The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
A vicious black bear somehow bypassed an electric fence before biting a member of a mineral exploration camp outside Red Sucker Lake last Friday night. The bear pounced on the man and bit his thigh while he tried to flee from the animal, which had attempted to enter his tent. "(Bears) are one thing that you kind of expect when working in the bush because you're in their territory," said camp spokesman Marc Simpson. "But when you're in your tent with safeguards, you don't expect them to be coming this aggressively after you." A worker at the camp shot the bear as it chased a guard dog, which had distracted the animal during the attack, Simpson said. The victim received first aid that night and was flown to the Red Sucker Lake Nursing Station the following morning, where he was treated and released. He is doing well as he recuperates at home. Simpson said that the victim and another man had been preparing for sleep in a cloth tent when the bear ripped a side window off the tent and attempted to enter through the hole. The victim was attacked after he lost his footing while trying to escape. The other man got away unharmed. Workers at the camp aren't sure what attracted the bear to the tent or how the animal made it past the electric fence surrounding the camp consisting of about 25 staff members working for Vancouver-based Bema Gold Corp. Red Sucker Lake is approximately 285 air kilometres southeast of Thompson. Simpson said geologists often come across bears while at camps. "Any geologist you talk to has at least one personal story of something regarding a bear incident," he said. "Some incidents are pretty low-key. The one that happened in camp on Friday was pretty serious." Simpson himself said he was attacked by a bear while working at a government exploration camp near Flin Flon in 1992. A black bear chased him up a tree and went up after him three times before help arrived, he said. "The only thing that saved me were my steel-toed boots," said Simpson. "The bear came up the tree and was chewing on my foot, but it couldn't get a grip because of the steel-toed boots."
