Saturday November 26th saw a group of 26 or so of us assembled in Perry’s back garden for a Bear Aware course, including a chance to try an aerosol spray for training prposes, so not an actual bear spray, that would have been a mistake. The course was very ably led by Anna from Wildsafe BC. There is lots of useful information on their website to help us avoid bears and tell us what to do if we meet them. Anna’s presentaion was lively, interesting and informative. Happily the rain held off until the exact moment we had to deploy the training bear spray when we were treated to a torrentail downpour - being able outdoors people though we were fully prepared. It’s safe to say that everybody learnt something - from how to safely carry bear spray in our cars to how to tell the difference between predatory and defensive bear behaviour.

The course was a lot of fun, especially the parts where Anna imitated bear behaviour while NVOC members followed the SPRAY acronym. Thanks to Rob for providing the open sided tents, Perry for the garden, Rick for the idea and the coffee and donuts and of course Anna for doing a cracking job and answering all the questions. We are better prepared and better informed than we were and this was an informative and entertaining couple of hours.

Please rember that the photos don’t show actual bear spray in use, it’s training spray and is safe to use. Don’t try this at home.