Day Five: To the top of Durant Lake 7/23/2004
This is where I get to tell a bear story. When we arrived at our camp area, it was one of those places at the base of the rapids that calls out, "camp here!". Later in the evening as we were finishing supper, a bear appeared on the other side of the river. He seem rather curious and interested in what was going on at our camp. We thought it might be a good idea to let him know there were loud, noisy things on our side, so we launched a bear banger, and he retreated back into the bush. His retreat was rather short lived, and we watch him amble about the shoreline for over an hour. Convinced that he was not going to go away and would likely visit our camp we hoisted our food pails into a tree, tied the barrels together, moved the tents together, and set pots and pans (noisemakers) outside our tent tents. Joan got creative and made a trip wire with pots and rope.

Later that night, I dreamed my dog was sniffing at me and trying to wake me up and let him out to do his business. As I opened my eyes I saw the tent wall moving, and quickly unzipped my sleeping bag. I stopped to listen, and hearing no futher movement I concluded that it must have been a dream and drifted back to sleep. Hours later in the morning, I could hear fire-making noises as Chris went about his morning fire and coffee ritual. Suddenly there was a gruff, "go on, get out of here! ....go on!" I was in motion and out of my bag before I heard the pot banging, and then out the door I lurched grabbing the bear banger and the pots by the tent door. There was racket coming from the other tents, and everyone was up in moments, yelling letting "Mr. Bear" know that the camp was occupied by upredictable humans. The yelling didn't seem to have much effect, but he definitely didn't like the pot banging. This was the largest bear I have seen in the wild. He was at least 250 lbs, with a beautiful healthy coat. He began to move around behind the camp, stopping advancing and then retreating. Both Glenn and I had bear bangers loaded and Glenn discharged his cartridge, sending our visitor back into the trees. He circled around to a trench and peered at us as we cautiously had breakfast and broke camp. This was our fastest departure so far. If nothing else, Mr. Bear managed to send us on our way with an early start on the day.
Unfortunately, I have not graduated to documentary videographer and did not have the camera running at the critical time. You will just have to use your imagination. I feel fortunate to have observed such a magnificent creature at close range.

By lunch time, we were on Durant Lake, dealing with the wind in our faces again, battling our way up the shoreline. We were all exhausted and relieved to find a comfortable camping spot at the north end of the Lake.