If you’re a hiker or angler in black bear or grizzly
territory, a modest little handbook, Bear Aware: Hiking and Camping
in Bear Country, could save your life. It concisely explains the
bear essentials of coexistence, such as staying alert in the
outback, venturing out only with a large group, sticking to the
trail and hiking in the middle of the day rather than at dawn or
dusk. It also recommends making a metallic noise – a sound not
common in nature – to warn bears of your presence. About this last
point, writer Bill Schneider, publisher of Falcon Press in Helena,
Mont., admits ambivalence since most of us like wilderness
precisely because it doesn’t contain the sounds of mankind. Then he
adds a more basic conflict: If you do everything recommended in
this book, you most likely will not see any bears. But you probably
won’t see deer or moose or eagles or any other wildlife either.
“You make the choice.” In any case, Schneider says, although bears
add risk to a trip, you take on a much greater risk just driving to
the trailhead.
Falcon Press, Helena, Mont., 127
pages, softcover, illustrated by Kirk Botero, $6.95.
*Betsy
Marston
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Bear with us.
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