The Bear Essentials of Survival in Canada
Running for My Life—and for My Sanity
This week, instead of presenting another interview, I am taking a week off to regroup. This is a shorter post than usual, but here are a few things that may be of interest:
Is Canada safe? Were the prints I found on the back windshield of my campervan made by a bear during the night while I was camping in a Canadian national park?
Why did I leave the U.S.A. to seek refuge in Canada? Will I return? If so, when?
How is the blog doing, and will it resume?
A few things I learned about Canada.
Out, Damn Blog
Let’s talk about the blog first.
To those of you who have subscribed to my blog and read some or all of my posts, thank you. It has been hard work to publish every week, but it has been worth it, too.
However, I want to reveal a dirty secret I have learned: personal blogs are very hard to grow.
After working almost full-time to present new interviews every week during August and September, I have made almost no progress in the number of subscribers. After scrounging up every email and Facebook contact I could find, I started with about 400 people.
However, even though each of the people I interviewed has shared the blog with friends or family, I have added only 33 new subscribers after two months of weekly blog posts. More people have dropped off than joined up, which means that the blog is now losing ground.
Chat GPT advised me that bloggers rarely acquire more than 500 subscribers unless they focus on marketing and self-promotion strategies, rather than on writing good blogs. The quality of writing seems to be almost incidental. It figures.
Henceforth, I propose to write perhaps two interviews per month, and offer various other things, such as how-to and why-do advice, and a bit of a travelogue as I roam. This is what readers want, according to the experts. Who am I to argue with the powers-that-be?
I am happy to write about anything the readers want.
On to the other matters at hand.
Escape to Canada
I am in Canada for the month of October, although I was also in Calgary, Alberta in June and July. The city is next to the Canadian Rockies, which are quite stunning.
My most recent visit began in Quebec Province, and now I am heading to the Maritimes. Canada is quite beautiful at this time of year. Large hardwood forests are near their peak colors. The weather up to now has been mild, but near-freezing night-time temperatures began last night and are forecast through the end of this week.
Visits to Jacques Cartier National Park, located north of Quebec City, and to the Fjord du Sanguenay Nat Park, further east, also allowed me to snap a few decent photos.
I fled to Canada because life in the US had become intolerable. I am living in self-imposed exile. Exile is usually imposed as a punishment; in my case, it is voluntary.
If I could live here full-time, I would, but due to the impending onset of winter, I must soon head south again.
The Bear Essentials
You may think of Canada as moose territory. Moose are dangerous, but hard to find. A more persistent pest is the large, voracious Canadian mosquito, so big, I call it a “moose-quito.”
They have bears, but a more terrifying animal found in Canada is the human being.
In general, I feel safer in Canada than in the US, because fewer people have guns. The murder rate in the US in 2023 was 5.7 per thousand people, and in Canada, only 1.9, about a third of the US rate. The difference is attributed to a lower rate of gun ownership.
A Canadian is more likely to kill you with kindness than eliminate you by any other means. But occasionally, shit happens, and if it happens in the woods, it’s probably bear shit.
On October 6th, we camped overnight in Jacques Cartier National Park, north of Quebec. About 3 a.m., I thought I heard an animal scuffling around on the gravel behind the van.
I looked at my dog, Mr. Bones, my ever-vigilant protector. He was sound asleep. Snoring.
“Mr. Bones,” I said, “wake up! There is a wild animal outside! Protect me!” He did not budge. Thanks, Mr. Bones.
The noise continued. Whatever it was bumped into the metal stepladder I had left outside. After a couple of minutes, I turned on the flashlight and shone it into the darkness. The noise stopped.
Unlike my dog, I remained awake for a while, on high alert. The noise did not resume.
The next morning, I found this bizarre print in the gravel dust coating my rear windshield. It did not look like a bear paw print to me: no claw marks, and no pad in the center.
When I Googled the print, the answer was that it could not be an animal print. All predatory animals have a pad in the center of the paw; none have fingers that long.
When I compared the print to my own hand, they were about the same size, but the fingers were about twice as thick. If a human made it, they had some very big hands.
So now the question became, who was out wandering around my campsite at 3 a.m., and why? What was the person looking for?
Also, the index finger and little finger were about the same length, which is rare in humans, but normal among Sasquatches. If you believe in that kind of thing.
Which is not a great thing to wonder about at night when you are camping.
Maybe a bear or a person did not make a weird print on my windshield — maybe it was a mysterious reminder that we can run and hide, but we can never truly escape.
Even in exile, someone may be watching.
What does Quebec mean? What about Canada?
Most of us, including me, are woefully ignorant of Canada, which has ten provinces and three territories. To remember them, think of them alphabetically.
A&B. There are Alberta and British Columbia to the West
LMNOP. Say these five letters fast, like little kids who are singing the alphabet song.
Canada went crazy with these letters: Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador (apparently named after popular breeds of dogs), Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Prince Edward Island, where the famous Prince Edward brand cigars are made.
Q - Quebec is all alone. Tout seul.
S - Saskatchewan. Also alone, probably because Sasquatch scared everyone off.
And then there are the three territories up north, Nunavut, Northwest, and Yukon.
Does anyone who is NOT Canadian know what Canada means?
According to what I was told, early French explorer Jacques Cartier, upon arrival, asked the native Iroquois-Huron Indians the name of the place they met. They said, Canada, which in their language means “village” or “settlement.” He thought it applied to the entire country.
Basically, they said, “You’re in our village.” Later, he named the whole place Canada.
Quebec, the name of the sole French-speaking province, means “the place where the river narrows.” If you look at a map, the St. Lawrence River becomes narrower west of Quebec.
On to the question of how long I will remain here.
Whither Weather? How Long Can I Stay? What the Hell Am I Doing?
The Achilles Heel, but also the genius, of my mini-campervan is that it is too small to have plug-in heat or AC. I am weather-dependent. I have to head south in the winter and north in the summer to find a place with a naturally mild, tolerable climate.
In other words, I am a nomad, a person who moves with the seasons.
While it may sound odd or eccentric to many readers, living nomadically is actually quite nice, and it suits us as humans. We were nomadic hunter-gatherers until 10,000 years ago, when we decided, for a variety of reasons, to settle down and begin farming instead.
For 95% of human existence, we were nomads. Scientists also estimate that 98% of our DNA evolved during our nomadic period, so I’m actually resuming a way of life that now seems quite natural to me. I would say that it feels healthier. I’m happier.
When I start freezing my ass off, I’ll head south. Could be tomorrow or in two weeks.
***
If you’ve ever lived in exile — voluntary or otherwise — please share what you learned. Do any of you wish to live in exile at this point?
The blog should resume next week, unless it doesn’t.
Please tell me what interests you.
I'm pretty sure that was Sasquatch. No exile for us. We're staying here to fight it out! Have you thought about wintering In Baja? Let us know if you need directions.
This was a fun read, and beautiful photos - looks like a lovely place to self-exile (until winter).