First, you should know that I’m writing this blog post solely for the purpose of having this title on my blog.
Second, you should watch this clip from Anchorman:
Third, since I’m doing this numbering scheme, you should know that I had an interesting vacation. Why don’t I tell you about it.
Cypress Hills (Saskatchewan side)
We started down in Cypress Hills (Saskatchewan side). This was a family affair—both Johnsons and Soverans united for this weekend. It rained most of the weekend and we were stuck in a fairly small space for all the people/dogs/children (in that order—I can’t wait until my neices and nephews are older and they decide to read my entire blog (totally going to happen) and then they’ll come across this line and say “Hey, that’s not nice!” and then quit reading my blog and kick me in the shins the next time they see me, but I’ll be really old and they’ll probably break my leg and that will suck).
Prince Albert National Park
Oh and I had a good birthday. But the whole point of the vacation was to get back up to Waskesiu in northern (middle) Saskatchewan. I hadn’t been up north since my camp counselor days at Kinasao, so I was really looking forward to a week up there.
On Wednesday we drove up north. We arrived at Beaver Glen campground around 6. When we pulled up to the gate to register, the Prince Albert National Park official told us that the bear activity in the area was high. And she added, in fact, we saw a bear 5 minutes ago.
So that was awesome. But, it sounded like they were working on it and were keeping an eye on it, so we continued. We setup in a small cul-de-sac of 10 or so campsites. There was only one other site being used, but they weren’t around when we arrived.
Around 7, after the tent was up and we had a fire going, the people from the other camp site came over and asked—Did you guys see anything? See what, we said, we just got here. You’re the first people we’ve seen.
While we were gone on a picnic this afternoon, a bear ripped through our tent.
Even better. And, as the bear had destroyed their tent, they went home and so we were left, all alone in our cul-de-sac. It was Leah, Duke and I versus the bears. (Literally, there were two black bears roaming through the entire campground.)
Black bears are bitches
Generally, I’m not that scared of predators—or at least, not as scared as my dad is. Certainly not black bears. Everyone gets that a grizzly bear will rip your face off, but black bears are a lot smaller and generally can be scared away. However, these bears had now learned that they could find food by ripping through tents. We were in a tent.
The thing about a black bear is that they’re probably around 200-300 pounds. Not a huge animal. It can still kill you, but it will be a lot slower because they are (relatively) tiny. You’ll probably get a good couple punches in before it claws and bites you to death. Frankly, I think Duke could last at least a couple minutes against a black bear. When it comes to bears and you’re faced with a life or death scenario—I just want it to end quickly.
Speaking of Duke, he was on edge the entire time. I suspect due to the fact that giant schnauzer’s are bred to be guard dogs, Duke literally patrolled the area his tether allowed that entire night.
The bears in the night
I’ll end the suspense now—no black bear ripped through our tent. But Leah did wake me up in the middle of the night to escort her to the bathroom. Neither of us slept well that night. The mosquitoes were bad and the bears were worse.
You know what the worst part about all this was that after that other couple (the ripped up tent couple) left, we didn’t see another soul that entire evening. No park officers or conservation officers even drove by.
The hike
We woke up the following morning trying to be courageous and positive. We decided to go for a hike. About 30 minutes in and 500 mosquito bites later, we find bear scat in the middle of the path. Presumably, you’re thinking now what we’re thinking then, let’s get the F out of here.
Refund & Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park
We packed up and went back to the registration office. As we drove out we (finally) saw Conservation Officers carrying around guns and setting up bear traps. Where were they the night before? I might have got some sleep. We got our money back for the nights remaining and left.
We were going to head home to Calgary, but Leah did some quick research and found Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park which houses Lake Diefenbaker. We stayed there three days and it was beautiful. 30 degrees and no major predators to be found.
It was a pretty good vacation, but certainly not the one we had planned.