Mum, do bears like whiskey?

Part 2

edited by Konrad McCarthy

Bears, for me had always been a creature of fables and fairy tales; cartoonish animals that occasionally had the ability of speech, liked to eat honey and could be friends with a piglet, a rabbit and a tiger… for example. They were just a cuddly character of the past that used to entertain under-nourished children in Russian circuses or humorously terrorise vacationers in the holidays-gone-wacky films of the 1980s.

As if, as if they were real – yet alone a real risk in the Californian woods. California was barely real. 

But, as I came to realise, bears are real. They’re very real.

***

I had decided, in a fit of Sarah-infused wisdom and financial panic after over-spending on Mermaid repellent, treasure chests and pirate eye patches in San Francisco, that I would camp my way up the coast. I was throwing caution (and free HBO) to the wind.

Honestly, I didn’t even think twice about whether it would be dangerous or not. I was Australian, I was made of hard yakka (and other Australian clichés). We have poisonous snakes, spiders, crocodile-hunter-killing sting rays, shit Bear Grylls couldn’t make it out of Australia alive. I was made of tougher stuff and thus the American wilderness with its manicured grasses and well-kept campsites, would pose no threat to the likes of me.

I was born camping. Actually, I was born in a hospital but I don’t remember a time when our family holidays weren’t spent camping. My childhood summer holidays were filled with goannas, black cockatoos, and kangaroos. With the fresh smell of eucalyptus and sea salt, I’d wake with the sun and sleep by the sound of waves crashing on the beach.

Up until I was about 12 years of age, my family would make the 6 hour drive to Cape Conran in the hot January sun; the drive broken only with a chicken sandwich and chocolate milkshake at a small country milk bar along the way. Dad driving, Mum in the front, my sister, an unimpressed teenager in the back next to me. The pop-up campervan was hooked up to the back, loaded with food, bikes and our weight in marshmellows for toasting on the camp fire.

I have no idea how long we'd stay in Cape Conran. A week, maybe two. These were my primary school years, and at this age a weekend felt like a holiday and holidays felt like an eternity. We could have been there for two months for all the handle I had on the concept of time.

With matted hair and a dorky hat, I would ride my bike down the corrugated dirt roads of the campgrounds, letting my mouth drop open to hear the funny way the bumps effected my voice. And I would scatter lazy goannas, who, in a cloud of dried leaves and dust, would disappear up the closest gum tree. I would stop, stunned by the manic action, then shrug and keep on peddling.

Ticks, potential drowning and sun burn aside, it was freedom.

In more recent times, my dad and I have been taking annual hiking trips to the Snowy Mountains. We scaled Mount Jagungle, powered up ridges carrying a 25 kg pack, dodged black snakes, built fires, gathered water from mountain streams and ate dehydrated bush walking food for five days straight.

Powering up the saddle...
I don't really know what a saddle is in hiking terms but people who hike seem to like to use it.

I pretty much forced Dad to help me build a fire each night...
'we have to, we're camping' obviously it was difficult to argue with this logic.

I am (as my Dad will attest because according to him, I am a chip of the old block) made from pretty tough stuff.

***

So it was natural that I was quite self-assured when buying my tent and sleeping equipment. But I was happy to be helped by John, a shop assistant with the physique of a teddy bear at the outdoor mega store Sports Co, to find what I needed. He was enthusiastic for my trip and was fatherly in his advice about the cold May nights and the possible national park camping grounds along the northern Californian coast.

He and his family were campers and hikers too and he started regaling me with tales of his own adventures.

“You wanna be careful of bears. They’re out this time of year.”

“Ha”, I smirked, still unconvinced that bears were ever going to be an actual thing, “I’ll keep my honey well protected.”

I don’t think John got the reference. “Well… that might be a good idea” he said as we made our way to the tent section.

Interspersed with suggestions on tent materials and potential weather conditions, John also began reeling off a number of stories about bear sightings.

“So…” I was starting to wonder… “Bears, are like, real?” I couldn’t have sounded more like an ill-informed tourist if I’d tried.

“Oh yeah.”

He said casually without being patronising - for which I was grateful for. As I watched him move to the sleeping bags, I became a little concerned about what this information implied. 

Bears + Woods + Me = certain death.

While I poked and proded sleeping bags pretending to know what I was looking for, John told a story about a hiking trip he and his wife took one summer, not long after they were married. They had been walking all day in Yosemite, but they hadn’t reached their target camping area. Light had all but faded and as it was summer the couple decided to bunk down for a couple of hours sleep and set off early the next morning to avoid getting lost in the dark.

It was a hot Californian summer and the need for a tent seemed like a superfluous effort for only a couple of hours sleep. So they lay out their sleeping bags on the ground and slept under the northern sky stars.

It was the dead of night, and both John and his wife (I’m going to call her Judy), had managed to drift off to sleep, when Judy was woken by a wet, snuffling nose. Stirring slightly, Judy’s initial assumption was probably (and I should be point out that I am taking a little creative license with the details of Judy’s thought processes here) that it was only John snuggling up. But when the wetness of the nose was unmistakably not John’s, she blinked open her eyes…

… only to be met with the beady gaze of a black bear.

Like everyone’s nightmare, Judy was unable to scream, her voice was lodged in her throat, unable to make its way to her mouth to produce even the tiniest of squeaks.

The bear sniffed her face.  

This is when Judy tried to nudge her husband who lay snoring beside her. But confined to the strictures of a sleeping bag her efforts were futile.

The bear snuffled again, wondering, no doubt what the hell two large pink sausages were doing lying in the open air. Then…

… he shuffled away.

Leaving Judy with a heightened sense of hearing, a racing heart and begrudging her husband’s ability to sleep through what may have been her untimely death.

***

John was now picking out a suitably inexpensive sleeping mat from the shelf and had his back to me as he finished his story. He assured me, with a laugh, that he was still married.

Meanwhile, I stood wide-eyed and gripping my suitably inexpensive tent and sleeping bag with white knuckles. The blood had drained from my face as I realised that in Australia we might have the yellow bellied black snake, white tail spiders and birds with poisonous spurs that swoop at school children, but these American wildlife animals are big and muscly and have teeth, sharp claws and could, according to John, “crush the frame of your car in order to open its doors if they smell food inside.” These animals can’t be dealt with by a swift flick and a squeal which, if I am to be honest, is my usual style of defense.  

I thanked John and bid him farewell after paying for my goods.

I left the store.

Outside in the car lot, I made my way to my white Kia Rio carrying my newly purchased tent, sleeping bag and sleeping mat. I was all set for an American camping trip (except for maybe the pansy-arse car I was driving). There’d be no 18 year olds falling over in the hallways like there had been at the hostel I had stayed in in LA, no strange stains on the linen like there had been at the hotel I stayed in in San Francisco and no free HBO… only fresh air, babbling brooks and Bears – godless killing machines that could rip my innards from me while I slept in a flimsy, inexpensive tent.

And no one would hear me scream.

But, despite this all encompassing fear that chilled my blood and made me feel a little sick, I heard my dad’s words ring in my ears.

“She’ll be right darl’.”

So I started my car and began to make my way into the depths of the American wilderness…

To be continued…