has anyone purposely chosen a route or a lake with the intent of having a bear in camp?

just wondering if anyone here has that kinda comfort level.

What bears?

There are bears? How cute!

Yeah, there was a dude named Timothy that was comfortable with bears. Really comfortable, odd duck, spoke baby talk to them... If I remember right it didn't work out so well for him or his girlfriend though.

My Wife and I chose to hike Stockton Island which is one of the Apostle Islands because it supposedly has the highest population of black bears per square mile in the world, although we had no desire to see one in our campsite.

Bears are magnificent creatures and very exciting to observe but we have no desire to see one at close range. Whether we are in grizzly or black bear country my wife makes enough noise to alert any unsuspecting bear of our presence.

Paddled right by the South Arm of Knife Lake the week before last, and the thought had crossed my mind before leaving on the trip. The purpose being to bring a camera and telephoto lens. But good sense and the need to travel light on this trip prevailed.

2 weeks ago made a trip up to Ely and saw one on the road,crossed in front of us on the way in. 4 days later in the same spot about 10 miles outside of Ely saw another (maybe the same) bear crossing the street again. Although I love the critter I'd rather not see one in camp.

JB

I have had friends lure them in with a pile of food to shoot them.

I did my best on my last trip (June 7-16) to see a bear. I tied my BearVault to a tree right outside my tent and left my main pack with the overflow food in it free-standing nearby. Nothing was touched. There must not be any bears near Lac La Croix.

I don't suppose closing the BV completely or putting vacuum-sealed stuff in the food bag made any difference.

BTW, if you have a BearVault, you might want to put a 1"-wide strip of velcro (the loop side) around the lid. Makes it a lot easier to grip. Also, rounding over the points of the little locking nubs - just a tad - makes it easier to open.

i dont think tying a bear vault to a tree is a very good idea...it could give them leverage to rip the lid off. vaults and kegs are designed to be batted around and difficult for them to hold.

Call me crazy, but yes. Spent a few nights this trip with food bad in our tent only because it was raining every night and all of our meals were dehydrated and double bagged in food saver bags. Yeah, that was kinda stupid, but I would be more concerned if I were be between a momma and her cub than a bear in camp. I've met bears in the woods before, closet was less than 10 feet. Every time, they run like the dickens.

If your meals are sealed then why is it a problem to leave them out in the rain? Ours are vacuum sealed and then in a odor liner inside an ursack. A little rain can get in the ursack but not in the odor liner and even if it did not through the vacuum seal bags. Sounds like yours are just as well sealed.

quote kanoes: "i dont think tying a bear vault to a tree is a very good idea...it could give them leverage to rip the lid off. vaults and kegs are designed to be batted around and difficult for them to hold."

If a bear could rip a BV lid off, it must be getting a manicure someplace. I tied it so that if a bear did get hold of it s/he would have a hard time running off with it. The motion-activated camera indicated no bears came by.

Not exactly like you asked kanoes, but I did camp on Polly knowing full well that it's a bear favorite. We were prepared to see one and deal with it, but we also kept a clean camp (when sleeping anyway, food was there if we were in camp). Never saw a single sign of one.

As many bear threads as I've seen on this site over the last 4 years, you would swear that they were as thick as the black flies. In 25 years, 59 canoe trips, I've seen 3-4 bears, and have never had one in camp. Each time that I saw one I was in the canoe traveling or fishing.

Had one in camp on an island site in cummins back around 1982. But I've not even seen one while camping in BWCA since then. Moose, heck yeah (not in camp) great area to see moose is issabela river area or EP 84 snake river up into bald eagle / gabbro.

That area is also home to an insane amount of giant snapping turtles. Actually Turtle lake lives up to it's name that way....