Bear spray with a happy ending

Screen shot of Napoleon 

with my bear spray

What creepy thought comes to mind when you find a tooth-punctured canister of bear spray deep in the woods? Yes, some poor sod made his last stand against Bruin and lost. In this case the poor sod was me, but my can of bear spray made the ultimate sacrifice. 

Last June I absent-mindedly left my bear spray behind when I set a trail camera beside a seasonal creek. A bear visited 2 hours after we left, and during the next 3 months the camera video-captured bears on 50 occasions. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have video proving that Bruin got the big surprise while munching the canister. My lost bear spray was not in the camera’s field of view, at least not initially. But after it presumably exploded in the jaws of a bear -- it became a bear toy. I have video sound tracks to prove it. You can hear bears rolling it on the rocks and crackling the metal in their jowls. 

The canister mysteriously appeared at the edge of a video clip on day 53, and remained in view of subsequent clips until a yearling cub retrieved it from the water 11 days later. This bear -- I call him Napoleon -- seemed to make a statement. He walked up to the camera and dropped the can there. 

It didn't stay there. I found it several yards downstream in the dry creek bed, and how it got there I'll never know. It didn’t smell like pepper spray, but its remaining chemical taint gave me a coughing fit. The crumpled bear spray canister now resides in the clutter of my garage and workshop – a souvenir of another adventure with a happy ending.

How I "bear sprayed" my wife on our wedding anniversary

My wife dropped a hint last Sunday at breakfast. “Maybe you should check the camera traps this morning so we can get to the restaurant on time.”

I got the message. It was our 50^th wedding anniversary.

It was a little after 8:00 when I finished packing my rucksack, and that’s when I remembered that the only time I ever walked up on a bear was about this time in the morning.

It was a harmless amusement – I could hear mother bear high-tailing it down the slope and splashing across the creek, while her 2 cubs set a record descending a big old Douglas fir. I can still see them backlit in a haze of falling bark and dust. No way were they going to be left behind.

But fate can be ironic, and a fleeting thought -- “Bear mauls senior citizen on 50^th wedding anniversary” -- cautioned me to take the bear spray (a birthday gift from my younger daughter).

And how many times has someone pulled their bear spray trigger, found the canister empty, and 

witnessed their deliverance in painfully surreal slow motion? 

I had better test it. 

I pulled the trigger guard and squeezed ever so briefly . . . WOW!

The 10-foot plume of red pepper gas told me it wasn’t a dud.

And a moment later I found myself in the dilute invisible backwash. 

And so did my blinking dog.   

Sneezing and with one runny eye, we beat a hasty retreat into house.

The pepper cloud followed us into the kitchen with the cool air that funnels through the screen door in the morning.   

Suddenly the redhead appeared, “What’s that smell? We’re being gassed!”

“I just tested the bear spray, Sweetie, and it works!” I coughed, “It’s not really THAT bad (cough).  

She hurried off to get a dust mask, and I decided it was time to make our exit. 

The rest of the day was a charm. We encountered no bears, arrived at the restaurant on time, and recounted our bear spray episode for family entertainment.

“He hasn’t changed a bit in 50 years,” said the redhead.

"I’m lucky she still likes me," said the codger.