OPPS! I meant...
Bear Tales
not Bare Tails

The first time was on a camping trip, that found us and our two small children on Bear Island in Lake Huron, Canada. (We wondered how it got its name?) It was a beautiful place and best of all there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken nearby. (It was there that I learned that you should eat baked beans cold.) We ate a late dinner and retired, and yes, we left the food remains on the picnic table. Big time dumb. At the time we were using two tents, one for the kids and one for us. In the middle of the night Kay, a deep sleeper, woke me, normally a light sleeper, and said "there is something out there". After listening for a moment and hearing nothing I went back to sleep and then...
Crash, Smash, Clang and worst of all Growl.
What to do? Remember our two young children where outside in another tent. The really was no choice, I had to go outside and, hopefully, chase the bear away and outside I went. What next? Well thankfully the Bear ran and it was a long time before I returned to sleep.

The next 'adventure' was 10 to 12 years later on a camping trip to Maine and environs. This time we were by ourselves. As time passed we ended up in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Both Kay and I enjoy privacy and favor National Forests for this reason. We found a very private campsite with a foot trail leading through woods to a beautiful trout stream. After dinner we went down to the stream to watch the fish. As it turned dark we headed back to the camp with Kay about 15 yards ahead with the flashlight. All of a sudden a large bear burst out of the dark and charged by Kay directly down the trail towards me. As this happened, Kay whirled around, momentarily showing me the bear charging at me, and then (accidently, she says), turned the flash light off.

Many years later we were on our sailboat, anchored in Salmon Creek (off Albemarle Sound in Eastern North Carolina) with our friends the Honeycutt's. All four of us were enjoying drinks and snacks in the cockpit of our boat, Spindrift, a Hunter 33.5. The Hunter 33.5 has a 'scooped out transom', meaning the cockpit is open to the sea at the back. Salmon Creek at our location is several hundred yards wide. Getting on towards dusk, one of us, I don't remember who, called out 'Look at the large dog', pointing at it swimimg across the creek behind our boat, and all four of us, then instantly realized that it was not a dog and that it was very large indeed. Bears in this part of NC have been recorded up to 800 pounds. Of course, the question was 'will he decide to take a rest and join us for drinks', in which case, we would have been in the drink. He didn't; we weren't.

The next encounter was not an encounter at all, but worth the tale. It happened exactly one week later. We were driving to the boat and had just crossed a bridge over Salmon Creek when a black bear ran right-to-left across the road about 100 yards in front of us. The geography of the situation was as follows. The bear was leaving a woods on our right while on the left side of the highway there where scattered homes. As fate would have it, directly across from the bear was a house with six people in the front yard cooking on a grill and two dogs asleep in the yard. The six people were all looking at the grill and the bear ran right behind them and they never knew it then or now.

We have seen other bears, and actually bears are quite common in Eastern North Carolina. The state estimates that there are 6000 East of I-95 (about 100 miles from the coast), that equates to about one bear per two to three square miles. I personally know well two people who have hit a bear with a car and have seen a couple more dead beside the road.