Over the years, we have had many bear encounters from one big black bear meandering through our yard below our deck, between our house and French Beach Provencal Park – seeing them on a beach, to narrowly missing them on the highway between French Beach and Sooke.  We have also seen them on the road near John Muir School in Sooke as well.

However one day last summer, my wife and I decided to go for a walk with our American Eskimo dog that we called, “ Bear”!  It was a bright sunny afternoon so and we went to the top of Seaside Drive to walk through the new subdivision and look at the Sheringham Point Lighthouse.  We often took the dog for a walk in the new subdivision to see the progress of the site from raw acreage to lots with an incredible view of the Strait and the Olympic Mountains across the way.

We had walked up the road, stopped to admire the view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca from the road above the lighthouse.  On our way back toward the lighthouse we took a side road up the hill away from the water side of the main road, to see if it connected up with Sheringham Point Road.   Our dog, Bear, was not one to be quiet when a strange or different animal is around, barked at other dogs in our yard, barked at sea lions, seals, and otters off the rocks at French Beach.  He also loved to bark at the raucous ravens that would sit in trees from time to time, just to tease him – I believe.

We had not walked very far up the side road and our Bear began tugging at his lead trying to drag me up the hill.  He was very quiet except for the occasional low almost inaudible snort.  “Ah, I thought”, he must be on the sent of another dog or a horse; maybe a cougar had passed this way.  Cougars are indeed quite numerous around here.  Generally speaking, they will see you long before you see them, but their scent is another matter  – for a dog.

There was not much fuss or any noise from our Bear, just a steady pull on his lead as we made our way up the road to a gate with something big and black only a few feet away.  Bear met bear, not a sound from us or the animals, everybody froze for a few seconds – we were very close to each other.  We looked each other over; the bear was a big shiny black bear.  When he glanced away we backed up and he moved off into the woods along the side of the road in an almost opposite direction.  We then turned and walked briskly to our car a kilometer or so away.  What struck me most was the almost non-chalant way the bear moved – on as if to say ‘be and let be’ – and the dog that is prone to bark in such situations remained almost totally silent.

We have lived in bear country both here and in the Kootenays and our dogs had always barked at the scent or sight of a bear.  But this time it was different – kind of a close encounter of the strange kind.

Richard Hopkins,
Shirley, BC