Monday 2 July 2012

Bear-necessities

British Columbia is bear country. There are lots of signs that say this. I read (parts of) a book about bears. It was not too cheery. Some is the advice was a little confusing. There are 2 types of bear here, black and grizzly.

Generally black bears like berries, and do not pose much of a threat. If you see one, you make yourself big and scary and shout in a low voice. If the worst happens and it attacks you, fight back in any way possible.
If the same happens with a grizzly, the book advises playing dead- the opposite.

So far so good, simple instructions to follow. Until... In some situations even experts may not tell the difference...

I am certainly not an expert, and it seems like the bears are doing their best to keep the non-expert on their toes. For example, I have now seen 4 black bears. 2 of these were brown. Confusing eh.
Luckily, only 2 were from the bike, and one was on a downhill so going fast! Also the bears were far more interested in eating foliage than even looking at cyclists with silly flags.
There's lots of awesome wildlife here, deer, elk, gophers, beavers, raccoons and I even saw coyote pups (cute) whilst pedalling the other day. Still on the 'to see' list are moose and marmots. Think I'm ok to skip the grizzly bear though...

Happy Canada Day!

July 1st is Canada Day, so today there has been fairs and street parades across the whole of this giant country. As a break from cycling, Revelstoke seemed a good town to spend it in. It couldn't be much more Canadian here, wide river, snowy mountains and the Canadian Pacific Railway passing through- very long goods trains.
I have Canada-ed up the bike by adding a Canada flag to the union jack on the back.
Tomorrow will be the highest height reached on a bike so far with only pedal power. Rogers Pass is well over 1300m, and will be the third pass (route through mountains) in ten days that is around Ben Nevis height. Good job the bike has low gears!