Note: Yes, this story is about a bear.  Yes, this is also a photography website.  No, I do not have any photos of said bear or any other bear I've seen since moving to a tent trailer in the middle of the mountains.  As you'll learn, whenever I run into a bear here (which has happened many times since moving here a few months ago) I am too preoccupied to grab the camera.

The One They Call Baloo

Apparently this bear is the one the locals call Baloo, yes, named after the friendly bear from the Jungle Book. And sure, our location is indeed within a rainforest. A temperate inland rainforest if you want the technical term, with thimbleberry and dogwood in abundance and the ferns! The ferns are over 7 feet tall in some places, growing a seemingly imepenetrable carpet of greenery.  A jungle, if you will.  But - our Baloo is not a good bear. In fact I'd go so far as to say this bear is a little bit of a shit head.

The mass of ferns at our new home
It had only been a week since he'd crawled into the back of my truck and helped himself to some garbage left in the box. An incident that I am certainly not proud of.  Evidence of his rampage was strewn about our driveway when I woke up from the RV we have been staying in mere metres away. Afterwards, Baloo had turned his attention to Mr. Bastard's van, opened the door, crawled inside, made a mess of the front seats, broke the centre console and made off with an empty potato chip bag. 

Fortunately Baloo is on the bigger side for a black bear, and a little too fat to fit in between the front seats, so the climbing gear we had stashed in the back of the van were untouched. Saving me the hassle from having to google whether bear claw punctured climbing rope should be retired or not. We were let off lucky this time, but still, we learned a harsh lesson in the reality of life at our new home. We needed to be much, much more vigilant in bear proofing our belongings, not only for our safety, but for the health and safety of the bears.

We started with a rubix cube level of puzzle for our garbage bin - a locking tool crate, strapped shut with a brand new ratchet strap and strapped again, down into the bed of the truck. It may not be bear proof, but it will be loud enough that next time we might notice the bear getting into it.

Next we procured a bear banger, a small pen shaped device that shoots off a flare and makes a loud bang in case we needed to do a little bit of hazing. The purchase of which provided Mr. Bastard and I both another harsh lesson.  This time the lesson was in patience as the young lady working the sole register was keen to share every bit of knowledge she had learned with a pair of tourists about bears, hiking, bear spray and the reasons why you should have bear spray while hiking in case you encounter bears. She was correct, of course, but we simply needed to pay for our purchase and continue our day rather than endure a 30 minute discussion.  The tourists were sold on the spray when we finally interjected their drawn out conversation with the reasons for our own purchase and their transaction finally progressed into a sale, thus moving up our place in line.

Satisfied with our new measures against creating a problem bear, we returned home to learn the latest neighbourhood gossip.  It turns out that our house was not the only place Baloo had been visiting.  We heard rumours of him bending a locked steel dumpster lid just enough to get a paw inside and go fishing for trash. He'd also completely knocked over one of the "bear proof" recycling receptacles and helped himself to a smorgasbord of 99% empty pop and beer cans.

Yep, Baloo was a shit head, and he's got a bit of an attitude problem too.

Our living quarters while construction of our house is underway. Cozy but not bear proof. Barely even water proof.

It probably should not have been a surprise then, while Mr. Bastard and I had our garbage sprawled out on the tailgate as we solved our rubix cube garbage can trying to take out the trash one night, that Baloo came sauntering into the yard. In the fading light of the day he walked out of the ferns towards us "Hey Bear!" I yelled as I leaned down to scoop up the blissfully unaware Creepy Dog from under our feet. Mr Bastard's eyes went wide "Where?" he asked.

"Right. There" I replied, motioning directly behind him as his head turned on a swivel. 

The bear continued sauntering towards us, no doubt following his nose to the delicious aroma of kitchen scraps and leftover meals displayed on the tailgate of the truck in front of us.  "HEY BEAR!" we both repeated to a completely nonchalant bruin continuing towards us.

We sprang into action.
"I'm throwing Creeps inside" I said as I hastily walked towards the RV, Creepy dog squirming around in my arms.  Mr Bastard was on my heels, abandoning our post next to the truck.

"Should we get the bear bangers?" he asked

"Yeah, this bear isn't reacting to us at all"

And that was no exaggeration. The bear hadn't even flinched at our prescence and that is a problem. Especially when you happen to live in a tent trailer.

In one fell swoop we deposited the dog inside, grabbed the bear banger and bear spray, slammed the door shut and rushed back toward our post next to our garbage bag.  Baloo had now made it across the driveway from where our truck and trash smorgasbord were sitting, still undaunted from our presence.

Mr. Bastard launched the bear banger in a cacophony of shot gun noise, flares and a flurry of legs fur and fear erupting from our old friend Baloo.  His nonchalant stomach driven evening stroll suddenly a race to get as far away from us in as short amount of time as possible. With the speed of a race horse that bear shot out of sight and into the brush. Our neighbours confirmed he emerged a block away, crossed the train tracks and kept on running.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel just a little bit bad about giving that shit head bear the scare of his life. But so far it has been pretty quiet around this place, so I think a bit of hazing may have been good for him.  With a little bit of tough love, we might turn that shit head Baloo into our local, friendly, jungle dwelling bear yet.
 

House build in progress under northern lights and perseid meteor showers