Photo by Bob Bancroft

When I spotted the black bear blocking my way, I squeezed both handbrakes, locked up the wheels of my mountain bike and skidded to a stop. There it stood, about 30 metres away, the rounded, rumpled mass of wild beast standing on a gravel road in Kouchibouguac National Park on New Brunswick’s northeastern coastline.

I was at the end of a long, exhausting ride through the park. What I wanted most was to pedal the last few kilometres to my vehicle and a much-anticipated lunch. My route included the park’s only designated mountain bike trail, the ungroomed Major Kollock Creek Trail that bumps along over roots and rocks for six kilometres beside the watercourse of the same name.

On Kollock, I’d passed a couple deposits of fresh bear scat with evidence of late summer berries. These signs of bears nearby kept me alert to movement in the forest and inspired me to power through the ride in a hurry. Relieved to complete the trail and emerge onto the system of over 60 kilometres of broad gravel roads that double as the park’s cycling routes, I’d put Kollock Creek and the bear scat out of mind.

Photo by Bob Bancroft

Then, when I spotted the bear, the scat on Kollock suddenly seemed a flashing, blaring warning sign that I should have paid more heed. Here I was, facing down a bear, its muscles rippling as it walked, its proximity triggering a primeval fear in me that was building toward panic.

“They’re fascinated beasts,” says biologist Bob Bancroft. He’s planted 50 species of trees on his property in rural Nova Scotia to assist wildlife. He’s raised bears that lost their mothers and built hibernation dens for resident bears. He’s also written about bears and their behaviour.

“I have a lot of respect for bears,” says Bancroft. “They can outrun us, outswim us and outclimb us. A reasonable size bear in this part of the world, a male is about 300 to 350 pounds, but they get up to 600 to 800. The females are about half of that down to 150 pounds. It’s amazing how fast they can go, and they’re powerful.”

Bancroft’s words wouldn’t have comforted me in Kouchibouguac, but when I described the incident to him, he said black bears have a better sense of smell than sight and suggested that the bear probably wasn’t aware of my presence. So, pausing to observe it was perfectly safe.

Photo by Bob Bancroft

“If you see one and it sees you,” says Bancroft, “it can be curious or it’s after food or it’s testing its dominance.” But he says running away is not necessarily the smart thing to do, if it is aggressive. Backing away slowly is the safest strategy in that situation. “The worst thing you can do with a bear is surprise it. If you’re travelling, even on a bike, have a bell or something that makes noise to let them know you’re there.”

The Kouchibouguac bear encounter surfaced the memory of a similar encounter in a different national park. Some years earlier, I had climbed to the top of western Newfoundland’s Gros Morne Mountain in the namesake park. The mountain is flat on top, so it’s easy to wander around after a hard hike up the scree. I came to a ledge where I could look out over the tabletop range and the fjords reaching deep inland when movement below caught my eye.

A big black bear was rolling around on the steep slope beneath me, pausing occasionally to munch on what I assumed were berries on the low vegetation it was flattening. From the ledge well above the bear that separated us as absolutely as a fence in a zoo, I felt lucky to happen upon such an impressive creature in an absolutely safe and unreachable location, so I settled in to watch. It seemed to me the bear was finding the record high temperature, even on the mountaintop, uncomfortable. I couldn’t have imagined a bear behaving this way, casually rolling around in the heat, belly-up to the sky, moaning with pleasure or discomfort or both.

“They’re fun to watch when they don’t realize you’re watching,” says Bancroft. “They’re very gentle beasts most of the time. They deserve our respect. As a biologist, part of what I want to do is get people used to the fact that we’re part of nature too. We’re lucky to have bears and have them be shy.”

Photo by Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism

Without the benefit of Bob Bancroft’s insights, I still managed to come to my senses in Kouchibouguac. Standing on the road with my bike, I took a breath and focused on what the bear was doing. It was obviously just browsing on roadside berries and hadn’t spotted me. As I watched, it munched, galumphed on a few steps, munched again. The fear I felt quickly melted into self-chastisement for being so illogical.

I didn’t have to find a way past the bear. I was on a bike! I simply checked my park map, discovered an alternate route back to my vehicle and turned away from the not-so-dangerous beast. These two national park incidents taught me that black bear encounters don’t have to be scary. They’re a rare privilege, an opportunity to safely observe one of our country’s largest, most intriguing creatures. Of course, we’re frozen with fear at first sight of a bear—it’s a natural, evolutionary reaction—but we can overcome that fear by taking a breath and remembering that black bears are typically gentle and shy. As I rode away, I considered myself lucky for this experience while reminding myself which of us was the park’s resident and which the visitor.

READ MORE: Adventure, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Wildlife

Darcy Rhyno

Darcy Rhyno has penned hundreds of articles on everything from whitewater rafting in Costa Rica to the wild horses of Sable Island. He’s published two collections of short stories, two novels, stage and radio plays and two non-fiction books, including his most recent, Not Like the Stars At All, a memoir about life in the former Czechoslovakia.

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