Day 27: New Aiyansh to Terrace

July 18, 2014

No pictures, but we did use the bear spray, so keep reading.

Went to sleep to sounds of a bear in the woods. Such things happen when you camp near a bunch of salmon streams. After fretting for a while, I put ear plugs in. If you can't hear or see something, it isn't there. Right?

We woke up early, tired, and wet from the overnight rain. We tried to leave quickly, but my tire went flat overnight. I butchered the patch job as we were alert for the bear we heard last night.

We didn't use the bear spray on the bear. We didn't see any bears today.

I got my tire working and we rode on.

While riding along a beautiful  Lava Lake, which is emerald/robin's egg blue from the acidity, we were passed by a van reeking of weed. Ahead of us, it braked suddenly, and started honking at a coyote that had run in front of it. Instead of running away like coyotes are supposed to, it walked in front of the van and down the middle of the road towards us. The van was about 30 meters ahead of us, and went in reverse, and then stopped. We tried scaring the coyote away like it was a black bear.

As we hopped on our bicycles to get away, the coyote started following us very closely. If you wanted to train your dog to heel, you could not have done better than this.

The coyote's strange behavior, and our vulnerable position made me think that we should use the bear spray.

"Spray it!" I said.

"Really?" said he.

And so he took the bear spray, took off the safety cap, and gave the coyote a blast of highly potent pepper spray. Bear spray is much more potent than regular pepper spray, just so you know.

That stopped him in his tracks and gave us time to ride off, leaving the coyote standing in the middle of the road opening and closing his mouth like he had a bad case of cottonmouth.

The people in the van said something to us, and I'm not sure if they were mad we sprayed the bear or not. Maybe we violated some ancient First Nation custom or belief. But I decided I will trample over any sacred tradition before getting nipped in the leg by a rabid coyote.

While spraying the poor deranged coyote was crazy enough for me, I wonder: What was that scene like for the stoners in the van?


The rest of the ride was okay, made it to Terrace where we paid for camping for the first time all trip. Not bad!


The campsite has berries growing all around the roads and trails. I couldn't believe no one else was picking them!