OK, So You’ve Run Into a Bear. Now What?

A few days ago I wrote about running into bears while on the trail. It’s a daunting prospect, and there are lots of things you can do to prevent it from happening (like making lots of noise).

But suppose you do run into a bear. What then?

No single strategy is guaranteed to work in all situations, but you can minimize your risk by doing the following:

First, keep your distance from the bear and remain calm. Don’t run away. In most cases, if you make some noise, the bear will leave.

Don’t be surprised if the bear rises up on its hind legs. Bears are curious animals, and often stand up to get a better view, or to catch your scent. Back away slowly and speak in a firm voice.

A bear that swats at the ground, swings its head from side to side, snorts or huffs, pops its jaw, or bares its teeth is likely stressed and is asking for more space. Give it to him. Bears may also bluff their way out of an encounter by charging, then turning away at the last second. Stand your ground.

A bear that follows you, circles or cuts you off is likely displaying predatory behaviour. This is more common in black bears. Face the bear and act aggressively. Throw rocks and sticks.

If a Bear Charges:

If it’s a Black Bear, stand and fight. Grab the closest stick and bash him across the nose. Throw things. If you’re carrying bear spray, use it. Any of these actions may convince the bear to leave you alone.

If it’s a Grizzly Bear, play dead. Protect your face, and the back of your head and neck with your arms. The typical grizzly attack happens as a result of surprise, so non-aggressive behavior generally works.

Here’s an easy way to remember: If it’s black, fight back. If it’s brown, lie down.

The Skeleton in my Closet

Did I mention that I work for Canada’s public broadcaster?

It’s awesome. Not only am I surrounded by brilliant and spunky people, but I get to climb around in Casey and Finnegan’s tree-house every single morning.

But things are always changing at the CBC, and recently, due to budgetary challenges, it was announced that our (formerly commercial-free) national music service will soon begin airing 4 minutes of commercials per broadcast hour.

It’s a siesmic shift. Nobody wants commercials cluttering up the airwaves, but the possible alternatives (show cancellations? endless re-runs of dusty radio dramas? dismantling the transmitters and selling the iron for scrap?) would likely drive even more listeners away. So commercials it is.

I’m just hoping nobody learns about my past.

Back in my early-twenties, I wrote commercials for a small-town radio station. I could churn out anywhere between 20 and 25 thirty-second spots per day. I wrote radio ads for funeral homes, steak houses, furriers, gentlemen’s clubs, used car lots, you name it. I was shameless, and I had a special knack for writing slogans.

One day, however, my copywriting superpowers deserted me. The results were disastrous. Check out this slogan I wrote for a flooring company – a company with the unusual name of Feel Fooring:

“For floors with feeling, feel free to phone Feel Flooring.”

Yes, I actually wrote that sentence. Forgive me. It was the end of a long day, and I’d written 30 spots already. I was, as they say, out of juice.

Back in those days, once you’d written a commercial, you had to call up the client to get them to approve your copy. It could be a humiliating experience; reading your well-crafted commercial over the phone, and then having it ripped to shreds by some dude who sold, I don’t know, chain saws for a living.

As I read that goofy Feel Flooring spot over the phone, I kept thinking NO WAY is Mr. Feel Flooring going to go for this.

“For floors with feeling feel free to phone Feel Flooring.”

I gave it my very best delivery. And to my shock and horror, the copy was approved! The commercial began running the very next day.

If you lived in the greater Espanola area during the early nineties, and spent any time listening to the radio, then I sincerely apologise.

On the bright side, that commercial won me the employee-of-the-month award. 50 bucks!

Real Life Superheroes, Part 7

You’ve probably heard of exteme sports like base-jumping, free-running, and wake-boarding…

But have you heard of the greatest adrenaline rush of all?

Let me introduce you to…extreme ironing.

Let’s face it. Everyone’s gotta iron. And ironing’s pretty boring. So why not make ironing time more fun?

Welp!

I’m a bit OCD, so this sport really speaks to me. You can do extreme ironing anywhere. Atop a mountain, on board a roller coaster, even at the bottom of the ocean. All it has to be is…extreme.

Uh…dude…there’s a shark above your head.

If you love challenging outdoor activities and the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt, then extreme ironing is for you!

And guess what… One of the stars of the sport is a 17 year-old kid.

Most teenagers aren’t too fond of housework, but Kevin Krupitzer is an exception. He’s particularly interested in removing creases from his clothes on top of weird rock formations near his home in Arizona.

My hero, the young Kevin Krupitzer

That doesn’t look too extreme, does it? Wait a second…let me show you a wide shot:

No matter how peculiar your passions may be, the world is waiting to see you succeed.

Another Burden to BEAR

Patricia Sommers was having a great race. Until she ran into the bear.

Sommers was running her first 100-miler, in the Haliburton Forest, back in 2000. She was keeping a good pace, the weather was good, and her husband was waiting for her at the 75-mile turnaround.

One mile shy of that aid station, Sommers heard a noise. It was eleven at night, and she could hear a large animal crashing down a hill towards her, on the left hand side of the trail. “I hoped it was a moose, but it wasn’t,” she explained. “It burst onto the path 100 meters ahead of me.”

Sommers shone her headlamp at the animal. It was an adult black bear. It rose up on its hind legs and roared.

I’ve run into a number of bears on the trail. It’s gets your heart pumping, that’s for sure. Given that these animals are large, with claws the size of steak knives, I’ll found myself wondering: am I crazy to be running in a forest?

The answer, according to Bart Hillhorst, is no. Hillhorst is a Forestry Technician with Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources. He deals with a lot of problem bears. “There’s always a danger with animals of this size,” he explains, “but in general, black bears are programmed to be scared of humans. Ninety percent of the black bear’s diet is vegetation – grass, berries, nuts. The other ten percent is meat, but that’s mostly larvae and ants. The reality is, bears don’t like dealing with people. It’s not in their personality.”

Statistics back this up. Since the early 1900’s, fewer than 70 deaths in North America have been attributed to black bears.

“When you see a bear on the trail, your first reaction is to be scared,” Hillhorst says. “That’s perfectly natural, but fear is the wrong thing to show a bear. You want to be calm. You want to look at the bear and figure out her situation. What’s the bear doing? Is it aware you’re there? Is it feeding on something? Are there cubs nearby? Then you can figure out your best response.”

“Once you know what the conditions are, then it’s just a matter of risk tolerance,” explains Dr. Stephen Herrero, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Calgary. “There is risk associated with bears, so you have to decide if you’re comfortable with that. I’m a runner myself, and I love running in nature. But there are some places in North America where I wouldn’t dare run right now.”

If you do decide to lace up in bear country, you can take steps to increase your safety.

1) “Run at a more leisurely pace than you otherwise might. Bears hate surprises, that’s a major cause of aggressive behaviour, especially with Grizzlies.

2) Keep an eye out for bear tracks, spoor, fresh diggings, torn up logs and scratched trees. If you see any of those, find another place to run.

3) Above all, make lots of noise, particularly when you’re running in dense forest, or rounding blind corners.

Carrying a can of bear repellent doesn’t hurt either. Just be sure you know how to use it.

“When you’re staring at that bear, and your heart is racing, and the wind is blowing, how good do you think your aim is going to be?” Hillhorst says. “Bear spray is good because it gives you confidence, but practice using it a couple of times before you head out.”

The Man Who Forgot He Wrote a Book

Crazy story – about my talented friend Tim. A warning, though: Tim is successful at, like, everything. He’s an award-winning journalist. Plays violin like Nigel Kennedy. Bakes the most mouth-catering cakes.

These days, Tim spends most of his time writing children’s books. But it’s a career that almost never happened.

Here’s how it came about. A few years ago, Tim’s niece came up for a visit from Colorado. During her stay, she reminded Tim of a poem that he’d written many years before.

“What poem?” said Tim.

She reminded her Uncle of the poem he’d written for her as a gift, back when she was a little girl. A poem about a frog who is appalled to learn that that not all animals share his love of spiders and bugs.

Tim’s niece took the poem to school. Her elementary teacher loved it and read it aloud for the class.

The class, predictably, LOVED the poem. And so, for years, that teacher went on performing it. An entire generation of Colorado kids grew up on Tim’s poem about the frog – and Tim didn’t even know!

Not long after the niece went back home to Colorado, Tim was telling a group of us about this story. We were at a friend’s book launch, and a literary editor happened to be standing nearby. It’s a good thing Tim has a loud speaking voice because the editor overheard the story, and asked to see the poem. And presto! That poem got turned into a book.

The book sold a lot of copies. So Tim was asked to write a sequel. That one sold well too, so a third book was requested. It’s coming out in November, with a fourth book already in production.

And it all began from a poem that Tim forgot that he’d written!

What writer doesn’t have dreams like this? That at some point in our scribbly past, we wrote a brilliant poem, or short story, or novel, and forgot all about it? Lord knows we’ve got enough journals and floppy discs and thumb drives full of forgotten writing lying around… Surely, somewhere among all those literary droppings there’s gotta be something worth publishing, right?

Quite possibly.

As this wonderful story also attests.

Sweaty to Office Ready

A few Februaries ago, while standing on a streetcar, politely absorbing the cloud of germs radiating from the human flu cases all around me, I glanced out the window and had a revelation.

A happy-looking runner bounded up the sidewalk. A vapour trail of snow whorled behind her.

Brilliant, I thought! Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Instead of suffering for hours on public transit, I could be running to work, and losing weight at the same time!

Ever since that revelation, I’ve been running to and from work every day. I’m saving money on transit, I’m saving time, and my oxygen-rich blood has led to improved performance at work.

Still, I’ll be the first to admit that the running commute can be fraught with peril. Over the years I’ve been caught half-in and half-out of my spandex tights in the photocopy room. I’ve been referred to as “Chicken Legs Carroll” at a staff meeting. And I’ve been accused of “stinking up” workstations 2G208 through 2G212.

More on that latter item in a moment, but first, I’d like to address the most significant challenge facing the commuting runner: wardrobe planning. Any casual runner is capable of keeping a spare shirt or two at the office. But what about us addicts who run both to and from work, each and every day of the week? To do this successfully, some planning is in order.

Once a week, I pack a duffel bag full of clean clothes and shlep it downtown. Three pairs of pants, three dress shirts, and four tee-shirts generally do the trick. I also leave a few items at work permanently – sports jacket, belts, a filing cabinet full of clean socks.

My filing cabinet holds all manner of fine toggery

It’s not a fail-safe plan. Countless are the times I’ve grabbed a clean shirt, shoes, underwear and socks from my filing cabinet, and headed for the showers only to discover that I have no pants.

What the….WHERE ARE MY PANTS!?!

Ever sat through a board meeting in dri-fit shorts?

But maintaining a satellite wardrobe is only the half the battle. It’s also critically important to be pre-emptive with one’s sweaty laundry.

Hide-a-stench

For this, I look no further than my trusty Coleman cooler. With its airtight seal, that baby can store up to 3 days worth of biological waste without emitting any foul smog.

Despite these precautions, I still get the occasional complaint from my neighbor at workstation 2G212. I’m doing everything I can, but frankly, I think it’s time for our industry leaders to lend a hand. If companies really want to attract health-conscious and carbon-neutral employees, they need to get ahead of the fitness curve. I’m not talking about bike racks and shower rooms. These days, those are the mere baseline. I’m talking about lunch-hour massages, Gatorade and Clif shot energy gels in the vending machines, and most importantly, same-day dry cleaning service.

And would it really kill our bosses to keep an ironing board in the photocopy room? I mean, c’mon!

The evidence beneath my desk

You’ll find a good article with tips on how to run-commute here.

A Puppy Off its Leash

This spring is giving me whiplash.

Three days ago I went running in a blizzard. But one weekend before that, the hillsides were ablaze with blossoms.

I took the opportunity to go hiking on the Bruce Trail with friends. White and wine-coloured Trilliums opened as we walked.

These flowers would perish of frostbite exactly one week later, but they looked very beautiful at the time.

My friends were in an easy-as-a-Sunday-mornin’ mood, and took lots of time to admire the scenery.

Look out, I’m a snake, you cultured peoples!

The trail wove up and down the scarp face. Every so often, we’d come upon a delicious downhill section. I’d leave my friends behind, and slalom down the trail, my legs twirling like pinwheels. When I got to the bottom of the ravine I’d turn around and jog back up to meet my friends again. I felt sheepish, like a puppy who’s escaped its leash but still wants to be loved by its masters. My friends barely even noticed I’d gone.

After a couple of hours we came to a gurgling stream. It meandered through the grassy meadow like lazy cursive, swooping around apple trees and ancient slabs of limestone. The water glinted like diamonds in the sunlight, and when you looked down into it, you could see fat black tadpoles shooting back and forth.

It was an idyllic place, surrounded by hills on all sides. It reminded me of an illustration from one of my all-time favourite children’s books, Stan and Jan Berenstain’s The Bears Picnic.

It’s the book where Ma and Pa Bear set off with their son in search of the perfect picnic spot. They pass through forests, over mountains, and through cozy glades in pursuit of the perfect picnic spot. They endure bugs and monsoons and nearly get killed by a train and almost fall off a mountain.

Come to think of it, their adventure is eerily similar to my novel, Ultra. Except, like, the main characters are cartoon bears.

When we got home after the hike we ate our own picnic of scones and salted pecans and Brie cheese and Oolong tea which raised our spirits nicely. Six hours had passed since we’d set out on the trail. It felt like ten minutes. The best days always do.

Note – you can find that gorgeous creek and meadow at kilometer 58.8 of the Beaver Valley section of the Bruce Trail. It’s on map 26 of the Trail guide; just a few clicks southeast of Eugenia Falls.

Or, if you’re feeling lazy, you can have almost the same experience just by reading this book:

In Every Race There is a Surprise, Part 2

I love running 100 mile races. And one of my favourites takes place this month.

The Sulphur Springs Trail Run is held in the Dundas Valley Conservation Area in Southern Ontario. The race follows a series of hard-pack trails that weave in and out of steep gorges carved thousands of years ago by retreating glaciers. Over the course of the 20-kilometer loop (which you run 8 times), you pass through dense Carolinian forests and wildflower-strewn meadows.

Gorgeous

To answer your question, yes, there’s a bit of hill-climbing. Over the course of the 100 miles, you have to gut your way up 4600 metres of elevation. That’s like 8 CN towers stacked on top of each other.

Sadly, I won’t be running the race this year. Instead, I’ll be working this mind-blowingly awesome music festival. It’s a decent trade-off, but I’ll still be thinking about Sulphur Springs while I’m rocking out. I’ve said before that every 100-mile race holds a surprise of some sort, and I’ve had more than my share in that particular race…

For instance. Five years ago I was toeing the starting line with a hundred or so other runners. It was late May, and it was six in the morning, and most of us were wearing headlamps.

Most – but not all.

“3…2…1…GO!” shouted the race director.

“Yaaaaaaaaa!” we runners yelled, charging heroically into the darkness.

We ran for maybe 30 seconds, down a gravel road toward the trailhead. Everyone jostled for position as the road got narrower, and soon we were funneling into a straight line.

Did I mention that it was dark? That we were moving fast?

Soddenly, right in front of me, someone shouted: “Look out! Look out! Look out!”

The offending posts

Four metal posts were sticking out of the ground. They were two-and-a-half feet high. Castration height.

“Look out! Look out! Look out!”

The crowd parted, and I slipped safely between the posts. The guy beside me wasn’t so lucky, and went down with a horror-movie scream.

IN EVERY RACE THERE IS A SURPRISE.

Poor guy. He’d run all of 200 metres.

Happily, the following year, the starting line was moved to a different area of the park. I have no idea if that was coincidental or not.

* * *

Running a hundred miles is not like running shorter distances. In the 100 mile race, you don’t compete with other people. You compete against yourself. More precisely, you compete against your own mind. You would think that your mind would be on your side in an endurance event. But it is not. Your mind is your worst enemy. Your mind is on the side of your body, and your body wants nothing more than to go home, lie down in a hammock, and eat a bag of barbecue chips.

Oh sure, every now and again, your mind will say something nice to you, like: “The bath you take after this race sure is going to feel good!” Or, “It sure is nice, being outside in the fresh air!” But most of the time your mind says nasty things like: “You’re stupid for trying this; you should drop out and go home.”

That’s what my mind was saying to me a couple of years ago, when I was once again running Sulphur Springs. I’d been running for 80-odd miles and it was the middle of the night and my mind was saying: “You are a stupid bloody fool. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

I’ll never forget finishing my 7th loop. At the turnaround, the volunteer lady gave me a high five and offered me a slice of pizza. I declined, since I still had one final 20-kilometer loop to do. “No you don’t,” she said. “You’ve already done your 8. Just look at the clipboard.”

I stared at the clipboard, and counted the laps. She was right, I’d done 8, not 7 like I thought.

Which meant –

I WAS DONE!!!

Believe me when I tell you – that was the happiest moment of my life.

Of course, later that day, the pain really set in. I had a burning Achilles tendon, and I lost all feeling in six of my toes. My calves and left shin were…hmmm, let me see. What were they exactly? Ah yes, they were a blinding wall of pain. That’s right, that’s what they were.

On the bright side, I was given permission to use the physical disability washroom at work. That handle on the wall beside the toilet was a godsend.

Love Your Genes!

Say it with me… I LOVE my genes!

If not for those little critters turning pirouettes in our DNA, we wouldn’t be able to run, cycle or swim. (Or, for that matter, compose heart-lancing prose.)

So the next time you tap-dance across a finish line, or drop-kick a gorgeous metaphor into a short story, be sure to send a shout-out to your genetic gifts!

Or better yet, thank the person directly responsible:

MOM!

It’s your Mom you’ve gotta thank that your bones are so strong. If not for her microscopic legacy, you wouldn’t be able to suck 6 litres of air in and out of your lungs. Mom’s the one you need to thank for that finisher’s medal around your neck. And I’ll bet she helped pay for your first word-processor too.

Promise me you’ll call her this weekend. Or whisper a prayer in her name. Promise me, ‘kay?

This is a video of me and my mom. (I’m the little one, fyi)

Writing is my AEIOU and Sometimes Y

Note to self: kids are really smart.

Case in point. The other day I got interviewed by a grade 10 student. He needed to dissect a living writer for a class project, and somehow, poor guy, he got saddled with me. We went for a coffee, and then I dragged him into a radio studio (the same studio, I should add, where the fabled literary broadcaster, Eleanor Wachtel, conducts all of her interviews). The student pulled out his iPhone, pressed record, and placed it on the desk between us. He asked me some very good questions – about writing, working in the field of journalism, how much education is needed to get a job in broadcasting, and how to build a career as a fiction writer.

He gave me a real grilling. And then, near the end of our discussion, he asked me this: “Knowing what you know now, if you had to go back and do it all over again, would you still set out to be a fiction writer?”

OMG. He had me. I froze.

As a seasoned interviewer, I usually love moments like this. The moment when a question hits the bulls-eye, and you can see your guest squirming, because he or she has secretly been asking him or herself the exact same question – possibly for years.

If I had to go back and do it again, would I still set out to become a fiction writer? I had to hand it to the student – his random drilling had hit a geyser.

“Do you want me to be completely honest?” I asked.

The student grinned from ear to ear. “Of course,” he said.

No way, I thought to myself, I’d avoid writing like the plague. It’s nothing but an endless road of pain!

Want proof? I wrote my first novella more than 2 decades ago. It never got published. Neither did the two novels I wrote after that. And of the 100+ short stories I composed after that, only a handful made it to print.

NO, DAVE. BE HONEST. 3 GOT PUBLISHED. ONLY 3. And the money I earned from them didn’t even cover the cost of the printer ink and stamps!

If someone had sat me down back in 1990 and done the calculus; if they’d explained how hard I’d have to work, how many hours of sleep I’d lose, how much my arteries would harden, how awkward I’d feel each time a friend asked how my book was coming along… If someone had told me all that two decades ago, would I still have gone into writing? No, probably not. You’d have to be crazy to embrace a career like that.

It’s one of the great mercies of the universe that I didn’t know the odds I was facing when I started out. This isn’t limited to writing. If any of us truly knew how much heartache was in store for us, we’d never do anything. If we knew how hard it would be to maintain relationships, we’d never allow ourselves to fall in love. If my parents had warned me about the skinned knees I’d get while learning to ride a bike, I never would’ve let them take my training wheels off.

I still hadn’t answered the student’s question. Sensing my difficulty, he shifted gears. “How about this,” he said at last, “what has writing given you?”

The question was a relief, and I was flooded with good memories. I started rhyming off the list: writing gave me a purpose in life, it gave me the career I now enjoy, it helps pay my mortgage, it stills my mind during stressful times.

Writing is my sun and my moon. It is my breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is my AEIOU and sometimes Y.

And in spite of all those rejections I mentioned earlier, writing eventually did make my dream come true.