Bears: The stark reality

Andy Russell, the famous wilderness outfitter, hunter, naturalist, photographer, and guide, spent a lifetime in the saddle following the grizzly and lived to tell about it in his 1967 Ballantine book, 'Grizzly Country'.
It's a magnificent chronicle of the sweeping adventures of a man who had faced one of the most dangerous and least known of the great North American land mammals and shared his home, according to the back cover of the paperback, which has always shared a special place in my small library.
Last week, the 89-year-old who had championed the wilderness and wildlife, died after spending his final years in a care home in Pincher Creek, Alberta.
Over the weekend, I set out to detail Russell's fascination with the grizzlies and also, my namesake, James Oliver Curwood (even if my mother and father misspelled his name, and I was saddled with the first name of Kerwood) and his fictionalized encounter with Thor in one of his great wilderness books entitled, 'The Grizzly King.'
Bears, for whatever reason, have held a great fascination for me, even here in my great valley on Highway 97 between Vernon and Falkland. And before the Fire of August 2003, a mother and her cubs would wander around my place, almost with abandon. A visitor to my homestead, an Easterner I might add, once decided to follow a mother across the field and was quickly discouraged when she turned and a wild look of protection came across her face and in her eyes. The Easterner quickly scampered to safer ground.
Yesterday, I was about to detail both Russell and Curwood's adventures in Bear Country, when I was alerted that Isabelle Dube, a well-known mountain bike racer, was killed by Bear 99 while running on the Upper Benchlands Trail near Canmore, Alberta. She was the first person killed by a bear in Alberta since 1998.
When I spoke with Amanda Follett of the Canmore Leader (www.canmoreleader.com) early yesterday, she didn't believe the news of Dube's death had reached the entire community.
In reviewing past editions of the Canmore Leader, reporter Pam Doyle described how the same grizzly had visited the fifth fairway at Silver Tip golf course and was caught in a culvert trap on Friday, May 27. The four-year-old, 200-pounder was tranquillized and tagged and was then airlifted by Alpine Helicopters to the far north end of the Carrot Creek drainage in Banff National Park and released.
Doyle pointed out in her news story that the bear was first seen on the May long weekend and was the first reported bear sighting in Canmore this year.
There had been encounters with the grizzly as Canmore resident Niki Davison told Doyle: "Then the bear was five to six feet away from me. He stood and looked at us and I bent over holding the dog and looked at my feet. Raisin also noticed the bear but didn't bark. The bear eventually lost interest in us."
Alberta Sustainable Resource Development biologist Jon Jorgenson said if the bear returned to the Canmore area, his staff would use "aversive conditioning on him."
On Sunday, the same bear wandered around the Silver Tips Golf Resort area.
Dube and two friends, Maria Hawkins and Jean McAllister, enountered Bear 99 as they were running on the Upper Benchlands Trail.
Dube, who had competed in elite mountain bike races such as the 24 Hours of Adrenalin and the TransRockies Challenge, according to Follett and Dave Husdal in the Sun Media, climbed a tree while the other two headed for help at the nearby golf course.
In a CBC report, Dave Ealey of the Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, said officers were nearby when the two other women called for help. Ealey was quoted as saying, "Our guys were there right on the spot, and (the bear) was on the body. When it moved off the body they shot the bear."
Dube was only in her mid-30s, married, with a young daughter.
Such a tragedy in comprison to Curwood's tale (in Judith A. Elridge's book, "God's Country and the Man), which I'll relate in brief:
"Lost in thought, the clicking sound coming along the ledge behind him came slowly into his consciousness, but then he knew instantly what it was -- the click of a bear's toenails on hard rock. He turned, and found himself looking at the great grizzly, barring the ledge and the way to safety. Jim's heart seemed to stop. A low moan, almost soundless, escaped him. He could see the wounds in the bear's shoulder and foreleg, a crease through the hair along its back that could only have been made by a bullet. It was his bear, it had to be; they were the only hunters in these mountains. Then the realization of his danger drove all else from his mind. "Oh, God,' he cried in a low moan, "Please, God, no!" ... Dropping down on all fours again, the bear's great head swung slowly from side to side, a low growl rumbling from deep with in its wounded chest, and disappeared back the way it had come, the click of its claws ringing clear on the hard rock, growing fainter as it made its way down the ledge. It had taken less than a minute. Death had come -- and gone!"
If that had only been true in Isabelle Dube's encounter Sunday with a grizzly.