing I forgot to mention...throughout my touring in the north I try to stay well away
from established campsites, preferring to camp in the wilds. Bears that hang around places
where people frequently camp have less fear and are more bold then those in the wilds.
Bears in the wilds are less likely to associate humans with food as well. Sadly, a good example
is the mother and son that got killed and partly eaten inside the Laird Hotsprings Park and
campground 18-20 years ago.

northerntier

Good point.