Camping Tips
Safety is your number one priority. In the wilds you need to be vigilant and exercise caution. You need to be aware of your surroundings, and you need to be aware of who might be around.
People go to the wilds to get away from crowds, take a break from daily life, for wildlife viewing, cryptid or haunted research, fishing, water sports, mountain biking, dirt biking, four-wheeling, photography, hunting, wild foods foraging, hiking, exercise, rock hounding or exploring to name a few.
Everyone's experience is going to be different out there. Depends on how you approach it and what your intentions are. Some go out to the woods to take it over. Others want to be a part of it and take it in.
My experience comes from being raised in northwest British Columbia, Canada. Usually there was always someone around who had a firearm. For the last ten years between 2013 to 2023 I was out there in the wilds with no firearms of any kind. That includes 7 months straight in the wilds from Houston BC to Watson Lake, Yukon and back in 2013. All I carried was a knife, bear banger and bear spray. I've never had to use any of them to defend myself. I've used my campfire to keep predators away at night when permitted. I've used my sixth sense and wits the most. Being able to read wildlife and believing in what my instincts were telling me.
There were some nasty situations with wolves but I somehow managed to always stay a step ahead of them. Knowing exactly what they were going to do and when. I was able to sense when a wolf pack was going to arrive when I had never even met them before. The longer I remained out there, the more in tune I became with my environment.
Took some adjusting when I returned to town. I couldn't leave my room for a week without being forced and couldn't go in to town for a while either. Civilization was overwhelming. Being in the wilds I had to use every sensory I had for protection. Once back home, I was hit with all the sounds and noises at once. It was deafening. I just wanted to go back to the woods. Took a while to be able to drown some noises out and cope with civilization again.
I'm not an expert. I'm a student of nature for 57 years. Take from this what works for you. What I'm sharing with you comes from experience mostly, with some known facts included. You can still be out there and have fun doing what you want. Just exercise caution. Never let your guard down. If you bring small children, keep a very close eye on them for they are easy prey and can be carried off quickly by any known wildlife predator.
Wildlife have bad days too. You may have had some good experiences seeing bears and then one day you just happen to come across a bear who has had a bad day. You just never know.
Remember one very important fact: just because you don't see or hear anything, doesn't mean they aren't there watching you.
You are in their pantry so they want to know what you are doing there and if they need to be concerned about you. Bears will watch you from a distance. Sometimes even follow you as you walk through the forest. Without being seen. If you are hunting, you can wear all the camo you want. It's not going to fool them. Bears can smell your gun oil and they know what that means. In the instance of a grizzly, you may now become the hunted.
Out along the Morice FSR, outside Houston, BC, Canada the grizzlies have trained themselves to associated gunshots with kills. Kills leave gut piles. So they will come and investigate. Grizzlies are super smart. So much so it's frightening. They aren't just some dumb animal. And though they are bears, you can't compare them to black bears. Grizzlies are a totally different type of animal than black bears. The two don't mix either. Grizzlies don't like black bears. I used to think they were the apex predator out there but since 2013 I came to learn there is something else out there that frightens all wildlife and terrifies the hell out of grizzlies.
Bears tend to stay away unless something has drawn their attention. Most times bears will move on. If it doesn't then there is a problem. You don't want it to have an interest in you. You don't want it to associate you as food. They will try to get as close as possible before striking with short bursts of speed. They are very fast. Most times a bear will bluff charge you.
If it keeps stalking you, you might need to use your bear spray. But be careful you don't get any in your eyes. Bear spray may only buy you seconds. You may need to back up and keep moving. Assert your dominance with your voice. "No bear." No matter how scared you feel do not turn your back and run. Predators love to give chase. Depending on the bear and circumstance, bear spray could just piss it off. So don't count on bear spray being your protection.
Bear bangers give off a sound like a gunshot and will kick up some dirt in front of the bear. Depending on the bear and circumstance, don't count on it being your protection. May only buy you seconds.
Black bears sometimes like to play dumb. Acting as if they haven't seen you or play upon your curiosity so they can get a little bit closer before charging. You can easily change a black bear's mind. You can stand your ground, scare it off and fight back.
If a grizzly associates you as food or attacks for any other reason, there is no stopping it. You cannot fight off a grizzly like you can a black bear. That is why experts advise you to play dead when it comes to a grizzly attack. Once the bear believes you are dead, the attack will stop.
Curl up in a fetal position during the attack. Protect your head and your stomach. No matter what happens try not to scream. Keep protecting those areas. The bear will keep trying to access those areas. Keep rolling over as it tries. Make it appear as if the bear is moving you. You are pretending to be dead. If you don’t move and don’t scream it will think you are dead. That’s when the attack will stop. Depending on the circumstances of the attack, this is when the bear will move on and leave you. Most times though you will be considered food. Grizzlies prefer their meat to be rotten. Marinated if you will. They will bury you or cover you with debris and come back later. The bear might stay close and keep an eye on you for a while. So be careful. They are smart and they are very protective of their food. Once the coast is clear, this is when you make your escape. It’s your only chance.
An injured bear is a very dangerous bear. It always worries me when I'm out there. Some people couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and they are out there hunting. They could easily wound a bear and not go after it. Leaving an injured bear behind for the next unsuspecting person.
The other type of bear a person needs to really worry about is the one who has had killed a person. People go missing all the time. If a bear has killed someone and it hasn't been discovered yet, that bear could go after the very next person in its sight. It may have acquired a taste for killing humans. So always pay attention to the behavior of bears around you. Never allow them to get close or within striking distance and never allow them to hang around.
Wolves could be as close as behind the bush your standing next to. Without being seen. Then come out the second you step inside your RV. Which has happened to me. Two wolves got into a nasty altercation behind the motorhome the second I stepped inside and closed the door. Their fighting caused one of them to be slammed into the bumper. Rocking the entire motorhome. Keep your guard up at all times.
Wolves are extremely fast runners and can sustain their attacks for very long periods of time. Taking short breaks in between. They can wear down and completely exhaust their injured prey. This could go on for days.
Bringing one or more dogs with you is both a blessing and a curse. They need to be well behaved. You don't want them to run off chasing a bear, only to have them bring it back when they tuck tail and run back to camp. Well behaved dogs can be good if they enforce the boundary rule with wildlife predators. The perimeter around your camp and perimeter around you when you walk away from your camp. Dogs can alert you when something is nearby. I was extremely lucky. I had exceptionally well behaved dogs. They were amazing.
Where things can get dicey is where wolves are concerned. Wolves are extremely territorial. They hate dogs period. How dare strangers (dogs) come in to their territory and try to claim it. If there is a pack of wolves in the area, there is going to be problems. They will try every tactic in their book of tricks to lure the dog or dogs away from you and your camp so they can kill them. And they have many tricks they will try out both day and night. The best advice is if you know or suspect a pack of wolves are in the immediate area, pack up your things and get out of there. Find another spot far away from this one.
Unless you see the wolves, it can be difficult to tell if they are around. They won't often show themselves. You might capture a fleeting glimpse of movement and wonder if your mind was playing tricks on you or did you just seem something move real fast between the trees?
If you've brought a trail cam, set it up a good distance from camp along the road or trail you believe to be used. Wolves are good at avoiding detection. If they don't avoid your trail cam, they can move so fast your cam might capture something blurry. So I peed on the road in front of the trail cam. I knew this would make them stop and investigate and it worked.
If your camping in the bush is work related, then packing up and leaving is not an option. You will need to take action and deal with the problem. One way to buy time is to find out which wolf in the pack is the alpha female. If you remove her from the equation, the pack is no more. They disperse and go form new packs. In doing this, their once claimed territory is now up for grabs. So this action buys you only so much time. How long depends on a lot of different factors. Sometimes a person has no choice but to defend their camp and protect everyone within it.
We had issues with wolves in 2016 and then again in 2017. You can see the concern on Duke's face in the photo above. Most of the moose population was infested with ticks. A lot of deer too. Wolves were staying close to water sources and natural salt licks. Never had them stick around any of my base camps before. There was more than usual human activity in the bush and in the sky above that was work related. Putting more stress on wildlife. Even with an electric fence the wolves were still trying to get in to get our dogs. They were also stalking us too. So research here was cut short and we moved on. Didn't matter where we went though, we encountered the same problem. I never seen it that bad in the bush before. It was really quite spooky.
In 2017, two wolves tried to break through two separate windows at the same time around 9 pm while I was in my motorhome at Owen Flats Recreation Site B, along Morice FSR outside Houston, BC. Days later the same pack had me trapped in my camp on Owen Lookout Rd.
If you're hunting and have your meat hanging near your camp, just be aware that you could have problems with bears or wolves. Maybe even a cougar. If you try to protect your meat using an electric fencer, grizzlies have been known to figure out how to disconnect the fencer. If grizzlies have their mind set on that meat, they won't stop trying until they get it. I know some recreation sites in remote areas allow hunters to hang their meat. If a family is camping there as well, it could put their children in danger. Let them know why you are there. Maybe they can move to another spot. That hanging meat is going to draw attention. Children are very vulnerable. Small and easy to carry off. Innocent and oblivious to the dangers out there.
Pay attention to the environment and health of wildlife prey species. If there is an issue, you are more likely to encounter problems with wildlife predators. Once a natural food source becomes scarce, predators will turn their attention to humans as prey more so then ever before. And in these parts, there was also cougars to be concerned about.
Squirrels can alert you if something is nearby. Ravens can alert you of movement and inform you of the feeding times, current positions, direction headed and travel routes of predators in the forest around you. Ravens not preoccupied elsewhere, will follow bears and wolves around for the chance of a free meal.
Before setting up camp you will need to do a perimeter check. Walk around your intended spot. You are looking for well used game trails, fresh carcasses, lots of bones, and lots of scat. Sign that the area you wish to camp in might not be a good idea if it looks to be frequented by wildlife predators. Human garbage attracts bears too. If there's lots of that around and it looks like an animal has been through it, that's not a good sign either. Some people can be so thoughtless.
What you bring in to the woods bring back out. Don't leave anything behind. That includes temporary structures you setup while out there. Take them down. Leave the area as it was or in better condition than it was.
If setting up near a water source, be certain that you have not claimed a spot wildlife predators most likely travel to access the water. Allow them that space to continue with their activities. I paid attention to the routines of the bears around me. Adjusting my time around the bears schedules when I would go to the creek to collect water for camp.
The first photo above shows a firepit I built back in 2013. The bush was dry. The alder leaves were burnt to a crisp. I knew a campfire ban was coming soon, but it hadn't been enforced yet. I built a large firepit for a small fire inside of it. Just to be safe. And the firepit was located in an old gravel pit. It was necessary for me to have this fire. Not for cooking purposes. The smoke from the fire lets predators know I am there and the fire itself keeps them away. Especially at night.
Some pointers for camping in grizzly and black bear areas:
- Avoid wearing perfume or using fragrant deodorants, soaps and shampoos.
- Smell of sex attracts bears.
- Women menstruating need to be extra cautious as the smell of blood attracts bears. Dispose of tampons and maxi-pads properly. Tenting would not be ideal in this situation.
- Keep your camp clean. Keep garbage in a bag and in a safe place out of reach.
- Cleanup immediately after meals. Wash dishes. Dispose of scraps and leftovers properly. If you dump them on the ground you are going to attract a bear.
- If you have dogs, don't allow them to wonder off too far. Keep them within a perimeter around camp only and always close to you when leaving your campsite. Don't allow them to antagonize or chase wildlife.
- If you are sharing a water source, choose a time to fetch water when bears are not around and try sticking to that time. Wildlife understand routine.
- Enforce a perimeter around your camp. Wildlife understand boundaries.
- Be careful when fishing or handling fish back on shore. Main food source for bears.
- When walking around outside of your campsite, be sure to make some kind of noise. This will let a bear learn of your presence. You don't want to startle a bear which could provoke a defensive attack.
- Be careful heading to the outhouse or going about your toilet business in the bush, especially at night. Bring a light. Make some kind of noise and bring something you can use to deter a predator. If possible, have someone go with you. Two is better than one.
- Don't let your guard down at any time.
Foraging
Be aware when out there foraging. Bears may be out there eating the very same foods that you are collecting. And if you are quietly going about your work, you may accidentally startle a bear who never knew you were there in the first place. There may also be a cougar in the area whose stalking you while you aren't paying attention. People have been known to disappear while out foraging for mushrooms and berries.
Biking on trails can lead to confrontations too. You are moving fast. Predators love to give chase. So always be aware.
Bears and trees. If you are going to try to climb a tree to escape a bear, make sure you can get high enough so you are out of reach when it gets there. As it will first stand up and try to grab on to your foot to pull you down. Black bears can climb and don't be fooled, grizzlies can climb too. It all depends on how long their claws are. The longer its claws, the more difficult it is for them to climb trees.
A forester was helicoptered to a remote place early one morning to do some layout work. He was dropped off in a clearing which had only one tree standing. When the helicopter left a grizzly came charging out of the woods and in to the clearing. Heading straight for him. The man raced to the tree and climbed as high as he could. Fortunately, the grizzly was unable to climb the tree. So the grizzly remained at the bottom until the helicopter returned around 3pm. Imagine how terrifying that was for the forester. This is a true story. Happened out in the Morice Watershed outside Houston, BC, Canada.
I've heard of a man who survived an attack from a grizzly sow with cubs by using a cluster of three trees. He kept grabbing a hold of one of the trees with one hand to swing himself around, as he tried to stay away from her outreached paws. They kept going round and round the cluster of trees. He kept doing this until she finally gave up and left. He was very lucky. This happened many years ago somewhere in the Bulkley Valley, BC, Canada.
Something changed in the Bulkley Valley in the eighties. Some bears were muscling up. Feeling the need to hunt in groups of five. Black bears and grizzlies. I've heard some wild experiences.
A male grizzly once showed me how it was able to blend in to its surroundings simply by changing the direction its hairs were laying.
Old gravel pits are great places to stop and camp. Safe for campfires. Prey species also like gravel pits and predators know this. So bears, wolves and cougars will mostly be around too.
Many years ago, also in the Bulkley Valley, a hunter was surrounded by a pack of wolves. He used every bullet he had in his riffle until he ran out. Still the wolves were relentless. So he had to swing his rifle, using it to hit them to keep them away. He somehow managed to survive the attack. This had gone on for hours.
In 2012, I was out on the Decius, across Babine Lake, BC, Canada. I stopped just shortly before meeting up with the Jinx. I needed to go to the bathroom so I walked off in to the bush for a bit. I was being stalked the whole time. I could hear something slowly approaching me. I got out of there pretty fast. The next day I stopped by that area again to check for tracks. It had been a very large wolf.
Don't believe what you are being told. Wolves will attack and are very capable of doing so. They can easily make a person disappear. Especially where I am from. Those Timberwolves can reach up to 8 feet long. Some have paws bigger than my hands with fingers spread apart. They've been known to drag hibernating black bears from their dens, just to kill them.
I'm not telling you this to frighten you. It's just the reality of it out there. Don't let that stop you from enjoying the wilds. You best be aware of the dangers so you can be prepared. It's not impossible to go out there and have a good time. Just never, ever let your guard down. Be vigilant and always have an escape plan. No matter where you are out there. Think ahead.
Barb Cecil
PS
Prior to 2016, I never had any problems with wolves. Other than that one time in 2012. I've met many in the wilds without any worries and even spent half an hour with an old wolf across Babine Lake one time. (Photo: Dusty, old wolf)
Where there are wolves, you'll find a large male grizzly. If the grizzly is big enough, it can take on the wolves. So the grizzly is capable of stealing the wolves kills. Forcing the wolves to kill again. Male grizzlies aren't hibernating as much as they used to.
Some interesting facts:
- Black bears have a bite force of 800 pounds per square inch. They have a swipe force of 560 pounds. They can knock over boulders weighing 326 pounds with a swipe of a single paw and can lift over 300 pounds per claw.
- Grizzly bears have a bite force of 1160 pounds per square inch. Strong enough to crush a bowling ball or human skull. A grizzly bear's single paw swipe has a force of 7,000 to 25,000 pounds and they can lift over 1100 pounds.
- Bears can reach speeds of 56 km per hour, or 35 miles an hour.
- Wolves bite force can range from 400 to 1500 pounds per square inch and can reach speeds of 64 km per hour, or 40 miles an hour.
- Cougars have a bite force of around 750 pounds per square inch and can reach speeds of 64 to 80 km an hour, or 40 to 50 miles an hour.