The Cougar and the Bear

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We took a trip into Kelowna sharing a ride with two Germans. Our objective was to open a bank account, buy Daniel some work shoes, and do some general shopping. After we’d done what we went to do, and explored some of Kelowna, we headed back up the mountain. The interesting part of the journey was chatting to our Canadian driver. He told us a lot about Canadian culture and he loves vegemite and is also on the search for a jar (like we are!). We started talking about Big White wildlife, and he told us how cougars and bears (black and brown) are still on the prowl. He gave us one (hopefully not useful) piece of advice -“If it’s brown lay down, and if it’s black fight back”. He told us that there was a recent sighting of a cougar in the Gem Lake area and that he would bet me a thousand dollars that there would be a cougar within 500m of where we are. I asked him what we should do if we ever saw a cougar and he replied “Oh girl, run like hell, but you probably wouldn’t even see it, it’d come for you from behind”. So then we got onto the topic of bears. We thought that by now the bears would be in hibernation, but he told us that there would definitely still be some bears in the area and it is not uncommon to see them around this time of year. They would normally be found around the orchards stealing fruit to fatten themselves up before they hibernate. He said they are pests and the government pays people to shoot them.

The following day we decided to go for another random walk. We ended up heading towards the Happy Valley area, where we hadn’t yet been. We wanted to go the most direct way to avoid our shoes getting cold and soggy like they did a couple of days ago. Instead, we ended up going a very indirect way, over streams and bridges, through buildings and past a work site (they are building a casino here). Some parts of the track were so muddy that our shoes sank down into the mud. There wasn’t much snow here, just patches of hardened, dirty snow spotted here and there. Hopefully it snows soon, and there is enough in time for the season to begin! Anyway, as we were walking, I swear I spotted a bear print. No word of a lie. Yes there were also dog prints, which were smaller, but I am sure that I saw a bear print in amongst them. Daniel didn’t believe me, and we kept walking. A little while later Daniel exclaims that he saw a bear print. I thought he was just teasing me, but when I went over and saw it, it really did look like a bear print. We took a photo of it.

There weren’t many people around, but as we were walking we happened to see a guy we met a couple of days ago at the hostel. He was outside his rental, and invited us inside to have a look at his staff accommodation that he had been provided with. It was really nice, especially for the price. It was like a mini version of the one we saw in Snow Pines the other day, except very, very mini. It sleeps 6 people and is based on three levels. There is a hot tub but it cannot be used. It costs only $450/month, which is well an truly below our anticipated budget for accommodation. Maybe we can also get this type of accommodation, it would be good. We will see 

Written by Stacey (with Daniel’s input)

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