My First Morning at Camp

As I loaded the dead baby deer onto the back of the old blue pick-up-truck I began to fully accept that I was a long way from home. I needed to dump the body far enough away to not attract bears, so I drove the old truck round the circle then climbed up the hill and away from camp. Eventually I found a good spot, so parked the truck and launched the body unceremoniously into the forest.

This was how I spent the first ten minutes of my first morning at my camp. The deer had been killed by wolves nearby and found by the caretaker’s dogs, they were very proud of their discovery and dropped it outside my door.

My second order of business was to pick up my bottle of bear pepper mace from the camp caretaker and go for a run.

And the bear mace bottle contains this useful information.

‘WARNING: Do not seek out encounters with bears. This product is a bear attack deterrent which may protect users in some unexpected confrontations with bears but may not be effective in all situations. Product should be discharged as the attacking bear is charging toward you and is about forty feet away (2-3 seconds from reaching you).’

OK then.

I am not about to go seeking confrontations with bears, but I do question whether I would faint before discharging pepper spray at a charging creature intent on ripping my throat out. Apparently there is a trick to surviving a bear attack, firstly you try to make loud noise and be physically imposing, waving your shirt over your head to make yourself seem bigger etc. If that does not work, and the bear charges you anyway, you have to curl into a small ball, covering your neck with your hands and keeping your forearms at your sides to protect important organs.

I don’t intend on finding out if the pepper spray or the curl into a ball technique works. I am expecting the flexibility of my neck to improve considerably if I keep glancing behind me as often as I did today.

I got back from my run and later that day Bob the caretaker approached me. “The dogs found that baby deer you got rid of again”.

I would ask Bob to get rid of it this time, but he would probably eat it.

bx

P.S. I never did get that bible camp T-shirt.