well, really, you are supposed to carry a bag of Dorito's Sweet Chili Heat chips with you at all times. When you see a bear you're supposed to take a bite of one. Since there's 3 sides to every one of those chips (hot,bold, or sweet), what side you bite into determines how you handle the bear. Here is an instructional video:
*the bear in the video is a grizzly, and you can see this actual bear at Doug's exotic animal zoo in Innisfail, and he will pose in pictures with you, and just after he did this commercial apparently people recreated this ad with the bear, as he still remembered the commands.
(so I was told by my cousin, not sure if it's true)
From what you've described it sounds like you encountered a cinnamon coloured black bear. A grizzly probably would have been far more aggressive.
Since I live in a little town built in essentially a muskeg in the middle of a forest, bear encounters occur very regularly, so most of the people up here have learned how to deal with them. When I moved up here I was told quite a few things to do, some of which have been mentioned already.
- Making lots of noise when you go hiking is a good one, as it usually means they will hear you long before you can get close enough to startle them.
- Bear scares (or bangers as people have called them) work ok if you end up close to one anyway, but if you live in an area where people have used them lots they usually won't do anything.
- The best thing to use (according to concensus up here) is one of those compressed air horns. (like the ones that always seem to find their way into the hands of idiots who sit behind you and use them right beside your ear whenever you go to a Flame's game
)
- There's also a few people up here who swear by bear repellant. Have also heard wearing a strong cologne or perfume, or lots of deep woods off works, anything that bothers a bear's nose. Not sure how well that works though, if at all.
As far as what to do when you startle a bear, have heard many different things, which have also been mentioned already. I think a lot depends on the bear itself really, and what time of the year you encounter them. They will be more aggressive when they first come out of hibernation, as they are more hungry, and also if a mother is protecting her cubs they will be extremely aggressive.
Sounds though like you've gotten a lot of good advice in this thread, everyone's pretty much covered everything. Now you can go find some bears and try it all
