On Wednesday, June 24, a woman who was out walking her dog in Alberta’s Kananaskis Country had an encounter with an aggressive grizzly bear.
Jelmer de Blois, a guide with Wilderness Escape Adventures, which provides guided camping and hiking trips in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, said the woman was out for a morning walk with her coffee and her dog, when suddenly the grizzly bear appeared a short distance away on the gravel highway they were walking on.
Video shot by de Blois shows the animal walking toward them, then quickening its pace, appearing to come within just a few feet of the woman and her dog. She yelled such things as “stop, enough, no, hey, stop it, go away, bad,” in an attempt to scare the animal away.
This image, taken from a video shot by the woman, shows the grizzly bear approaching to within just a few feet of her and her dog.
Source: Wilderness Escape Adventures via Storyful
The bear circled the woman and her dog several times, stopping on occasion to rear up on its hind legs in the face-to-face encounter.
At several times during the encounter, the grizzly bear reared up onto its hind legs at it approached and circled the woman and her dog.
Source: Wilderness Escape Adventures via Storyful
As the woman continued to yell at the bear, it suddenly broke away and stepped into the woods, but was still staring at the woman as she quickened her pace and managed to escape.
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The encounter took place amid a recent string of bear warnings in Kananaskis Country and Banff National Park, located about 90 minutes west of Calgary — both popular places for outdoor activities such as hiking, mountain biking, camping, canoeing and fishing.
In another instance, Alberta Parks said a family of four grizzly bears have been frequenting a campground and a camper was forced to use their bear spray to scare away one of the animals when it tore a hole in the campers tent.
Following that encounter, Alberta Parks banned the use of tents in two campgrounds, allowing only hard-sided campers to be used.
The encounter between the woman and her dog and the grizzly bear is one of several incidents involving bears that have taken place in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains in recent days.
Source: Wilderness Escape Adventures via Storyful
In Banff National Park, located just north of Kananaskis Country, Parks Canada staff were forced to close a large area, popular with hikers and wilderness campers, along the north shore of Lake Minnewanka after a black bear “damaged and accessed an unoccupied tent” in a backcountry campsite on June 6.
On June 13, two other tents were damaged by a bear at another nearby campsite.
A day later, on June 14, two more tents were damaged at another campground.
While there were no reports of injuries, Parks Canada immediately evacuated all campers from the area and closed the area to backcountry users.
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