Better the Bear You Can See

Published in Deep Wild Journal, Vol. 3, 2021

I see the grizzly before it sees me; an immense, oblong shape, joints sliding beneath fur at the four corners of its back as it advances down the hill. It glides over uneven ground, perfectly suited to the rocky mounds and tangled gullies I have fought through all morning. It disappears into the folded land, then crests a small ridge, only thirty meters away, head upright, chest rippling in the wind that sweeps up the valley. 

I freeze, not by choice. Paralysed by fear: so much more than a turn-of-phrase. Bears have been too-familiar friends this summer. But only black bears. Never grizzlies.

The bear’s enormous head turns in my direction. It, too, goes utterly still, as it contemplates the strange creature in its domain. I see it in terrifying, dazzling detail. Dark brown fur, four-inch claws, legs thicker than the tree trunks a smarter, quicker human might have tried to hide behind. 

“Hayley,” I whisper, not daring to look away. “Hayley!” 

“Whoa…” Hayley parts the bushes behind me. “That’s a griz!”

I hear her stop moving, and she and I and the bear ponder each other across the sparse vegetation that I imagine to be my lifeline. A Canadian stand-off. I struggle to remember my training, wishing I had paid more attention to those tedious videos of grainy bears stalking through grainy forest. The dense, dull excerpts from forester’s handbooks, delivered via email to my distant living room. 

Do not look them in the eyes. Grizzly bears often take this as a territorial challenge. 

I am looking the bear in the eyes. I cannot look anywhere else. Everything falls away, as if my surroundings are props swept by a strong wind off-stage. Just the characters left now, and one of them is in danger of being written out of the script.

“Matt, come to me,” Hayley says, fear lacing her words. 

“No way,” I hiss. “Come to me.” 

This isn’t cowardice; it’s tactical thinking. I don’t want to take my eyes from the bear, nor can I risk stumbling as I retreat, possibly exciting it. I reach slowly into my back-bag, unsheathe my knife. Three-inch stainless-steel Gerber. Good for cutting boxes and boosting egos. About as useful as a popsicle stick against a quarter-ton of bear. 

A whistle blows across the valley. A faint cry of “Grizzly!” drifts on the wind. Too quiet. Too late. The bear’s black eyes are unfathomable, yet I understand perfectly that I am less than prey to this creature. Prey would at least stand a chance, if attacked, of survival. If charged, DO NOT RUN. Do not try to swim a river or climb a tree. Lie down and remain silent, even if the bear claws or bites you. 

I shake with fear and adrenaline. I came here with a billion-dollar corporation behind me, with trucks and helicopters and eight-inch boots and three-inch knives and a six-module training course and confidence like a suit of armour, and still I am inconsequential. I do not belong to this world of spruce and stone and snow. My world ended at the bottom of this mountain, it’s inevitable advance, for once, too slow. 

Oh, to go back there! To wield a pen instead of a stainless-steel shovel. To shower and shit among gleaming porcelain instead of mosquito-infested canvas. To escape with the comfort of climate-control this uncomfortable, uncontrollable climate. To forget the eternally-dancing evergreens and slowly ripening strawberries and bursting fireweed flowers like streaks of paint on the landscape. The jagged Rockies, ever-present, the bared, bottom jaw of the yawning sky. The money and masochism that draws me back each summer to resow what the titanic logging companies relentlessly harvest. Six years in the bush, three-quarters of a million trees in the ground, and until two minutes ago I thought I had planted and sweated and bled and sat through bear-safety videos enough to call myself wild. 

When confronted, remain calm. Do not speak aggressively to a grizzly bear.

“Oi!” I yell. “Get the fuck out of here!” So much for bear-safety.

Seconds pass in a mad flutter of heartbeats and imagined maulings. Wind rustles the waist-high grass, flicks stringy bits of hair into my eyes. Leaves and flowers shiver with anticipation. A woodpecker rattles a hole in the silence. In a moment of bizarre lucidity, I realise it is raining. Rain, like bears, is familiar here. 

The grizzly turns its head as though mildly embarrassed by my outburst. With a barely perceptible twitch of its shoulders, it steps off the ridge and submerges in undergrowth.

My fear doubles. Better the bear you can see. Another turn-of-phrase, coined by a quivering tree-planter in what might be his final seconds of life. I step gingerly over slick, treacherous logs, try to maneuver myself and Hayley behind the bear. I glimpse a mass of moving muscle among infant pines and scraggly poplars. It vanishes incrementally, and my pulse explodes each time it is swallowed among greenery. 

A bulging, matted rump appears down the hill, then sinks from view. I breathe. My cramped fingers ease around the hilt of my knife. 

We are permitted to live. 

“That was a big one,” says Michel, after we have bashed through a gully and waded a snowmelt stream to reach the trucks. “Saw him cross the road down there. He won’t be back.” 

Our crew huddles, smoking, shivering, staring at the six-shades of green we are terrified to walk back into. The whispering pines, delightful when we arrived, whisper now with ill-intent. What do you know, Michel? Our people cut trails into these hills and took trees from these forests, but our sovereignty ends beyond this narrow road. 

“Ok,” Michel says with loud, unhelpful bravado. “Back to it guys.”

We stub our cigarettes, pick up our shovels. Fill our bags with seedlings and ease our bodies into the bush. We plant in teams of five for the rest of the day, bending and walking and bending in the driving rain, one of us always upright, like meerkats. 

We do not belong here.