The advantages of being a light sleeper....

I'm guessing it was just after midnight when I heard the branch snap. It woke me instantly and I lay for a moment listening intently. Was it a one-off or did we have a problem? Second crack of branches and I knew we had something big out there, I just wasn't sure what. Third crack and the sound of distinctive grunting confirmed we had a bear. I looked across at my canoeing partner beside me and asked "you hearing that"? "oh yes" came the reply. Well we knew it was a bear but I wasn't sure whether it was on our side of the river or not so I poked my head out of the tent and was greeted by the light of a full moon and the cold crisp air of an autumn night. I held my breath and listened. Sure enough, I could hear our nocturnal visitor crashing about just across the river from our tent. I lay back down and said "he's on the other side". It was then I realised that the bear bangers were in my barrel just out of the campsite and of absolutely no use to us in that position. "I'd better go and get them" I said and peeled myself out of my cozy warm sleeping bag and dragged on a top and some trousers. If you are going to do battle with a bear, better to do it fully clothed. I took the bear spay cannister with me and walked out to where the barrel was situated. This woke our other canoeing partners in the second tent who thought I was a bear until they heard me unzipping the bag where I keep the bangers and realised that most bears won't bother to unzip. "No, its just me" I said as I heard their conversation, "but we do have a problem". This roused Tom from his tent and we both then stood by the river listening for any activity, each with a loaded banger pen in hand. It was a beautiful clear night and the river looked serene as it moved along by the light of the full moon. We could no longer hear anything so I headed back to bed, reasoning that the bear had probably heard us and moved on. Tom stayed up and within a couple of minutes we could hear our new companion again. Bears don't tiptoe through the woods. They are the top predator and don't really give a stuff who or what else hears them. They also tend to grunt constantly. The noise of breaking branches and grunting lets you know where they are but when the noise turns to just grunting and no branch breaking you know the situation has changed. Our bear had started to swim across the river. "Tom" I said as we all listened to the sounds. "Its time to let off one of those bangers". So Tom fired it off and we waited. Sure enough, the grunting, which had been getting closer, started to become more distant as the bear had clearly had a change of heart and was heading back to its own side. Tom stayed up for another 10 minutes just to make sure and then headed back to bed. And a good night's sleep was had by all.