Before traveling through British Columbia, Canada, I'd heard plenty of stories about campers having run-ins with bears. Nevertheless, I never really expected to experience one myself, even when I ventured into bear country last summer. Little did I know, I would meet a bear on my first night in brown bear territory...apparently I'm a bear magnet.
After WWOOFing on a farm in central BC, my farm friends and I decided to take a road trip back to Vancouver. I was super excited about this because our route would take us right through Manning Provincial Park, where we were planning to spend a few days camping and hiking. This would be my first chance to experience The Canadian Wilderness. For a girl from the Southeast US this is a big deal.
Manning Park spans the Cascade Mountains, right between the arid Okanagan Valley and lush Vancouver. The park is known for its vast cedar rainforests, many bird species, and rugged mountains. My favorite part are the dreamy blue lakes that dot the park. Up close the water looks totally clear, but from a distance the water reflects the sky and turns a striking shade of blue.
Anyway... Manning Park is also known for bears.
Our first night in the park, we stayed at Lightning Lake campground. This is a great spot; it's pretty convenient to get to but all the campsites are surrounded by towering cedar trees making it feel like you are out in the middle of nowhere. The campground's namesake, Lightning Lake, is absolutely gorgeous and makes a great place to sit and watch day fade into twilight. We had a classic camping night, sitting around the fire telling stories and playing card games. When I crawled into the tent that I shared with my friend, I was satisfied and happy with the smell of campfire smoke still sticking to my hair. It was easy to drop off to sleep under the giant cedar trees.
At about 6:00 AM, I came groggily back to consciousness with my friend's elbow jabbing me in the ribs.
"What-" I started to ask, but she shushed me before I could say anything else and pointed out the mesh window.
I looked out and saw a brown shaggy shape about six feet away. It was a brown bear wandering through our campsite. It paused at the fire ring for a moment sniffing for food and I suddenly felt infinitely grateful that we had stashed everything in the car. My friend and I watched with bated breath as the bear slowly meandered across the street to the next site. It didn't look like he was interested in us anymore, but he was walking right into a family's campsite. My friend and I looked at each other. Shouldn't we do something?
At that moment, one of our neighbors caught on and sounded their bear horn. The sound split the air and I don't blame the bear for running for the hills, for a second I also wanted to. We watched as the shaggy shape slipped back into the trees and disappeared. At this point I was ready to go back to sleep. The danger had passed and I could still fit in a few quality minutes of REM sleep. That is, until my friend said "I felt it brush up against my side of the tent."
"What?!" I asked in horror.
"I felt the bear brush up against my arm and then sniff my head."
This was the part that gave me the heebie jeebies more than anything else. The realization of how close the bear had really been while I was sleeping peacefully on the other side of the tent blew my mind. For a minute I tried to imagine what it would have been like to be my friend--waking up to the feeling of a bear sniffing you through the thin nylon wall (I admire her to this day for staying still and calm the entire time). 
The weird thing is, once my initial spine chilling horror drained away, I felt a very different wave of emotions. Excitement. Adrenaline. Awe.
"How amazing is it" I thought to myself, "that we came this close to a wild brown bear."
There's this feeling wildlife filmmakers sometimes talk about when they encounter a wild animal like a rhino or a lion in its natural habitat rather than in a zoo. A sort of wonder at the sense of presence and power that the animal has, an understanding that you and the animal have to interact as equals because there is no barrier to separate you and give the illusion that you, as a thinking human, are somehow superior. That's the best thing I can relate my feelings about the bear to. Yes, it could have attacked me or my friend, but it chose not to. Maybe this was less out of courtesy than the fact that we didn't have any food to tempt it with. Nonetheless, I came away from the experience with the sneaking sensation that I had unwittingly brushed up against a being thoroughly different from myself, and that I am better for having glimpsed a world beyond my own human one.
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