Ah... the woods

I am a big fan of the mountains, woods, wilderness, what have you. I even just bought my own tent so I can venture out and make a home there whenever I want (even though I don't like going alone). I recently finished reading a book called the Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek. I really liked it. It's one of those books that you don't realize you like till you've finished it. It was way dry at parts and delightfully gruesome at parts but in the end it made my respect for nature grow like crazy. Midway through reading it I was scared I would never be able to sleep in the mountains without being afraid. By the end of it I realized that the wild is the wild. You can't expect it to cater to you and that is why I love it. You are in someone else's territory. You play by their rules, unless you have a gun I guess.

In this book you follow a black grizzly through the national park in Banff Canada. As it's food supply is cut off due to Mount St. Helens ash killing the berry patches and grazing areas, and careless campers and nearby restaurants not disposing of their waste properly, bears are drawn to garbage bins for food. (this was in the eighties before bear-proof bins came to be) Needless to say people got hurt. The author tells the story from the point of view of the bear as well as the victim and hunters. As my friends know my motto is "humans come first" but I found myself routing for the bear in this story. You probably have to read it to understand.

I'm glad people use their heads a little more now. At least I hope they do. I hope people can respect the wild and enjoy it at the same time.

At the end of the book when they have finally put the bear down the author writes, "We had made this lord of bears seek out the most inaccessible hiding places: when great emotions stirred in him to roar out defiance, our presence had caused him to retreat into silence. We had roused him to fury, but we could never make him lower his head in homage to our overwhelming weapons, or confine his spirit with our instruments of science. In the end, he had escaped: he had eluded our determination to understand and explain him."

This bear had outwitted the park rangers for weeks. I love how he made himself elusive to them, "he could smell their metal" it said. His attacks were on people that came between him and his food source that weren't armed. It's crazy how smart they are.

Fact: their sense of smell is 33 times sharper than a hound dog.
So... watch out.