A group of friends was camping up at Conkle Lake in 2016 when a member of their group was attacked by a bear. Several members of the group played a role in the event but it took a while to piece together exactly what had happened. Follow the names to read all the different parts of the story.
[[Rachel]]
[[Eddie]]
[[Olivia]]
[[Darren]]I wanted to go for a hike in the morning and so we left the boys with Esther at the campsite and Erich and I and the girls and Eddie set out around the lake. Part way down the trail we all became strung out along the path. Eddie was training for the Sun Run and so jogged out ahead while Erich and the girls fell behind.
The dogs were darting in and out of the bush when I heard a thumping of feet on the trail behind me like a dog running. But it sounded too heavy to be a dog. I turned around and saw a bear running up the trail after me. I jumped off the trail and tried to get a skinny larch tree between myself and the bear. The bear got to me first though and knocked me on my back with a double-pawed blow to my thighs.
I started screaming for help and got my feet up in the air to try and bicycle kick the bear away, but it grabbed hold of my calf and wouldn't let go. I couldn't reach the Swiss army knife in my pocket, not that it would do much good. I kept kicking while I could see the blue sky through the trees.
Then the bear released me, and I scrambled to my feet and grabbed my knife from my pocket. The dogs had come to harass the bear and then moments later Eddie ran back down the trail. He whipped off his jacket and began yelling and flapping it at the bear as she kept trying to come back at us. Eddie asked if I was hurt, and I told him it had grabbed my leg
At last, she turned and ran into the woods. We called the dogs back and Eddie took a look at the bite. Nothing seemed to be bleeding too badly and so we started to hobble back down the path towards Erich and the girls.
Erich and the girls came into sight on the trail ahead and we told them to grab the dogs. Together we walked down the trail until we were closer to the lake. By that point, my leg was starting to hurt so Eddie ran back down the trail to get help and Erich started yelling out across the lake though we couldn’t see any boats nearby. After a while, a small bathtub of a boat came into view making its way towards us and not far behind and gaining, a larger boat with Darren and Toron.
Sophie and Poppy went with the couple in the smaller boat and Erich, Olivia and I got in with Darren and Toron. Halfway down the lake, the battery died and Erich and Toron took up the oars. Once we got back to the beach Eddie was waiting with his truck.
We decided to go to Eddie's clinic for stitches instead of emergency. Eddie drove me to Midway where he cleaned the wound and accessed the damage. There were four main puncture wounds including two on top of the shin and two from the bottom teeth that had sunk into the calf muscle. One of the bottom teeth had sliced sideways narrowly missing an artery which had been exposed. I was lucky there had not been any more bleeding than there was.
Once I was sewn up and picked up a course of antibiotics we drove back up to the lake for dinner. Erich went home on Monday to get back to work, but the kids and I stayed an extra couple of days at the lake.
We were camping up at Conkle Lake with Owen, Rutka, Erich, and Rachel. In the morning Erich, Rachel, their girls, and myself set out around the lake. I jogged on and off as I was training for the Sun Run.
I was jogging down the trail ahead of the group when I heard Rachel yell behind me. She was calling for help so I quickly turned around and ran back towards her. When I got there a bear darted away from and then back towards Rachel and so I whipped my rain jacket from around my waist and ran at the bear flapping and yelling. Rachel got on her feet and pulled out a small folding knife. We yelled and yelled, trying to scare the bear off but it kept circling back towards us. At last, the bear ran back into the trees with the dogs on its heels.
I checked on Rachel's leg but there didn't seem to be too much blood, so I helped her back down the trail where we met Erich and the girls. We got down to the edge of the lake, but Rachel couldn't go any further.
I ran back down the trail to camp. Partway down I spotted a boat on the lake and called for them to go back and pick Rachel up. By the time I got back to the camp, I was out of breath and could barely tell everyone what had happened. It turns out Darren had taken the boat down to figure out what the yelling was about. I ran up from the beach and grabbed my truck.
I had the truck waiting by the beach when Darren pulled in with Rachel and gave her some antibiotic pills before taking her to the clinic. One of the teeth had narrowly missed an artery. Once the wound was cleaned and stitched, we headed back up to the lake.
Near the end of dinner, Olivia stood up looking panicked. It appeared she was choking. She shook her head when asked if she could breathe. I launched across the circle of chairs around the fire pit and gave her the Heimlich.
"Go to bed. Everyone, just go to bed. I can't deal with anything else tonight."
Mom wanted to hike around Conkle Lake in the morning, so Mom, Papa, Sophie, Eddie, and I set out for the waterfall trail. Auntie Esther and Darren had finished the trail around the lake, and we were going to put it to good use. It was a beautiful July day. We had been camping and celebrating Mom and Papa's birthday.
By halfway down the lake, we had all become strung out along the trail as Mom walked fast, Papa walked slow, and Eddie was training for the Sun run. I was with Papa and ten-year-old Sophie was somewhere on the trail ahead of us. Papa and I stopped so I could go to the bathroom which put us even further behind the others. Once we got underway again, we came across Sophie and her little dog Poppy sitting on the trail. They had ended up alone and so decided to wait for Papa and me rather than trying to catch up to Mom.
We were walking steadily along when we heard yelling up ahead. It sounded like someone calling our other dogs. I thought it sounded like they were maybe being called back after trying to chase a bear. The yells were loud for how far away they sounded and so we all started jogging down the trail so we could catch up. I was only a little worried because our dogs often chased bears away when we went hiking or horseback riding.
Suddenly, our other two dogs, Badger, and Finnegan, ran panting around a corner in the trail and someone shouted to put them back on leashes, so Sophie and I grabbed them while Papa clipped the leashes to their collars. Next thing we know, Eddie is helping Mom hobble down the trail back towards us. Alarmed, we asked what had happened and Mom told us, "I was attacked by a bear."
"What?!" we shouted. They quickly explained what had happened and we began moving back down the trail to get closer to the lake. Papa helped Mom limp in the front with Sophie and I holding the dogs' leashes in the middle, Eddie wielding a large piece of wood, and muttering curses taking up the rear.
We got down to the edge of the lake about the time that Mom's shock started wearing off and she told us she couldn't walk any further. We could see that we were most of the way down the 3km lake. Papa started hollering down the lake, "Help! Help! Help!!" but we couldn't tell if anyone had heard. Eddie decided that the best option was for him to run back to the campground and get help, and so he took off back down the trail.
The rest of us sat and waited. And waited. And kept our eyes peeled for the bear...
And then we saw a tiny little boat creeping down the lake toward us. It seemed to move slower the closer they got. And then we spotted another boat behind them. The first boat reached us with an elderly couple who had been out fishing when Eddie flagged them down and sent them to our rescue.
The two boats arrived one behind the other. It turns out that Uncle Darren and Toron had come in the sale boat under motor power.
Sophie and Poppy got in the little bathtub boat that we had first spotted and Mom, Papa, myself, Badger and Finnegan got in the bigger boat with Darren and Toron. Halfway back down the lake, the battery died, and we had to resort to paddling Mom to shore and medical attention in the motorized sale boat.
When at last we made shore, Eddie had made it back to camp. Rutka picked Mom right up out of the boat and carried her to Eddie's truck that was waiting at the boat launch.
Everyone was down at the beach and the boys were playing noisily in the water. I was walking towards the bathrooms when I heard a faint shout. Away from the noise at the shore noises from further away carried more clearly. Uncertain of what I had heard I continued but heard the shout again and it sounded distressed.
I decided to go check out what was going on. Toron and I grabbed the sale boat because it had the motor set up and headed out down the lake. The shouting continued and we eventually caught up to a boat also headed towards the shouting and a shirt being waved on a stick at the edge of the lake.
It turns out the shouting had been Erich because Rachel had been bitten by a bear. We loaded everyone into the boat, but the battery began dying halfway back so we had to resort to paddling to shore.
Rachel got loaded into Eddie's truck and taken to the clinic but was back in time for dinner.