Two women were seriously injured in a bear attack in northeastern BC earlier this month. On the show today, we have a real-life bear attack survivor, Colin Dowler. In his case, the attacker wasn t a bear, but a 350-pound grizzly. His story is nothing short of incredible.
00:03:33.920Like, my heart certainly goes out to them.
00:03:36.360Um, I know that while I was en route to the hospital, I certainly had fear of being an amputee.
00:03:44.020Uh, and when I woke up in the morning after surgery, and seeing that I had both legs was, uh, I mean, it was, I don't know, like a joyous moment, believe it or not.
00:03:59.340Like, I was 40 days in hospital, and I had a pretty good outlook, all in all.
00:04:07.880Uh, and then once I was out of hospital, I had some dire news that I may never walk normally again, that I'd need a leg brace for the rest of my life.
00:04:20.940Um, and that, uh, hung over me for several months until the news started to look better, and my nerves were recovering properly.
00:04:32.980Um, man, you know, I don't even know what to say for them other than, for me, keeping a positive outlook and sticking to the doctors and mostly physiotherapist orders, uh, has paid off well.
00:04:48.860So, 40 days in the hospital, how do you even keep a positive outlook in a situation like that?
00:05:00.200Um, but I don't know, I just, I don't think that I really had any other option.
00:05:05.940Um, I think sincerely that, um, I was lucky in that I was able to fight the bear off myself and get myself to help.
00:05:18.860Um, and then the loggers, you know, uh, stepped up to keep me alive long enough to get me to hospital.
00:05:27.320Um, so I had a bit of a survivor's mentality, like, wow, like, I, I've got it this far, I'm, I'm going to carry the momentum.
00:05:34.620Um, um, it wasn't always easy, uh, and then, yeah, I reached out to friends a lot.
00:05:42.340I, like, I tapped into, uh, like, the love that I could feel from family and friends that were reaching out to support me.
00:05:51.140Um, and I was able to ride that momentum for several months.
00:05:56.900Uh, and then I remember, I mean, I, I got attacked in the end of July and it was sometime in the end of October.
00:06:06.720So, you know, three or four months later that I did hit like a really low point and all in all, I had no reason to be low at that point.
00:06:16.580Cause I'd just gotten some really good news that, um, my leg that might require a brace for the rest of my life was actually looking, uh, like it was on the positive track, not negative.
00:06:27.540And yeah, I just, I caught myself in a rut and I wasn't sure how to pull out and I ended up calling one of my cousins and just having like a long, heartfelt conversation with her.
00:06:39.400And by the end of the conversation, I kind of come up with a strategy of, all right, I'm just going to embrace the rut that this is a really crappy feeling, but it's not going to last forever.
00:06:51.400And I've kind of rode the rut down and took that momentum to climb back out the other side.
00:06:58.540That's so important to have those people we can lean on, but let's go back to the beginning because I don't, I'm not sure not all of our listeners know your full story.
00:07:08.760So perhaps we can go back to July, 2019 and you can walk us through what you were doing that day that led you to being attacked by a grizzly bear.
00:07:19.620All right. So yeah, on that day, uh, I just finished camping a night in the subalpine on the, uh, mainland coast.
00:07:31.500Um, and I'd packed up camp and was mountain biking down a logging road, uh, back towards my boat to head home.
00:07:39.580And that was when I came across at about noon, right? Came across a grizzly bear in the middle of the logging road.
00:07:46.200Now, have you been camping in this area before? Had you seen bears there before?
00:07:53.140Um, so I had never camped in that area before. I think that was my fourth visit to that area. Um, but it actually had been, geez, in excess of a decade, uh, since the last time I'd been up there.
00:08:07.260Uh, so yeah, that was the first time I'd spent a night. I'd never seen a bear in there. Uh, but five weeks earlier when I was in the same area, uh, I certainly noticed there was a lot of bear sign, like, like a more than average amount of, uh, bear scat, uh, on the road and on the, uh, uh, the trail that I was pushing up.
00:08:28.620Oh, man. Okay. So you see the bear, then what happens?
00:08:35.640Oh, well, I stopped my bike and I, you know, yelled at the bear, right? Hey, bear.
00:08:40.700It's kind of standard practice because really almost everywhere you go around here, there's the possibility of seeing a bear and or bear sign.
00:08:49.800Uh, so you just get used to, you know, yelling at them and typically they, they turn and run.
00:08:56.020Okay, so yelling is standard practice because that's counterintuitive to me. I think I would try to stay silent, but you're supposed to yell at them.
00:09:03.880Yeah, just because you want to announce your presence, right? Like you're, you know, you're not sneaking around or up to anything nefarious, right? So just, uh, hey bear.
00:09:11.460Yeah. It's pretty standard. Um, although I, this is only the second time I'd, uh, come across a grizzly. Um, black bears I'm super familiar with and, uh, just confident that they're not going to be a problem.
00:09:26.020Well, I realize now that it was somewhat naive just because there's so many black bears around and they're generally not a problem. I realized that, uh, they, they can actually be a serious issue.
00:09:36.540Uh, but anyhow, yeah, so I just stopped and the bear was maybe 75 or a hundred feet away and I announced to it, hey bear.
00:09:44.380And, uh, then it stopped and it was looking at the bush and back towards me and back at the bush and thinking, man, that's a grizzly bear.
00:09:52.500And I really just wish it would step into the bush and walk away like a bear is supposed to do.
00:09:58.600Uh, but instead it decided to slowly approach me.
00:10:01.540Uh, well, when I realized it was a grizzly, that certainly was a heightened, uh, sense of concern, let's say.
00:10:17.640And once it started walking towards me, as opposed to stepping into the bush, uh, you became really concerned.
00:10:27.940Okay. And then how do you react once it starts walking towards you?
00:10:32.220Well, I was straddling my bike and I thought to myself, oh crap, this is a grizzly and it's walking towards me.
00:10:39.620What do I do? I should probably ready some kind of defense.
00:10:43.380I thought about, uh, like getting back on my bike and riding away.
00:10:49.820If it is interested in me, it's going to catch me anyways.
00:10:53.100So I'm just going to stand my ground and I pulled one of my hiking poles off my backpack and I extended it so I could, you know, have some kind of long prod as a deterrent.
00:11:04.640And I mean, it was probably pretty naive thinking, but I was feeling a bit desperate.
00:11:08.460And then I, uh, banged my pole on the handlebars of my bike and hoping that that noise might deter it because my initial yell at it didn't do anything.
00:11:19.220Uh, but he just proceeded to approach, uh, despite, you know, me trying to deter it by banging my pole.
00:11:26.460Oh my gosh. Okay. So you're banging on your bike and it's still coming at you. Then what happens?
00:11:35.220Well, it's continued to approach slowly until it was maybe 30 feet away.
00:11:40.080And at 30 feet, I was still straddling my bike and I'm thinking, man, like I feel really vulnerable in this position.
00:11:46.900So I stepped off my bike and the bear skittered on like all four paws and could like hear the scratch and the, uh, gravel road.
00:11:55.740And then it paused for a second and then started slowly walking up towards me again and continued walking at that same slow pace, uh, until, you know, I don't know, just a few feet away from me.
00:12:11.100And I looked at right in the eyes, not necessarily deliberately, but it was a piercing and I couldn't hold the, uh, the, the glare.
00:12:20.080So I tucked my head away and I'm not sure exactly when the situation stripped me of all my confidence.
00:12:30.040And I normally have pretty good bravado, uh, in the bush and around animals.
00:12:35.500Uh, but I was incredibly scared at this point, uh, although still hopeful.
00:12:41.140Um, so I'm looking away so that I'm not making eye contact and proceeded on methodically, uh, along beside my bike close enough.
00:12:50.880I could have reached out and touched it.
00:12:52.900I remember thinking, man, I wish I was filming this cause nobody's going to believe I was this close to a bear.
00:12:58.620So it sounds like you keep saying the bear was walking slowly and methodically.
00:13:02.480So this is actually taking a while to progress.
00:13:05.820It seems like how long from the time you saw the bear to when it really gets in front of you, uh, maybe a minute, but that must've felt like the longest minute of your life.
00:13:19.200I mean, I had time to get my pack off, take a pole off my pack, extend the pole, put my pack back on, you know, while it was walking up and then step off my bike.
00:13:29.540Like, yeah, he was, it was a really cautious approach when he was right beside me there.
00:13:33.720Uh, like he dipped his head two or three times, you know, it reminded me of a shy dog that doesn't know if it wants to let you pet it or not.
00:13:41.700Uh, and then he walked like clear past another six inches and he, his rump would have cleared the back tire of my bike.
00:13:53.040Um, and that was probably the moment he asked, like, when, you know, did I realize like, oh my goodness, this is bad.
00:13:59.540That was the moment that I was like truly frightened, um, because it wasn't walking right by, it was engaging with me.
00:14:08.020Uh, so I spun, I put my bike in between us and, uh, as he, you know, moved towards, I, uh, reached out with my pole and I placed it on the flat of his head between the eyes.
00:14:21.700Um, I didn't want to swat it like in my mind.
00:14:23.920I'm like, I don't want this bear to be angry.
00:15:43.980It was more like a poke, you know, and then another jab and another jab.
00:15:47.860And then somewhere getting into around the fourth or sixth, you know, one of these prods with, you know, his big, heavy paw with, you know, claws sticking out.
00:15:57.380Um, he had raised his arm high enough that I felt like I was going to get like squashed under the next blow that was coming.
00:16:07.380So out of desperation, I threw my bike at him and all in one motion.
00:16:13.260And I remember seeing his leg coming through, I think there's like the center of the A-frame of the bike.
00:16:19.260Um, and then he just stepped forward and, and lunged at me and grabbed me by the side between the ribs and the hip and gave a little shake to sink his teeth.
00:16:29.840And the next thing I know, I'm being carried down the road back towards where the bear, where I, where I'd initially seen him.
00:16:37.120So he didn't even like get a paw on your cloppers.
00:16:40.440He just went straight in with the teeth?
00:16:43.400Just went for a straight, straight lunge and grabbed me by the flank.
00:16:46.740So I was, you know, suspended from his jaws.
00:16:50.220I think maybe my heel was dragging, but I know that my head wasn't touching the ground as he was carrying me back down the road about 40 feet before he put me down.
00:17:00.080And I don't know if he was, uh, put me down because I was slipping from his grip or because he was getting tired from carrying me for so long.
00:17:08.240And so when he's carrying you, are you struggling?
00:18:04.520So picture, you know, two teeth in my back and two teeth in my abdomen as big canines.
00:18:09.400And so he cinched up that bite and gave another little shake to, you know, sort of sink his teeth in.
00:18:14.540And I thought, man, I better start trying to fight this thing.
00:18:18.500Like, you know, I can, I can do something now because now I was on like laying on the ground on my back.
00:18:22.480So I attempted to, uh, like use a double eye gouge move, but his head was so big.
00:18:29.000I couldn't reach his, his left or his right eye.
00:18:32.220So with my right hand, I just grabbed his ear and stuffed my thumb into his eye as hard as I could thinking that I was just going to hold it in there.
00:18:40.020And, you know, there's no way the bear was going to be able to withstand that.
00:18:46.520I think I poked him in the eye for a millisecond and, uh, next thing I know I had been spun around 180 degrees and I was on my back and shoulders trying to kick the bear off me as he was corralling my legs with his paws and, and biting into my thighs.
00:19:06.300And when you say, sorry, I just want to go back a second.
00:19:08.940Cause this shocked me when he had his mouth around your flank, the, his, the top of his teeth were in your abdomen and his bottom teeth were in your back.
00:19:18.740The mouth is that big on a grizzly bear?
00:19:59.900And he's corralling my legs with his paws.
00:20:02.920So he never swatted me with a paw that I'm aware of.
00:20:05.860Um, then I could see his claws on like either side of my leg while he was like getting my leg into position so he could bite into my thighs.
00:20:16.860And then I'm just, just kicking wildly trying to, you know, make this all stop.
00:20:23.440And then that was on my right leg at first.
00:20:25.700And then I'm not sure how much he transferred back and forth, but I think he went from my left leg into my right and then back to my left.
00:20:32.240And, uh, uh, then ultimately he ended up settling down, uh, like high up into my groin, um, with me pinned under one of his arms on my abdomen and was biting into my, uh, left thigh.
00:20:50.920And when I did like bite and give a little shake just to sink his teeth in and he'd lift his head up and then bite in again.
00:20:57.540And I'm not sure how many times he did that again, maybe four or six times.
00:24:25.540And then again, it was a struggle to get the knife back through to the other side.
00:24:29.400And I kind of had to like reach up above my head to swing my arm through.
00:24:34.180And then I kind of leant up as, uh, far as I could with his exposed neck and I stabbed him in the neck for all this worth.
00:24:43.840And in my mind, I was going to stab him like, you know, a million times.
00:24:48.820Um, but as it worked out, I stabbed him with the pocket knife.
00:24:52.160And as I pulled the knife out from the first stab, he also lifted his head up and pulled his neck away from the knife at the exact same time.
00:25:00.920And then in that moment, man, like I can't reach his neck anymore.
00:25:16.660And then a big gush of blood, uh, spewed from his neck and splashed onto my, uh, onto my waist or my hips.
00:25:26.060And, uh, then ultimately from there, he got right up off me and, uh, walked back up to where my bike was, you know, like, you know, 40 feet back there and, uh, bleeding the whole way.
00:25:39.320And then he'd sniffed at my bike and he ended up, uh, crapping three times, taking a huge pee.
00:25:47.100So I thought I'd probably killed him because that was, you know, a sign of like physical trauma.
00:26:27.760So I ignored the bear and cut my sleeve off and hiked it up over all my wounds, which was a little distressing.
00:26:36.800I thought it was my pants that were all bunched up.
00:26:39.580Um, so as I was trying to straighten my pants out, I realized it was actually like, like meat bulging out of the bite wounds.
00:26:47.220So I just looked away from that and I went by feel and pulled the tourniquet up over all those wounds and tightened down the best knot that I could.
00:26:55.400And the presence of mind you had in this situation to be still thinking clear enough to be administering first aid on yourself.
00:27:05.500Like, had you had experience in emergency situations before?
00:27:09.620How do you think you, you, you kept a hold of yourself?
00:27:16.700Um, I, I mean, I'm a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, so I mean, maybe from like years of boating experience and like, you know, I guess, you know, life threatening or challenging stormy seas, you know, I'll help you to keep a cool head.
00:27:34.040Maybe that, skiing, I'm not sure, but, you know, I, uh, I've been in first aid situations where I was like, oh my goodness, I should probably help this, you know, old, old lady that's fallen in the parking lot and seems hurt.
00:27:47.400I was so thankful when someone that knew better than me showed up to, to help and spell me off.
00:27:53.080So yeah, no, I don't have any, uh, you know, specific training.
00:27:56.780We'll be back with more full comment in just a moment.
00:27:58.900Okay. So you're, you're with the turnkey, the bear is still on the other side of the road.
00:28:05.600Well, I, I finished with the turnkey. I looked over and the bear was gone.
00:28:10.380So that was a relief. Um, although I didn't necessarily know like where it had gone to, but I was just happy that it wasn't looking at me anymore.
00:28:19.720Uh, so I looked at the time and it was 12.01 and I thought, all right, like what, what am I going to do now?
00:28:28.900It was, I did take a breather, right? Like, okay. Like I kind of relaxed and what, you know, what am I going to do?
00:28:34.640So anyhow, it was noon. I thought, man, if there's loggers up the road, they're not going to come by until three or four in the afternoon.
00:28:42.680And I didn't feel like I was going to live for that much longer.
00:28:45.800So I thought my best option was to try to get on my bike and ride my bike down to the logging camp where their first aid attendant is and their, and their cook, right?
00:28:57.280I'd met him the day before. So I knew there'd be someone down there.
00:29:00.680Um, so I tried crawling to my bike. I couldn't do it because it hurt my knees too much. I cursed myself. I didn't curse myself out loud, but in my head, I'm like, dollar, seriously, if you can't suck up the pain to crawl back to your bike.
00:29:16.940Uh, but I couldn't do it. So I think you were being a bit harsh on yourself in that moment.
00:29:22.500Yeah. But the reality is I felt I needed to get to the bike and I legitimately couldn't hack the pain of the gravel in my knees.
00:29:30.260Right. It wasn't the wounds. It was the pain of gravel poking my kneecaps. So I flipped onto my butt and I, uh, kicked with my one good leg, like pushed with that leg and my hands to push myself, uh, back to where my bike was.
00:29:45.220And, uh, I got on my bike. It took me two tries. The first try, I, you know, face planting off the other side.
00:29:51.940And that was a pretty low moment. I'm like, Oh man, I'm in trouble.
00:29:55.560So, and I gave another try and I got on and I, uh, started a one leg pedal. I had my bad leg, um, was like weight to get my pedal back up, but I couldn't put any pressure on it.
00:30:09.420And with my good leg, which was still, you know, I had 15 or 20 bite holes in it. I pedaled with that, uh, the seven kilometers back to the logging camp.
00:30:20.120Seven kilometers. Like, weren't you in an incredible amount of pain? How did you make it there?
00:30:27.620So for what it's worth, I, I was feeling no pain or at least none that registered. I knew I was in huge trouble, right?
00:30:35.100Like I could just, I could feel my, my seat warming from the blood coming out of that flank wound, right?
00:30:41.720Kind of pouring down my back and probably down my butt crack. I could just see all the blood on my legs.
00:30:47.920And my boots were full of blood and, uh, and watching where the bear bled on my front tire and just seeing this bloody wheel go round and round.
00:30:59.020And, uh, the caveat, I had just a three and a half kilometer pedal on relatively flat road.
00:31:06.140Like I got to coast sometimes, but I had to pedal up like very slight uphills at times.
00:31:10.220Um, but it was three and a half K until I could coast downhill the rest of the way to the logging camp.
00:31:17.060And yeah, I just endured it. I don't, man, I was so tired that every bend that I went around, every little rise that I went up, I thought, okay, around this bend is where I get to coast the rest of the way.
00:31:28.980Or above this rise, that's where I finally get to coast and there's kilometer markers on these logging roads.
00:31:37.260And when I saw the 5K sign, I thought, oh my God, I've still got two more kilometers to go before I can coast.
00:31:44.640It was like a truly disheartening moment because I didn't think that I had the endurance to make it that far.
00:31:58.980And what happens when you get to the logging camp?
00:32:01.540Yeah, right. So I crashed into the, uh, logging camp and it turns out that, so these loggers, I'd forgotten that, uh, they were boating to where they were working each day from the camp.
00:32:12.860So there was no cavalry coming down the road, had chosen to wait in place for someone to come help.
00:32:20.740Um, so one of the loggers, turns out, I learned after, had actually seen me riding my bike down, but he didn't think anything of it.
00:32:28.740Uh, so he told the guys, oh yeah, you know, the guy from the, you know, the bush is back.
00:32:34.160Wait, he saw you riding your bike after the bear attack and didn't think anything of it?
00:32:38.860No, because he didn't realize what was coming, right?
00:32:40.760He somehow missed all the blood, I guess.
00:32:43.420Yeah, it was a ways off, right? I didn't see him, so it must have been a ways off, right?
00:32:47.320And, uh, so anyhow, so I, I crash landed.
00:32:51.740It was actually like, I landed quite well with my bike at the stairwell, which is three or four steps and then a small landing.
00:32:58.400And then it goes into, um, like the galley where they, you know, eat and play cards and stuff.
00:33:04.920And, uh, so I went to step off my bike and I like face planted onto that landing with my legs on the step still.
00:33:13.960And they were already making comments, right?
00:33:17.940I can just imagine they're probably saying like, oh, nice, nice landing buddy or whatever.
00:33:21.980Right. And, uh, on my ride down, cause I had a lot of time to think I'd, I'd made my, like rescue plan was to yell help as loud as I could as many times as I had to, to get someone to come help me.
00:33:36.060Cause who knows where these people might be in the camp.
00:33:39.000And, uh, and then once I had someone there to tell them to call a helicopter.
00:34:17.220I'm not religious, but it was that scene where the sun shining in through the sliding glass.
00:34:21.980The door and these, you know, two men in uniform with, you know, their bags and whatnot, you know, with the silhouette, you can just see their shadows.
00:34:36.080And they, uh, yeah, they go very, very, uh, calm and methodically, uh, got down to business and almost immediately, uh, put an IV in my arm and, uh, started to give me blood on the scene.
00:34:51.600And, uh, and, uh, amongst other things, right.
00:34:54.880But they gave me that blood and, and mentioned that, uh, they were lucky that they were able to give blood on the scene, uh, cause that was relatively new, uh, for paramedics.
00:35:04.100And that without that blood, my odds of making it back to a hospital alive were slim.
00:35:14.560Well, they didn't give me a prognosis right then and there.
00:35:18.260Um, but they were struggling to find a pulse in my left leg, uh, below my knee.
00:35:25.400I remember down around my foot and it wasn't until, I think it was like their, their pulmonary surgeon, uh, when she finally showed up and using something they called a Doppler, right?
00:35:35.440She finally found a pulse and like, Oh, okay.
00:35:46.840And they, yeah, and they weren't sure if my abdominal cavity had been punctured or not.
00:35:52.260Um, and yeah, that was essentially it.
00:35:57.260I know at one point, uh, they asked if they could start cutting away, uh, dead muscle, um, to like prep me before I went in for, uh, surgery and my CT scans.
00:36:07.740Um, and then a conservation officer showed up to get a statement and that got interrupted when I was getting whisked away, um, for my CT scan.
00:36:18.740Uh, I managed to get a bunch of pictures right before I got taken away and pictures of my wounds.
00:36:24.580It's like, no, no, my little brother and sister started taking pictures, but the, uh, medical staff wouldn't, wouldn't allow me to roll onto my side to let them get a picture of my flank wound.
00:36:34.700They're like, it's not worth it for the Instagram.
00:36:40.920I remember my little brother saying to them, he's like, all right, but you'll, you know, uh, you'll take a picture in the, in the surgical suite.
00:37:29.580Um, so it wasn't until that, um, you know, but I don't want to call it depression, but that, that, that, that really low moment near the end of October, um, that the next time I had to schedule a visit with my family doctor, it wasn't much after, um, I mentioned that I could, I could use the mental health support now.
00:37:48.600Uh, but just the way the system goes, I really should have got myself connected while I was in hospital.
00:37:54.800Um, because now I was out, out of, out of that system and into more of the public health, you know, coming in off the street system.
00:38:03.060So it took three months for me to get an intake appointment for what it's worth.
00:38:07.700I don't think I started feeling post trauma, like sincerely until like two and a half years in.
00:38:18.120Like it wasn't until this spring that I just, I was carrying like anxiety with me, like this tightness about me and had a little bit of stage fright in a work scenario that I would, I was already trained in and, and fairly confident.
00:38:36.260And for whatever reason, like I, I, I almost fell apart and, uh, it was like doing some radio work.
00:39:15.080But the bear is the most, most recent severe trauma.
00:39:19.160Um, and then physically I'm, I'm doing well.
00:39:21.960Like if I stay on top of my routine exercises and stretches, I thought I'm really quite able.
00:39:29.380Uh, but man, it doesn't take a long, like if I let it go, I, I regress quickly.
00:39:36.420And then I'm like prone to injury if I try going for a hike or something, but yeah, I'm quite proud this, uh, this summer in the middle of summer, I did a 50 kilometer hike with a 35 pound backpack on for a half or more of the hike.
00:39:52.680And I summited, uh, three, 6,000 foot mountains and, uh, across two glaciers.
00:39:59.300So would you go back hiking ever or camping in a similar area to where you were attacked?
00:40:07.580Well, I, I've, I've been back up that exact same route that I got mauled on and, uh, climbed up in, into the, uh, Alpine with my brother and my close friend, Steve.
00:40:28.240Uh, but what I have learned from all the camping that I continue to do is that I essentially need to be sleeping, uh, with pepper spray or a firearm if it's hunting season, um, to have a good night's sleep.
00:40:44.260Like, I mean, I do these mountaineering hikes with, you know, there might be two or three other people and I'm the only one with pepper spray in his tent.
00:40:54.180Uh, and nobody else is doing it because the odds are so slim and we're in a big group and yada, yada, yada.
00:41:17.540So my advice is, uh, and don't get me wrong, I don't regret my years of like blissful naivety that I just walked through the woods thinking it'll never be me because, you know, I'm at one with nature and I've got confidence with animals and, you know, they won't attack me because I'm a, I'm an alpha predator, right?
00:41:57.140If I see a bear, this is how I will react.
00:42:00.800Um, so I think that's a good idea so that if you do see a bear, you already know what you're going to do instead of doing what I was doing, which was scrambling for, oh crap, what now?
00:42:13.800Um, I had pepper spray with me when I left for the hike.
00:42:18.460It fell out of my pocket at some point during the hike.
00:42:21.860So you should always have pepper spray with you and have it in a proper accessible holster, um, where it's not going to fall out of because I'm reasonably certain that, uh, because that bears hesitance when it approached me, had I have pepper sprayed it, it probably would have thought, okay, I'm out of here.
00:42:55.760I mean, this is just from reading, uh, a book from a bear biologist, but he suggested that, uh, with a grizzly bear, speak with it confidently.
00:43:06.180Don't try to intimidate it because they don't like people trying to intimidate them.
00:43:36.860Um, so I mean, that's really all I've got.
00:43:39.800Well, no, you shouldn't say that's all you've got.
00:43:42.020That's incredibly useful advice, especially for people who might not be as experienced with the outdoors or camping as you are.
00:43:49.780Um, so thank you for taking the time to share your story today and impart some words of wisdom that hopefully no one will ever have to actually use.