A well established if comedic adage with regard to hiking in the Canadian backcountry in general, particularly in habitat known for dangerous wildlife populations such as grizzly, black and polar bears (the latter on Hudson’s Bay, Manitoba and further north) along with cougars, wolves, coyotes, wolverines, moose and rattlesnakes, is to always hike with a buddy whom you can outrun! Specifically with regard to black and grizzly bears, there are well established dictums that say ‘if the bear is black fight back, if the bear is brown, lie down’. Do not run away! 

For the record, when traversing polar bear territory, it is common practice to carry a rifle and to have the knowledge to safely use it. That said, should you find yourself traveling within northern Manitoba’s polar bear range and God forbid encounter one, the advice is to quietly back away and leave the area either in the direction you came from, or make a wide detour around the bear. Do not run, move quickly or make motions that might attract the bear’s attention. If possible stay downwind so the bear cannot smell you. Keep the bear in sight at all times. Resort to the rifle as a last resort. Good luck! Bonne chance!

Some time ago I had a call from a friend of mine with whom I have done a number of hikes. Would I like to join him for a hike on Mt. Washington? The mountain is centrally located on Vancouver Island, BC. He lives on the Island, in fact grew up there and has considerable knowledge of its backcountry and associated wildlife. He is about a foot taller than me and considerably younger and fitter. Just saying. Oh, and he did mention to be sure to bring along bear spray. Yes I would join him I responded although I did find the bear spray requirement a little disquieting. OK more than a little. Having once had a too close night time encounter with a * black bear I crossed my fingers.

The mountain is about 25 km west of the Comox Valley and about 100 km north of Nanaimo. A very experienced all-round outdoorsman, my friend has considerable knowledge of the Island’s backcountry and associated flora and fauna. The 1588 metre mountain is in very rugged wilderness terrain from the heavily forested lower slopes to the steep and rocky high alpine above the tree-line. Out of let’s say, rather more than idle curiosity and with the bear spray requirement to mind, I searched online for ‘dangerous wildlife on Vancouver Island’.  

Notwithstanding the bears issue, I determined also that there are an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 cougars in Canada 600 – 800 of them living on Vancouver island making it the highest concentration thereof per square kilometre in North America. Whoop-de-doo! Native to the Americas as in both North and South, depending on geographic location the big cat is known also as puma, panther, catamount and more commonly especially in the USA, mountain lion. To my surprise, the animals it turns out have more in common genetically with a house cat than with an actual lion. However do not underestimate them. From the nose to the tip of their tails they are about two metres in length. They will attack and sometimes do kill humans. Had I known at the time that cougars it turns out are fond of hunting at night, I would have for sure been a lot less cavalier about what turned out to be our more than trivial adventure. With male cougars weighing 50 to 100kg and females 30 to 65kg, the big cat weighs in at slightly heavier than a cheetah not that Canada has any of those fleet footed marvels. 

On the positive side there are no rattlesnakes on Vancouver Island. It is too cold and wet for these venomous snakes. They are certainly dangerous to adults, children, dogs and other animals. I knew someone who did lose their dog to a rattlesnake attack. The snakes inject venom via their two fangs. Veterinarians carry antivenin however being some distance into a desert, my friend had not been able to retreat and reach one quickly enough. The hot, dry interior of BC is the habitat of the western rattlesnake. Canada also has both the prairie and the eastern rattlesnake. 

The good news extant was that there are no porcupines, skunks, **coyotes or moose on Vancouver Island. Given there are about 170,000 moose in BC their absence on the island was both surprising and comforting. An angry, especially a bull moose, is not something to be trifled with. There are wolves in the form of the Vancouver coastal sea wolf, a subspecies of grey wolf, mercifully however they are endemic to Northern Vancouver Island, a long way from our planned hike. 

In the seriously dangerous wildlife category, along with the 600 – 800 cougars, there are about 120 – 150 thousand black bears in BC one of the world’s largest black bear populations! Vancouver island has about 7,000 of them making it one of the more dense populations in the world for this bear population. Worst case do remember as already stated ‘if it’s black fight back’. There are also grizzlies allegedly few in number and limited to the far northern part of the island. (We hoped). On the plus side wolverines which are very dangerous especially when cornered, apparently may be it is thought, extirpated from Vancouver Island. A good thing as they are regarded as one of the fiercest of opponents in any altercation with humans or indeed any other animals. Given that with ‘only’ cougars and black bears to seriously worry about, I invested in some bear spray hoping it would also work with cougars.

Warming to the idea of a fitness challenging hike just prior to ski season I was more than happy to join my friend. Our hike was fairly late in the Fall, October if I remember and hence daylight hours being limited we elected not to go for an attempt to summit but to at least get above tree-line and into the alpine area. I live on the BC mainland in Vancouver so on the agreed day I boarded an early morning ferry bound for Vancouver Island. About two hours later, my friend picked me up at the ferry terminal in Nanaimo. The final section of the journey involved logging roads as opposed to regular paved highway. Logging roads are typically gravel and are easy to get lost on. They typically have many corners all of which look the same since there are generally no structural features close by other than also look alike, towering coniferous trees. Logging roads are also generally quite narrow. My friend knew the route well from past experience and we made it to the parking lot mid to late morning. 

We struck out immediately time already being somewhat of the essence. The first section of the trail was easy. Very easy. It consisted of an extremely long flat boardwalk through very marshy valley bottom forest hence there was no elevation gain at this point. The boardwalk stretched perhaps 500 metres a long way for a boardwalk painstakingly constructed in dense wilderness forest. Without it, armed best case with well sharpened machetes, we would have been submerged in, as opposed to several inches above, valley bottom swamp water and it’s lush and plentiful vegetation with our feet and hiking boots almost certainly soaked within minutes.

As soon as we reached the end of the boardwalk we were into very steep climbing on a well established and initially heavily treed trail. About two strenuous hours later having made a significant elevation gain, we broke out of the trees and onto heavily frosted alpine rock outcrops. Heavy frost at the higher and more exposed elevation an incipient indication of the late October fall season inexorably moving on into winter. We had seen no terrestrial wild life, dangerous or otherwise en-route. Given the possibilities, the absence of the former providing an element of comfort. 

Along with the 600 to 800 and counting population of cougars, Vancouver Island is home to over 7,000 black bears making it one of the more dense places in the world for black bear populations. Fortunately, there are only a few of the much more dangerous grizzly bears on the island habitating the north coastal tip. That said, a bear is a bear and yes, we were each equipped with large cans of bear spray. As I write, three women in BC are recovering two of them with with grave and life altering injuries, from just having being badly mauled by a black bear. They were not carrying bear spray and yes, it does generally work to stave bears off as it does other animals including we hoped cougars. It is also effective against vicious out of control dogs and should you happen to have a can with you albeit technically illegal for the purpose, nut case humans.

We continued on our then alpine climb taking in the 360 degrees of high elevation scenery. We were fortunate to have continuing clear and stable weather. Not that common in the ***mountains in the fall or most any time for that matter. Once satisfied with having met our modest goal for the day we set about descending. Somewhat counter intuitively, descents of mountains are where most of the serious accidents occur. It is always worth being mindful of such and certainly we were. The reason for this occurrence is the unwise temptation to mentally lower one’s guard as sometimes do retreating armies to their cost if the enemy proves to be undetected yet close at hand. 

It is also never a good idea traveling in rough back country inevitably with a risk of injury, to rush per se. However with the amount of daylight left being less than we would have preferred, we did risk quickening our steps a little. We figured we would make it to the car about 600 metres below us give or take just before it was fully dark. 

We pressed on reaching the tree-line with some daylight still left albeit quickly fading to black as it were. We headed for the entry to the trail on which we had so recently ascended. Except that it didn’t seem to be quite where we thought it was. Certainly it had seemed obvious enough as we exited it when ascending. Why was it not obvious now? Flummoxed but confident and calm we searched first one way and then the other. The terrain looked exactly like we remembered it so why was the trail head not obvious?

Wasted minutes flew by. Five, ten, twenty and still no trail entry the remaining daylight fading very quickly. We each had the same mental image of what the entry and it’s surroundings should look like. There were markers in plain sight which we had memorised on the ascent which fitted the scenario we both remembered so why could we not just spy the entry and get on with the descent? Complete darkness was rapidly encroaching it seemed at an accelerating pace. We couldn’t ask somebody for directions. There had been very few others visible on the mountain during our ascent and now it seemed, there was nobody descending behind us. 

We finally had to concede we were not going to find the trail entrance. We considered our options. There were only two. We could stay put until daybreak or soldier on. We decided on the latter. Using my friend’s powerful flashlight which was rechargeable via a surprisingly effective if loud and who knows, perhaps bear and cougar discouraging whirring hand crank and my fresh-battery equipped headlamp, we would bushwhack our way down through the dense virgin forest. This in the compelling darkness to the we felt sure, ‘unmissable’ boardwalk. Granted however ‘unmissable’ only being the case if we indeed were close to where we continued to believe we had been on the way up! Once on the ‘de luxe and then some boardwalk’, making our way to the car would be a piece of cake. 

Knowing cell service would almost certainly be unavailable deep into the forest, with a still strong signal we phoned our respective spouses. My friend’s wife and my relatively recent girlfriend albeit incipient spouse. I told her we might be benighted in the steep sided forest if we were to encounter any obstacles on the descent we considered too steep and or dangerous to attempt without full daylight. Should that be the case we would of course just stay put there until dawn. I didn’t know she was unfamiliar with the term benighted having as she was later to put it, ‘grown up on concrete in New York’ and was thus not Canadian backcountry wilderness savvy by any stretch of the imagination. Thus she did not know that best case, my next possible phone call might well be the following morning from somewhere in the dense forest we were about to enter or indeed at the parking lot where for sure there was a cell signal.  

As already stated and by then driven by adrenalin, well aware and mindful of the fact that the majority of mountaineering accidents occur on the descent, we took the plunge no pun intended, entered the dense foreboding forest and headed on down with both our lights most of the time adequately showing the way. At first the going was easy albeit rough underfoot. We agreed that whenever we judged further descent posed significant risk of an injurious fall since certainly we were by no means engaged on a cakewalk, we would debate the issue and press on with the descent only as long as both of us were comfortable doing so. We noted very early into the descent that as anticipated, there was no cell signal. We were determined to self rescue. Were there any black bears or cougars in the vicinity I wondered? And how nocturnal were their movements? To ensure a ‘quick draw’ we made sure our bear/cougar/whatever sprays were close to hand.

Making good progress at first it was not long before we held our first conflab. As the slope steepened we encountered gullies etched out of the rocks and soil by B.Cs very considerable rainfall. This to no surprise. The gullies varied from two or three feet in width to perhaps ten or fifteen feet. Some were almost dry and others were filled with fast flowing if shallow streams. Most all were piled high with firmly anchored as well as loose and thus dangerous under foot, rocks and broken branches. Certainly the majority of the gullies were narrow, steep and cut quite deep into the mountain side.

After discussion we elected to descend our first gully albeit with considerable caution. We had little difficulty negotiating it and continued on through the trees until the next gully. Encouraged by our initial success we continued our descent with appropriate caution. Without continuously shining our lights we would have been mostly in an essentially ‘blackout dark’ environment. As it was, who knew what we might or might not see by way of obstacles to our progress. I did wonder might we encounter black bears and or cougars. Attacks on humans by either are rare but certainly they do occur. As a precaution, I frequently swept the beam from my headlamp behind us both of us having determined the route ahead was both viable and wild animal free.

Reaching we guessed about half way on our descent to the boardwalk and after successfully negotiating several easily surmounted gullies, we encountered a particularly steep and narrow one, more of an almost vertical chute than a gully. Given we had no climbing rope with which to belay one another step by cautious step, we hesitated. A fall for sure would be disastrous, most likely injurious and quite possibly fatal. Should we call it quits until dawn or continue?

We checked our phones hoping to make contact and give an approximate location to our spouses . There was zero signal. A serious accident would be a nightmare. Perhaps a head injury, maybe a broken limb. We were very much on our own. We had adequate food, clothing and water. It was tempting to hold out for daylight many hours still ahead. With no means of spousal contact, it would cause great concern no doubt clean through the long night. Another factor was also in play. Daybreak in October comes late. It would be a very long time before we could move on, eventually lock onto a cell signal and place our calls. 

Using our lights judiciously, my slowly draining battery supplied one in particular (I now have a wind-up) we surveyed the terrain in considerable detail. We thought we could see a relatively safe route by concentrating on one side of the chute where there seemed to be a greater number of hand and foot holds. A fall however would still be a very dangerous proposition. We must both absolutely not have a fall was our mantra. To stay put until daybreak or to accept a not inconsiderable risk? On the other hand if we stayed put, might that attract a hungry black bear or perhaps worse and more likely since unlike black bears they are known to not infrequently hunt at night, a cougar? We decided that slowly and carefully proceeding with our self rescue was the lesser of two evils.

Descending the very steep chute proved less risky than we had thought. We successfully negotiated it and several more steep and tricky situations until guess what, we encountered the board walk, our lifeline to the parking lot. We made our late night check in phone calls thanks to a strong cell signal, jumped in the car and carefully retraced our bouncy logging road trip back to the highway. Given the by then lateness of the hour, we decided to check in at the first motel we saw which it turned out, wasn’t very far away. I don’t think we even had a beer, I think we just crashed! 

*  See my story Bear Scare January 12, 2022.

** As I write from my home not too far from downtown Vancouver, I can hear coyotes’ loud howling (and I am indoors). We have many of them locally but fortunately they are primarily nocturnal in big city environments. We hear them but very rarely see them.

*** See my story How to get struck by LIGHTNING!.