Camper Leaps off Cliff to Escape Bear Attack
By Bruce Hickey
The Toronto Star
June 29, 2002
A Toronto woman slipped free from a black bear’s grasp, ran for her life and made good her escape by leaping off a rock into a lake at Algonquin Park.
“I just kept running to the edge of a cliff and jumped into the water,” 25-year-old Sylvie Haert, a High Park area resident, said yesterday. “The bear followed me on to the cliff. I swam just a little further away and saw the bear looking at me.”
Algonquin Park authorities said yesterday they had hunted down and killed the 68-kilogram black bear.
Haert and her boyfriend, Simon Guerette, 24, were camping on an island at Big Trout Lake. “We were about to leave in the morning,” said Haert, whose injuries were minor but include a scraped back. “My boyfriend realized there was a bear coming down to our campsite. We backed up very slowly.”
“The bear just kept walking past our food bag. I am not sure if I made a false movement, or got very scared, but I turned around and started running and the bear was running after me.”
The quick-moving bear caught Haert and pushed her to the ground.
“That’s when he put his claws into my back. At this point I did not feel any pain. I was too stressed, but I was sure that was it for me. Game over,” she said.
“It all happened so fast. The only thing I remember is seeing the bear running after me and feeling the presence of the bear on top of me. I remember feeling his weight and hearing the sound of my boyfriend’s voice and that was really great.”
Guerette screamed at the beat to let his friend go.
The noise startled and distracted the animal, allowing hart to get away and jump to safety.
As Guerette hid behind a tree, the bear strolled over to the couple’s garbage bag picked it up with its teeth and returned to the bush - but not for long.
“We put all out stuff in the canoe and the bear came back to the shoreline, maybe to say goodbye,” Haert said.
After a half-day paddle and portage, they reached The Portage Store on Canoe Lake, where they were met by general manager Erik Sultmanis.
“They were happy the situation had resolved itself. They were in a positive frame of mind and calm,” said Sultmanis, who contacted park authorities.
Park Superintendent John Winters said the woman suffered two claw punctures on her lower back that did not require her to be hospitalized.
“This is not a scarring injury, but it is what we consider a very dangerous bear encounter,” he said. “We have had some other reported contact with a bear in the area. It could be the same bear.”
Chief Park Naturalist Rick Stronks said that a young adult bear, about 68 kilograms, was trapped on Friday morning in a snare set near the couple’s campground. The Bear was then shot.
Stronks said usually when attacks occur in the park, the bears are at least 189 Kilos.
In this instance, park officials said the young bear was likely on an “exploratory” mission, possibly sizing up the two campers as its next meal.
Normally black bears will avoid humans.
Winters said there was likely only one bear inhabiting the island.
“A 20-hectare island would only have one adult (bear) on it at one time. There is not enough food to sustain more than one. Bears are territorial,” he said.
Campsites on Big Trout Lake were closed for the week, but reopened Friday.
As a precaution, the island campsites will remain closed for the Canada Day long weekend, Stronks said.
“It is extremely rare that something like this happens, but it happens,” said Stronks.
“It is important for people who go into the back country to know the bear rules.”
The Key guideline is maintaining a clean campsite. Food should be suspended at least 3 meters off the ground on a rope strung between two trees. Stronks said bears should never be fed and in the rare instance that an encounter becomes dangerous, campers must be aggressive.
“Stay together, yell and scream. Throw things if you have to and never turn your back and run. Back away but never run,” he said.
“Our assessment on this is that (the bear) was testing this girl and under different circumstances she could have been mauled or seriously injured,” said Winters.
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