7/28/2019 Desmond's Stand Off With a Bear

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Even in my 90s fortune smiles on me, or could it have been St Anthonys doing? The

other morning as I was ending my walk on Rena Crescent, which is up on West Vancou-

vers timbered mountain slopes, I saw a bear coming straight towards me. When we were

only twenty feet apart I forced myself to acknowledge that I was really seeing what I was

seeing, and so with heart pounding and legs shaking, I came to a sharp halt. So did the

bear. The stand off was torture. Then, miracle of miracles, it was the bear that broke offcontact. It turned and headed straight down a driveway - our driveway. My retreat cut off,

I still dared not move and inch. And no good calling out to neighbours. There was not a

soul on the street. But then, after agonizing for some escape, I saw the creature emerge

from the bushes at the far end of the property, cross over Rena Crescent, and at a lope

head straight up our neighbours driveway.

They are Cantonese speaking Chinese those neighbours of ours, the father with Canadian

English way superior to my bastardized China Coast English, the mother having good

Mandarin, their four sons, fine natural Canadian English speakers. I slipped indoors and

got immediately on to the phone to warn them. The mother answered, then came running

down the driveway to see if I was OK. Chasing right after her was a Chinese fix-it man

doing a job at her place. He shot out at her in rapidfire Mandarin that a huge bear was

tearing apart her garbage cans and was feeding on the contents. How big is it, I asked.

Three hundred pounds he told me. Then he wanted to know how was it possible that suchan old decrepit Westerner like me knew Chinese?

An hour later when my wife Deb got home she told me a bear had been sighted seven

blocks away but that it had since disappeared up into the higher slopes. That was

good news, splendid news. I never would have reported the bear to the authorities. They

shoot those magnificent creatures.

Desmonds Stand Off with a Bear in May 2013

Taken thirty-two years earlier, this is a shot of my brother Jocelynwalking along Rena Crescent. Though coming from the opposite

direction he is at the spot where I stood facing the bear. Our drive-

way is the one leading down from the parked car.