My idea of camping is in a luxury hotel on the beach of a tropical resort, therefore a driving trip in a partly camperized van across British Columbia and Alberta was not quite what I had in mind. We didn’t have a fridge but we had an ice chest that worked by plugging into the cigarette lighter. It had a noisy fan and I didn’t want to be kept awake in the evenings, so we put the cooler outside with the cord still plugged into the lighter, but the window rolled up against the thin cord, and the fan didn’t bother me. We were unable to put the cooler outside of the van while at a campground in Banff National Park in the Rocky Mountains. This was due to bears, and the campgrounds had posted bear warnings and gave us a pamphlet on how to avoid attracting bears to our campsite.
On our way home we stopped for the night at a campsite in Canmore. My husband put the cooler outside with me questioning if there was a bear problem. He used to live in the area and assured me that bears didn’t come down this far. I checked the bulletin board and there was no mention of any bear sightings in the area, so I decided the cooler was fine sitting outside the van where the fan wouldn’t disturb my sleep.
We had all the curtains closed and were reading around nine-thirty in the evening when I heard a noise outside. We listened and it sounded like someone was pushing our cooler. Who would be trying to steal it? I peaked behind a curtain and there was a black bear trying to take the cooler! Kerry jumped into the front seat and tried to go out the door. What was he thinking? Luckily the automatic door lock was engaged and he couldn’t open the door, so instead he honked the horn. The noise frightened off Mr. Bear and we both exited the van with flashlights trying to determine where the bear had gone.
The path the bear chose was through the next campsite where a couple was sitting by the campfire in front of their tent. The bear had run right past them, and all we could see were the two of them throwing water onto the fire, jumped into their car, and drove off.
The man in the campsite across from us came over and we were standing there talking when a man driving a car pulled up and asked if we'd seen a bear. He'd been walking his dog and saw a bear near the camp entrance pay telephone standing on its hind legs. The image is rather amusing: a bear standing up like he's using the phone. The man called the police and a short time later an officer arrived and alerted each campsite of the bear sighting.
As for the couple in the campsite next to us, we never did see them again. Did they go to a local motel for the night or did they abandon their equipment and just keep on driving?
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