My encounter with Momma Bear---Keith Lowry

I have been a farmer and lumberjack my entire life and have enjoyed almost all of it. I have spent many days cutting and hauling wood on many different woodlots around this area. My favourite is one that my dad and I bought on the halves from a lady named Myrtle Chute, ergo the Chute Place. This lot consists of 160 acres of mostly grown over pasture and old growth forest, the woods were alive with birds and animals of every kind including a ton of deer, rabbits and the odd coyote and bear.
One nice, sunny Sunday afternoon I decided to go for a walk, as I often did, on this lot. I drove about a quarter mile off  the road to a little camp we had and proceeded to walk into the bush where we had recently been logging I then decided to take a shortcut through a swamp to check out some apple trees that I had seen on the other side. All of a sudden I heard a crashing in the brush, so I jumped up on a rock to see what I thought would be a bunch of deer. Instead I saw a little black flash running off to my right, then another one to my left. I remember thinking, wow that looked like little cubs. I got back on my path and all of a sudden this little cub came running down the path and right past me. I could have picked him up, he was that close. I recall grinning a bit and thinking that was pretty neat...then it dawned on me, momma can’t be too far off. No sooner had I thought that than I heard a grunt and saw momma coming right straight for me. Now I know they say play dead, but that was the last thing on my mind. I always said that if a bear was going to have me for lunch, I would at least make her earn it, so I promptly turned and ran like hell for the nearest tree. There was a big old cedar that my father had limbed up as high as he could reach about 50 ft away and I made it there and clawed my way up through the branches. I know a bear can climb much better than me, but I saw no other choice. I got up in there and looked back to see momma sitting on her haunches, swinging her head back and forth with her nose in the air. I still had clean underwear, but I’m here to tell you there’s nothing much scarier than a big black bear running towards you with her ears laid back. She stayed like that for a couple minutes, then stood and came a few steps closer, sat back down and did the head wave again. By now she was about 20ft away. I had absolutely nothing on me for a weapon, so I decided all I could do is try to kick at her nose if she came up the tree. She seemed like she wasn’t sure where I was so I thought, bears can’t see too well so I’ll just stay perfectly quiet and maybe she won’t see me, though I could swear she was looking right at me. After a few minutes she repeated what she had done before, this time within 10ft of the bottom of the tree. I was getting cramps from being twisted up in the tree, but remained perfectly still, or so I thought, until I looked out and saw the branches I was on shaking like crazy. After what seemed like an hour, she got back on her feet and just sauntered off up the trail.
All I could think of was to get back to my truck as quickly as possible. I got about halfway down the tree when it dawned on me... she had three cubs, each one ran a different direction, momma isn’t going anywhere till she rounds up those little ones, so back up the tree I went. After a few minutes I thought, well, this is ridiculous, so I climbed down and headed for the truck, about a quarter mile away. Needless to say, while walking back up through that swamp, every time a mouse moved or a bird chirped, I was ready to roll. Anyway, obviously I made it back to the truck, no harm done.
I stopped by my dad’s on the way home to tell him all about my meeting with the bears. He got quite a kick out of it and suggested we go back up to have a look around. I wasn’t all that anxious to go back up but would never admit that to him, so, up we went. There were all kinds of tracks everywhere and we were kind of having fun trying to figure out where they had all gone. I pointed out the tree I had gone up and dad headed over, following momma bear’s big tracks. After a bit, he called me over and asked if I was sure the bear hadn’t gone up the tree. I said, no, just very close. Dad said “ are you sure, there are a lot of scrapes in the bark!” I said” no dad, that was me, I was scratching my way up for dear life.” Dad had a great laugh, but at the time I still didn’t find it that funny. Anyway, I guess the bears were long gone so we headed home. When I got home, our daughter Bethy thought I should have caught the cub and brought it home... ya right!
Though I’ve seen quite a few bears since, I’ve learned to be a little more aware of my surroundings.